Mythos: The Princeton/Bollingen Series in World Mythology

Archetypal Image of Human Existence

Carl Kerényi, Ralph Manheim

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780691214580
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Crítica literaria antigua y clásica

Prometheus the god stole fire from heaven and bestowed it on humans. In punishment, Zeus chained him to a rock, where an eagle clawed unceasingly at his liver, until Herakles freed him. For the Greeks, the myth of Prometheus's release reflected a primordial law of existence and the fate of humankind. Carl Kerényi examines the story of Prometheus and the very process of mythmaking as a reflection of the archetypal function and seeks to discover how this primitive tale was invested with a universal fatality, first in the Greek imagination, and then in the Western tradition of Romantic poetry. Kerényi traces the evolving myth from Hesiod and Aeschylus, and in its epic treatment by Goethe and Shelley; he moves on to consider the myth from the perspective of Jungian psychology, as the archetype of human daring signifying the transformation of suffering into the mystery of the sacrifice.

INDEX

INDEX

A superior figure indicates a note on the page cited.

A

Academy, at Athens, 58

Achilles, 109 ff.

Africa, 70, 73 f.

Agamemnon, 109, 111

Aischylos, 23, 25 ⁹, 32, 49, 49 ³¹, 64 ff., 78, 91, 93, 108, 111, 125, 126

WORKS: Argonauts, 82; Glaukos of Potniai, 66; Kabeiroi, 82; The Persians, 66; Phineus, 66; Prometheus Bound (Prometheus Desmotes), xxiv, 34, 39, 56, 64, 65, 75, 78, 79 ff., 83 ff., 101, 118; Prometheus Delivered (Prometheus Lyomenos), 66, 67, 69, 72 f., 80, 83, 88, 97, 112 ff., 123; Prometheus the Fire Bringer (Prometheus Pyrphoros), 66, 67, 69, 74 f., 75 f., 78, 83; Prometheus the Fire Kindler (Prometheus Pyrkaeus), 66, 69 ff.; Suppliant Maidens, 39

Aither, 25

Aitnaios, 58

Ajax, 109

Akmon, 25

Alkman, xxiii

Alkmene, 40

animals, 88 f.

ankylomêtai, 37

Anthropos, 3

Aphrodite, 30 f.

Apollo, 120, 125, Pl. XII; A. Agreus, 125; A. Loxias, 100

Apollodoros, 120

Apollonios Rhodios, 26 ¹⁸

“archetypal,” xviii f.

Archytas of Tarentum, 20

Argos, 54

Arkinos of Miletos, 24

ash wood, 46

Asia, 35, 56

...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Introduction
• I. Who Is Goethe’s Prometheus?
• II. The Titanic, and the Eternity of the Human Race
• III. The Prometheus Mythologem in the ‘Theogony‘
• IV. Archaic Prometheus Mythology
• V. Methodological Intermezzo
• VI. The World in Possession of Fire
• VII. The Fire Stealer
• VIII. The ‘Prometheus Bound’
• IX. Prometheus the Knowing One
• X. The Promethean Prophecy
• XI. ‘Prometheus Delivered’
• XII. Conclusion after Goethe
• Plates
• Abbreviations
• List of Works Cited
• Index