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Tyranny and Translation: Shelley's Unbinding of Prometheus

Tyranny and Translation: Shelley's Unbinding of Prometheus Jennifer Wallace the nature of Prometheus's revolution in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. The subject of [the poem]', wrote William Sidney Walker in the Quarterly Review in 1821, 'is the transition of Prometheus from a state of suffering a state of happiness but no distinct account is given of either of these states, nor of the means by which Prometheus and the world pass from one the other'.1 What oppresses Prometheus in his 'state of suffering'? 'Every human system of religious belief and 'every system of human government' asserted the ry John Gibson Lockhart in Blackwood's Magazine; 'the temporary predominance of brute force over intellect' suggested the reviewer in Gold's London Magazine.2 Is the 'transition', or revolution, a success? Certainly it is, according Timothy Webb, because the poem moves wards a positive, Upian world.3 But for the poet's most recent biographer, Richard Holmes, the tension of the drama lies in its initial, 'Aeschylean' act. In the succeeding acts, he maintains, the poem is 'empty and anticlimactic' and the 'transition' Critics have long pondered also concerned with the process of such transformation. George Steiner has described translation in After Babel as a movement predicated upon a changing balance of power.5 In http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Romanticism Edinburgh University Press

Tyranny and Translation: Shelley's Unbinding of Prometheus

Romanticism , Volume 1 (1): 15 – Jan 1, 1995

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Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Edinburgh University Press
ISSN
1354-991X
eISSN
1750-0192
DOI
10.3366/rom.1995.1.1.15
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Jennifer Wallace the nature of Prometheus's revolution in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. The subject of [the poem]', wrote William Sidney Walker in the Quarterly Review in 1821, 'is the transition of Prometheus from a state of suffering a state of happiness but no distinct account is given of either of these states, nor of the means by which Prometheus and the world pass from one the other'.1 What oppresses Prometheus in his 'state of suffering'? 'Every human system of religious belief and 'every system of human government' asserted the ry John Gibson Lockhart in Blackwood's Magazine; 'the temporary predominance of brute force over intellect' suggested the reviewer in Gold's London Magazine.2 Is the 'transition', or revolution, a success? Certainly it is, according Timothy Webb, because the poem moves wards a positive, Upian world.3 But for the poet's most recent biographer, Richard Holmes, the tension of the drama lies in its initial, 'Aeschylean' act. In the succeeding acts, he maintains, the poem is 'empty and anticlimactic' and the 'transition' Critics have long pondered also concerned with the process of such transformation. George Steiner has described translation in After Babel as a movement predicated upon a changing balance of power.5 In

Journal

RomanticismEdinburgh University Press

Published: Jan 1, 1995

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