Prometheus Essay Assignment

1. Compare Shelley’s portrayal of Prometheus as the “unrepentant champion of humanity” to your personal definition of a hero or champion who benefits all of mankind. Include a real person, historical or current, and specifically identify traits, characteristics, actions, levels of effectiveness, and other attributes that quantify the person as a reasonable counterpart to or antithesis of Prometheus. 

2. Compare Prometheus’s speeches in Aeschylus’s account to his speeches in Shelley’s account. Include in your comparison the similarities or differences in his attitude toward Zeus/Jupiter and the consequences of his speech and behavior. Include a definition of repentance in your essay and determine whether Prometheus expresses it. 

3. Compare and contrast Prometheus to a modern Byronic hero. Include background information about both and three qualities of heroism as part of your analysis. 

4. Compare the blessings bestowed upon man by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount to the gift of fire bestowed upon man in the myth of Prometheus. Explain the attributes of both the blessings and the fire and determine the similarities and differences between them.

5. Compare the way Shelley intends to represent Prometheus as a representative of the fictitious version of Satan in Paradise Lost to the version of Satan as understood, “In the minds of those who consider that magnificent fiction with a religious feeling.”