‘Mechanism of a kind yet unattempted’
Prometheus Unbound is amongst Shelley’s greatest achievements, and is widely read and admired. However, it offers challenges to interpretation of an unusual kind. The characters and action of the drama are intrinsically difficult to understand, given their quasi-mythic and transhistorical nature. But most challenging is the combination in the plotting in the drama of inexplicit scientific concepts and phenomena, with elements from classical culture, including prophecy and its mechanisms. The difficulty of grasping ideas which are very obscure but nevertheless brilliantly realized, and crucial to understanding of the action (particularly in Act II), is demonstrated through detailed reading of key passages. The growing realization by Asia and Panthea of their revolutionary destiny is dramatized using contemporary understanding of chemical gases and their beneficial and harmful effects.