Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

Florence Yoon (University of British Columbia)

Ed. by Jonathan Burgess, University of Toronto
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.1: Greek Writing and Culture: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial, -800--100.
Vol. editors: Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Mali Skotheim (Ashoka University), Laura Swift (The Open University)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. -450

Places

Ancient Greece (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play
Tragedy

Resources

Overview and authorship

Prometheus Bound tells the story of the punishment of the Titan Prometheus for giving fire to mankind, which is also familiar to us from two accounts by the archaic poet Hesiod. The play opens with the binding of Prometheus, and concludes with a cataclysm in which he is swallowed by the earth. The plot of the play is what Aristotle calls simple; there are no reversals of fortune.

The play was staged, like most Greek tragedies, using three speaking, masked, male actors plus the chorus of twelve or fifteen. One actor would have played Prometheus, while the other two would have appeared in different masks to play the roles of Power and Hephaestus, Oceanus, Io, and Hermes.

The play is …

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1918 words

Citation: Yoon, Florence. "Prometheus Bound". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 January 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2546, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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