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(1987). International Review of Psycho-Analysis, 14:527-540

On Prometheus

Clay C. Whitehead

INTRODUCTION

Fiend, I defy thee! with a calm fixed mind,

All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do;

Foul Tyrant both of Gods and Human-Kind …

I curse thee! let a sufferer's curse

Clasp thee, his torturer, like remorse,

Till thine Infinity shall be

A robe of envenomed agony;

And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain,

To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain.

Shelley, Prometheus Unbound (1819).

This riveting curse of Zeus appears near the beginning of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound more than two and a half millennia after the creation of its original inspiration in pre-Classical Greece. The durability of this powerful myth attests to its continuing relevance to the modern era, and was the subject of a brief study by Freud. In the intervening half century, psychoanalysis has developed vigorously, and much has been learned from modern science and history pertinent to the Promethean drama. The present analysis will use an approach similar to Freud's, a

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