-----------------

Introduction

Dealing with the notion of rewriting in the field of

comparative literature implies the perspective from which the

writer looks at the story and thus the motives lying behind

each writer’s experience. In other words, when a mythical or

historical figure, an event or even an idea, a concept is

handled by more than one writer, and by the way appears in

more than one text, especially when the writers belong to

different periods of time, distant “chronotopes”, to use

Bakhtin’s term, all the texts are to be dealt with in such a way

that enables the comparatist to grasp the multiplicity of

visions and subsequently the writers’ intentions.

The mythical figure of Prometheus, the God who stole

fire from heaven in order to make man’s life easier, and who

was pusished by Zeus. In fact he was chained to rock where

an eagle continuously kept eating his liver until he was finally

freed by Heracles; is very appealing to many writers,

especially romantic ones who saw he was expressive of their

romantic attitudes.

In this paper, I will deal with Goethe’s Prometheus,

Lord Byron’s Prometheus ,ad Abu-l-Kacem Echabbi’s

“Nashidu-l-Jabbar”

1

-----------------(The song of the mighty one, or thus sang Prometheus). I will

demonstrate how the romantic vision is the basic motivator

behind the romantic interest in the story of Prometheus.

This is going to be examined in two major parts; first

dealing with the generic departures that the initial story

undergoes, then, in the second part, relating the four texts

together to the deep level of the mythical story through the

consideration of particular archetypal notions or events.

2

-----------------

I/ Generic Departures:

from the play to the poem

In the light pf Brunel’s argument about comparative

studies, that “a text is not totally pure”1, the presence of

references to other cultures, languages and literatures within

a given text; spotting the references to external elements, be

it an idea, a character, a concept or even a quotation is the

basis for comparative literature.

Presented in this way, re-writing is somehow an

“affilaiation” to use Edward Said’s term. Accepting such an

assumption, one can present the works as part of a whole,

one can move then from verticality to horizontality and

subsequently move from the synchronic to the diachronic.

Along with Said’s concept, Brunel’s Laws of irradiation can be

used as the initial spark that will direct us in our comparatist

study of the romantic rewritings of the Promethean myth.2

Brunel’s Laws of irradication set “lighting” against

“illumination”; being more than mere lighting, illumination

bears artistic motives and is thus done on purpose. In fact,

according their drives and perspective, artists use

illumination to foreground a space and background another.

Applying this notion of illumination to the commparatist study

we are undertaking, we can consider that the poets retrieved

aspects of the original story and backgrounded others. A

1 Brunel, Précis de littérature comparée, 292 Brunel, Précis de littérature comparée, 34, 35

3

-----------------good instance is the fact that the poets retrieved the actors

of the original story, but not the whole events and this is

done on purpose, if we apply Brunel’s Laws of irradiation, to

fit the poets’ motives.

1/ Romantic Prometheus

Myths gained a positive dimension from the

renaissance on, whereby a myth can be used as sign systems

bearing a connotative meaning, a message, even a meta-

message that can be related to the user’s intentions. In the

Poetics of Myth, Meltinsky puts out that:

During the renaissance, interest in the mythology of

antiquity emerged once again. Myth was seen positively as a

series of poetic allegories tinted by a moralizing veneer; as a

manifestation of the sentiments and passions that

accompanied human emancipation: or as an allegorical

expression of religious, philosophical, and scientific truths.3

Such a statement sets the re-estimation of the

ancient myths as “a series of poetic allegories” expressing

“human emancipation”. The expressive quality of such an art

as romanticism meets the mythical figure of Prometheus in

the fact that the original story and its protagonist are

reflective of the rebellious, individualistic and expressive

attitudes of romanticism. As to the notion of rebellion, both

romanticism and Prometheus are rebellious; the first against

the traditional mimetic orientations of art, the second

against the tyranny of Zeus. Harold Bloom goes further

defining romanticism as “the literature of internalized quest,

of Promethean aspiration”.4

3 Meltinsky, The Poetics Of Myth, 34 Bloom and Trilling, Romantic Poetry and Prose, 6-9

4

-----------------In fact, this quality of individuality inherent in the

romantic poet is what enables us as comparatists to draw a

parallel between him and the mythical figure of Prometheus.

Thus, the romantic interest to the story and character of

Prometheus must not be understood as a mere adaptation,

but rather as an identification with, and to some extent, an

appeopriation of the character of Prometheus whose moral

qualities match those of the romantic poet “possessing a

special kind of faculty which sets him apart of his fellow

men”5

2/ From the play to the poem

As comparatists, we cannot study the romantic

rewriting of the Promethean myth without dealing with the

notion of genre. In fact the myth of Prometheus undergoes

real changes in generic terms; it started as a tragedy ( a

lyrical drama with Aeschylus) and moves to another literary

category, poetry with Goethe, Byron and Echabbi, noting that

the last two went further in choosing a specific genre that is

the song of praise.

Knowing that “myths are larger than life”6, one can

define them as sociolects, being bigger than life, they have

been transformed into idiolects, they have been so to suit a

particular context. A myth then, is a sociolect transformed

into an idiolect, to something peculiar and smaller to suit the

artist’s drives.

3/ The compared works

5 Head, Romanticism, the Cambridge guide to Literature in English, 20066 Cited in Comparative Literature course, Dr Belletaief, 2009

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-----------------A/ Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound

The Prometheus Bound stands midway between

Prometheus the Fire-giver and Prometheus Unbound. In

“grandeur de conception” and imagery it has never been

surpassed, not even in the works of Shakespeare, for here is

the very essence of tragedy, her inmost spirit revealed in its

sternest mood, in all its prostrating and annihilating force.

The Prometheus Bound is the representation of

steadfast endurance under suffering, and indeed, the

immortal suffering of a god, banished to a desolate rock over

against the earth-encircling ocean. Prometheus suffers not on

an understanding with the Power that rules the world, but in

atonement for his rebellion against that power, and this

rebellion consists in nothing else than his design of making

man perfect. There is little exterior actions in this piece: from

the beginning Prometheus suffers and resolves, he resolves

and suffers the same throughout.

B/ Goethe’s Prometheus

The present reading of Goethe's Prometheus sets out

to examine the new work to which the myth is put in the

poem. His Prometheus does not stand in a modern opposition

to classical accounts of the myth. We can say that the poem

rather establishes itself at the forefront of a long

reinterpretative tradition engaging with the Prometheus

story. Often read as an “agent provocateur” in the German

Enlightenment project, Goethe's Prometheus nevertheless

argues like a rationalist critic of religion while instructing

humans in social behaviour.

6

-----------------In the history of modern literature, certain classical

myths seem readily to suggest themselves as figures of

identification. Not mere frequency, but the cumulative

significance attributed to these myths makes them constant

points of reference. A further and earlier cultural

identification is offered by the Prometheus myth in the (late)

eighteenth century. Goethe made not one, but four attempts

at the myth, yet all but the poem remained fragments.

Carrying an already heavy baggage of literary

treatments from antiquity through the Renaissance and up to

the eighteenth century, the myth offered several angles from

which it could be approached. Retelling the old story of

Prometheus, Goethe comes to stand shoulder to shoulder

with Aeschylus in his reworking and further development of

the mythological tradition, at the forefront of which Goethe's

poem establishes itself.

The poem stands out as the pinnacle of Goethe's

early hymns that represent and engage with ancient gods. In

fact,the voice of the speaker in the poem is always that of

Prometheus. The poem opens with an initial imperative

directed at Zeus that is matched by an insistent 'I' at the end

of the last section.

Instead of invoking gods by listing their attributes

and relating stories of their cult like in traditional hymns,

Goethe's poem presents a god who insists on telling his own

story. Where the speaker of hymns is traditionally and

necessarily human, this poem presents a god raving against

other gods. In eighteenth-century aesthetics a hymn is

defined as '’une louange a l'honneur de quelque divinité'’ and

'’la recompense, le salaire des immortels'’.

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-----------------This poem is in fact full of accusations against the

gods, perhaps not the salary to which immortals are

accustomed. It has therefore recently been suggested that

Goethe’s Prometheus should be read as an 'Antihymne' that

negates, or defies, the gods in a language and form that

hymns employ to invoke and praise them. In that sense the

poem appropriates a form in order to undo the work to which

that form has traditionally been put.

C/ Byron’s Prometheus

In the early nineteenth century, the Promethean

figure became a central theme or ideal in English literature.

Poets, like Lord Byron, began writing in the revolutionary

spirit of the times and using Prometheus as a symbol of

protest against religion, morality, limitations to human

endeavours, prejudice, and the abuse of power. Prometheus

is one such literary work; Byron is using the character

Prometheus to create a poem that becomes a model for

rebellion.

Prometheus begins with the apostrophized

appellation Titan and a question, “What was thy pity’s

recompense?” The answer is the silent suffering of the rock,

the vulture and the chain, for eternity. Byron goes on to say

later in the poem that the “precepts”7 turn Prometheus into a

symbol or model for Man. Prometheus is silent throughout his

7 the principles of a course of action or conduct

8

-----------------suffering. His will does not speak “…but in loneliness,” and

even then, he is jealous that the sky could listen, nor will he

utter a sigh for fear of the echo.

Why does Byron silence his Titan so? In Aeschylus’s

Prometheus Bound, the sentenced Titan is reprimanded by

the Chorus about his far from silent speech, “You are free of

tongue, too free”. Prometheus’ easy tongue is an expression

of his powerless situation.

In fact, for Byron words are useless; they show the

speaker’s helpless submission to his oppressor, Zeus. In

Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, the active power lies in the

unseen character Zeus. This is very different from Byron’s

telling of the myth.

Byron’s “Prometheus”, written some two thousand

years after Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, is a response

from his age where power is not just rivalrous, but

reciprocal8. The Titan has power of his own over the

“Thunderer” (Zeus). That power lies in the way the Titan

demonstrates his indifference to the threats of the other. The

“Thunderer” takes “pleasure” in creating things that he may

destroy/annihilate, but he refuses the Titan the “boon” to die;

there-in lies his weakness. He leaves himself open for

Prometheus’ defiant refusal, and refuse he does.

Prometheus’ weapon of choice is “Silence,” and in

that silence is his foe’s sentence. We see the refusal to reveal

the prophecy of Zeus’s downfall from power in the following

lines:

8 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”, 144

9

-----------------The fate thou didst so well foresee, But would not to appease him tell; And in thy Silence was his Sentence.

The refusal of the prophesy has power of its own as well.

Dennis suggests that “this power comes from the absence of

expression that persuades the “Thunderer” of its accuracy”9.

One could also say that this power may come from the fact

that Zeus is all-knowing, yet he cannot see his own fate while

Prometheus can. At the end of the second stanza of the poem,

we see Zeus’s anxiety that his “Sentence” may be real. It is a

reciprocation of power.

And in his Soul, a vain repentance, And evil dread so ill dissembled, That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

We as readers get the imagery of the hand of Zeus

holding a lightning bolt ‘trembling’ as his victims would once

have done, which shows the exchange of power from Zeus to

Prometheus.

The final stanza of the poem brings the whole ordeal

to a human level. Byron wants us as readers to see

Prometheus as he does; as one with an “impenetrable Spirit”

born of patience and endurance. Prometheus now has what

his oppressor lacks. “Zeus, whose soul has felt vain

repentance, is no longer invulnerable”10. It was the

“Thunderer’s” own actions in refusing the Titan the “boon to

die” and the “wretched gift” bequeathed him, that proved

victorious for his victim. Prometheus triumphs through

suffering.

9 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”. 14910 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”, 148

10

-----------------Lord Byron writes that we can learn a “Mighty

lesson” from Prometheus. He is a sign and symbol and Man

can learn from his actions and conduct

A Mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force.

“The “boon” to Man is that if we model ourselves

after Prometheus’ “precepts,” we may achieve triumph

trough our suffering”11. The poem goes on to describe the

similarities between the Titan and man; man is part divine,

like Prometheus, in the fact that they were both created by a

divinity, and something of that resides within them. Man also

has a form of foresight, like the Titan, that allows us to

“foresee” our death, which eventually will come because of

our mortality.

Like thee, Man is part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny.

These lines also give us a description of one of the

gifts Prometheus is said to have given Man, the gift of partial

prophesy. The poem focuses on this gift, in the form of

foreseeing our death and suffering, and the model for Man’s

actions rather than focusing on Prometheus’ more well-known

gift of fire. “Byron is trying to bring this Promethean myth to

a more human level, and to focus on the human struggle,

rather than the god-like gift of fire that is trivial in

comparison”12.

11 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”, 14812 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”, 149

11

-----------------A final lesson we are to learn from Prometheus is to

“Make Death a Victory.” “Prometheus teaches us not to want

life, and thus to want less than our opponent(s)”13. In the

poem, we see this when Prometheus remains silent in his

suffering while his opponent, Thunderer, demands his

prophesy (to save his life). This is his message, and the

message Lord Byron wants to pass on; the final lines of the

poem

And a firm will, a deep sense, Which even in torture can decry Its own concenter’d recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory.

Lord Byron’s “Prometheus” presents a different

perspective than the ancient myths, with a purpose for

rebellion. Take to heart the message: The Promethean Spirit,

a symbol of strength for struggling humanity, a struggle

worth the price of death.

D/ Echabbi’s “Nasidul Jabbar” or “The Song of the Mighty

One”

Echabbi’s poem contains all the concepts cited above;

those of defiance, suffering, resistence, victory. They are all

articulated in the poem with some additional elements, one of

the most important elements is “art” related to “al shaaer”;

the poet and “al mashaaer”; feelings that are present

throughout the poem.

13 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”, 148

12

-----------------Another important added element is the deliberate

identification with Prometheus, with the mythical figure of

Prometheus evident in the poem’s subtitle “aw hakatha

ghanna Prometheus”; “or thus sang Prometheus”. Echabbi is

deliberately mixing up with Prometheus so that at the end of

the poem we end up ignoring who is who. Some said that

echabbi was retrieving the song that Prometheus once sung

but this assumption is not really valid since it is clearly set

from the beginning of the poem that echabbi was simply

replacing or substituting himself as a poet for the myth.

Clear substitution between the mythical figure and a

certain historical figure, that of the poet is articulated in

Echabbi’s poem in a metaphor related to space, in the

correlation between “high” and “low” where the semantic

field of “high” keeps extending to lofty and extraordinary,

and that of the “low” extending to vile, normal a,d incapable

of imagination. At the heart of this imagination, is the faculty

of creation as opposed to fancy. In fact imagination is a

faculty that can only be owned by an extraordinary, subliome

person who is the poet. The sublime in Echabbi’s poem is

evident in all the elements of resistance, defiance, striving to

a god-like figure. Thus, the association of the poet with the

prophetic; a point that will be discussed later on in this paper.

The substitution of the poet with Prometheus is

articulated through “singing”, it is one form of poetic

rendering, one form of art which is an important way to

knowledge and happiness.

Wa assirou

13

-----------------The idea of voice of the poet/ poetry that is filling an

empty world with presence is a very high metaphor because

there is a religious point of view that created the world then

filled it up, so the container or the world is only filled by the

voice of the poet. Thus, the poet is here elevated to a god-like

position. Voice is here again associated with the poet, and

this is another match with the figure of Prometheus since,

voice is related to name, the poet has the poet of the namer.

The repetition of voice filling the gap of the world, a

repetition of a voice which responds to something and which

has the right to answer back violently as a form and ironically

as another form. Ni fact, that voice is not the same , it a voice

that fills the gap, a voice that is godly, thus it becomes a

different kind of voice, indifferent and self-sufficient. A voice

not bothered by what others would say or even what “al

kadar” may do, and this notion of different kind of voice

brings us to the notion of defiance. It also brings us to the

differentiation the poet makes between himself and the rest

of humanity those he calls “al atfal” or kids

…

This line leads us to deal with the metaphor of space

again, a metaphor that is central to the construction of the

poem as a whole. In fact, the metaphor of space governs the

whole structure of the poem; it is a whole way of constructing

a global grid as well as subgrids.

An important grid turns around the binarism over

light Vs darkness; this binarism is dependent on its own and

is interrelated to the spatialized metaphor. In fact, light is

above in the sky whereas darkness is below, light is an

attribute of the poet holding the torch of knowledge that

14

-----------------remains all the time in the sky but it must descend on earth,

in order to rule out darkness, to brighten and erase it. This is

evident through the position of the poet as “al nesr”; the

eagle. The poet here positions himself above

The notion of lightness is also developed into:

Annour

These lines are opposed to “al lahib” or something

burning, where light becomes synonymous to evil as opposed

true light. Hence the distinction between two kinds of light.

Light is also perceived in the poet’s face dscribed as

“moshrik” or shining, and this is a characteristic of a prophet.

Echabbi’s poem seems to assert that beauty lies in

the culmination of these concepts of light whereby the poet

fuses light by nearing light, and this image enables us to say

that everything in the poem is constructed in the binary

opposition of light and darkness. All these metaphors of

“high/low” and “light/darkness” send to another metaphor,

that of the poet bound to suffer in order to serve humanity,

here fire is substituted with poetry and the power of poetry.

In fact the power of poetry retrieves suffering,

resistance and the notion of endurance “”in spite of my

enemies and ill ness”. All these notions form a binary

opposition between the speaking “I’ and the

15

-----------------“enemies/illness”, and set the “I” of the poem as someone

who does not yield to all external forces, again the metaphor

of high/low interrelates with this one setting “Al kadar” in a

high position and “al Aâdae” in low one.

As a3ichou

Indeed, the poet is facing two huge enemies, the

monarch of gods and demons and “al kadar”. He ended up

defeatinig these forces by a victory that lies in resistance.

One can assert that in Echabbi’s poem, the ceaseless

challenge to all the cosmic forces or “al kadar” and all the

earthly forces or “kids”; all of them articulate in that original

high/llow equated with light/darkness metaphor to bring forth

a center which is the poet, fighting but never yielding.

II/ Relating the poems to

the original play:

16

-----------------It is clear that the story’s “emplotment”, to use

Ricoeur’s term, of men with gods is what makes the myth of

Prometheus stand for the most expressive literary archetype.

We may say that this is the motivator behind the romantic

interest to this particular story whereby the poets express

their challenging, revolutionary vision that is transformed

into a wider vision, that of the poet-god or “the poet –

Prometheus” who is able to foresee the world and delineate

its countenance.

1/ Zeus or the tyranny of Gods:

As far as the myth of Prometheus is concerned, the

tyranny of Zeus is what makes him stand as the antagonist of

the heroic figure of Prometheus. This is quite evident in

Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, in which the divine force

embodied in Zeus seems to be unthankful to Prometheus’s

aids:

The tyranny of the Gods, such service renderedWith ignominious chastisement requites

In Goethe’s Prometheus, the ungratfulness og the

Gods is expressed through another moral defect that is

“jealousy”:

My hearthWhose glowYou envy me.

In Byron’s Prometheus, Zeus is even rendered as a

mean character who:

Refused thee even the boon to die.

17

-----------------In “thus sang Prometheus”, Echabbi does not

associate tyranny to the divine only; it is also associated with

“al kadar” or destiny that never stops torturing him:

Wa a9oulou

2/ Will and obstinacy:

The notions of will, endurance and struggle are

relevant to all the texts at hand including the original play,

Prometheus Bound in which the ideas of pain, resistance and

pride are reverberated in the protagonist’s soliloquies. These

notions are evident in Echabi’s

The romantic poet’s persistence against hardships,

whatever they are, is often related to his own self-esteem

hence Byron’s statement, “And strengthen Man with his own

mind” may summarise such concepts of endurance and

persistence within the framework of romanticism. This notion

of persistence culminates in both Byron’s and Echabbi’s

poems in the notion of death. In fact, the first converts the

conception of death into an achievement since it is resulted

from the quester’s choices and free will and thus

Making death a victory

This is also evident in Echabbi’s acceptance of death

as a triumph since he will be transferred into a hoped for

world:

18

-----------------Fa inni

3/ the poet as a prophet:

Promethean challenging to Zeus through the qualities

of generosity and freedom are normally the characteristics of

a prophet and this is what made the myth appealing to the

romantic poets that revisited the original story as a source of

prophetic archetype that suits the romantic vision of the poet

and poetry. In fact, the quality of “forethought” suggested in

the meaning of the name of Prometheus, is exploited by each

poet and is thus further elaborated in each text.

In Echabbi’s poem, the notion of forethought is not

simply referred to, but it is what governs the progression of

the poem as a whole. This is quite evident from the very

beginning, from the “ I shall live” that echoes Aeschylus’s “I

foresee all that shall come to pass”, his Prometheus foresees

his fate and that of Zeus, and this what makes him anticipate

in Goethe’s poem, the future of man made of both pain and

joy:

It will be a race like me,To suffer, to weep,To enjoy and to rejoice,And to pay no attention to you,As I do!

In Lord Byron’s Prometheus, foresight is more

pessimistic, in fact for him, man is only capable of foreseeing

his own death, and this is one of the central gifts bestowed by

Prometheus to humanity:

And man in portion can foreseeHis own funeral destiny

19

-----------------In Echabbi’s “Thus sang Prometheus”, however, the

protagonist is depicted as being free from Zeus, thus the poet

eradicates the notion of suffering that has been central to the

depiction of the mythical figure of Prometheus. He presents

us with a glorious, emancipatory protagonist directed towards

as well as motivated by light:

…………….ka nasri

All the poets unite to say that the reason why this

mythical figure is so interesting to them is the promethean

transcendental potentiality to make him a symbol valid to an

“enlightening” work of art.

Conclusion

Bringing all together Echabbi’s “Nashidu-l-Jabbar”,

Lord Byron’s Prometheus and Goethe’s Prometheus, as

examples of the romantic rewritings of the myth, in

conjuncture with Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound; a

comparatist study focusing on the romantic vision of the

Promethean myth shows that what makes the story of

Prometheus adaptable for the romantic poems at hand is the

intersection of the character of Prometheus and that of the

romantic poet; a quester, a revolutionary and a philanthropic

hero.

20