Prometheus by Carl Kernyi, Ralph Manheim - 9780691281766

PrometheusArchetypal Image of Human Existence (Archetypal Images in Greek Religion, Volume 1)\nAuthor(s): Carl Kernyi, Ralph Manheim\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Princeton University Press, United States\nImprint: Princeton University Press\nISBN-13: 9780691281766, 978-0691281766\nSynopsis\nA landmark account of the Prometheus story as myth and archetype\n\nThe god Prometheus 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 Prometheuss release reflected a primordial law of existence and the fate of humankind. Carl Kernyi 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. Kernyi traces the evolving myth from Hesiod.