Description
This thesis examines the scientific aspects of Prometheus Unbound, namely direct current electricity, and how Percy Shelley's vision to incorporate science was perhaps a response to the biological works of Erasmus Darwin. Shelley's interest in chemistry has been well documented and coincides with Alessandro Volta's invention of the battery in 1800. Since this new invention was chemical in nature, vastly influential, and enigmatic, my reading of Prometheus Unbound places the battery as one of its focal points. Although much has been written on the use of science in the drama, few studies tackle the possibility that Shelley was influenced by the discovery of direct current electricity, despite the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (itself a work highlighting the use of electricity) only a few years prior. In addition to his interest in electricity, Shelley may have considered Prometheus Unbound as fitting into a larger debate over the notion that our world (as colorful as it may be) has no direction and no inherent moral code. Darwin tried to mask his exhaustive lists of plants with language that made them appear to have these qualities, however, the general effect of his work was concerning enough for Schiller, Godwin, Wordsworth, and ultimately Shelley, to respond to the materialism it implied. Direct current electricity possibly allowed Shelley a metaphorical answer to Darwinian materialism that included the uninterrupted energy of man and our capacity to abolish tyranny with the love of nature.
