Norwid’s reinterpretation of the Promethean myth (translated by Tadeusz Karłowicz)

Abstract

The author’s aim is to reflect on one of the rudimentary myths constituting the European identity, that is the Promethean myth, and on its interpretation present in Norwid’s works. Kłobukowski states that the author of Promethidion interprets the story of the good Titan in a way that is different from that in which most poets of the 19th century Europe interpreted it, that is by referring to ancient sources of the myth in works by Hesiod, and not by Aeschylus; and that this interpretation has a character of a manifesto. At the same time Norwid, interpreting the story of Prometheus, enters a polemic with Western Romantics as well as with Mickiewicz and the poetic anthropology present in the main current of Romanticism, that was first of all based on such features as rebellion, autonomy of an individual, self-determination, or self-deification. The poet suggests a different vision of human subjectivity; he Christianizes the myth, at the same time doing the work of a comparatist and an anthropologist – comparing the figure of the Titan and the Biblical Adam (Promethidion), suggesting that it is not rebellion, but work is man’s true vocation. Norwid also interprets the phenomenon of the language and its history in the context of the Promethean myth, which he perceives as a myth of the fall (On Freedom of Speech). Kłobukowski also analyzes one of the most important mythemes from the story of Prometheus – that of sacrifice, that, according to Western Romantics, was connected with creating an individualist “I”. Norwid interprets the meaning of sacrifice in a different way – namely, as a phenomenon showing the fullness of humanity and acceptance of the imperfection of the human condition.