Shelley's 'Prometheus Unbound' and the Origins of Creations. Fiery Aether and the Examples of Dante and Lucretius

This essay is a mythocritical investigation of Shelley’s play Prometheus Unbound. The mythical narrative of the Titan enframes the author’s inquiry into the first cause of existence. Shelley enhances the classical mythologeme with literary, philosophical, religious and scientific takes on the idea of Creation. Shelley’s Prometheus combines together different traditions: from Hesiod and Lucretius to Milton’s and Dante’s cosmogonies. In particular, I will focus on the technical and poetic use Shelley makes of ether and vapour to reimagine the atmospheric conditions which characterized the dawn of the world as much as Prometheus’ theft of fire. In describing the primordial atmosphere circumfusing the origin of everything, Shelley draws from Dante’s Purgatorio, turning the peak of Caucasus into a new Eden. Finally, in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and The Last Man, Prometheus resembles Dante’s and Tennyson’s Ulysses, sailing to discover the native source of being.