셸리의 <풀려난 프로메테우스>: 필연성과 사랑

Abstract

Mainstream critics have celebrated Prometheus Unbound as a story in which Shelley’s hero succeeded in removing his antipathy against Jupiter and loving his enemy through the love praised by Asia in Act II. In support of their argument, they interpret as the meaning of ‘revoke’ the word ‘recall’ claimed by Prometheus when he wanted to hear again how he cursed Jupiter. If Shelley had written this play to promote love, then why would he have written The Cenci, composed in the same period, where Beatrice did not show any love but hatred toward his father and killed him? Besides, this view contradicts the poet who rebelled against any kind of tyranny. This essay shows that necessitarianism is the moral principle that Shelley manifests in Prometheus Unbound as well as in The Cenci. He argues that a necessitarian does not harbor hatred and contempt, nor takes a revenge against enemy because human beings do not possess free will but behave by necessity of circumstances. This explains why Prometheus said that he does not hate and disdain Jupiter, nor does he want him to suffer. In contrast, Beatrice, who is not a necessitarian, wants his father to suffer the same pain as she did. It is by necessity, not love that Jupiter was dethroned but not revenged. The necessitarian view will make this poem more appealing to the post-modern readers, who are familiar with mechanistic theories.