Prometheus (Kafka)

Prometheus is a prose piece by Franz Kafka, created in 1918. Was first published in 1931. This is a rare interpretation of a small plant. It offers four variations on the fate of this mythic figure from ancient Greece.

Preliminary

In the original version of the Prometheus Prometheus is a friend and founder of the human culture, yes he is given even as their original creators. He brought the man fire and he rebelled against the gods, but then pursued him with hatred. He was chained to a rock in the Caucasus and an eagle came and ate his liver every day. Since Prometheus is immortal, this ordeal lasts eternally.

Both in ancient and in modern times, the Prometheus figure serves as a model for the most diverse literary works. In the little Kafka - piece three other statements are now specifically about the end of the saga to the variant made generally known.

Content

The first sentence is trying to explain the inexplicable to the legend, " because it comes from a basic truth, she must end in the inexplicable. " ( In some editions of this set is at the end of the piece ).

Kafka identifies four legends about Prometheus:

The first is the well-known above-mentioned statement: Prometheus had betrayed the gods and is it chained to the rock. An eagle eats from his ever-growing liver.
In the second variant of the pain of Prometheus is talk and that he constantly shirks the zuhackenden beaks into the rock and becomes one with him.
The time and general forgetfulness of the whole saga is considered Third.
The fourth statement is: the gods, the eagles and even the wound be " the reason what has become tired ."

What remains is the existence of the Rocky Mountains.

Text analysis and interpretation approach

The following facts about the text:

Not the whole saga is the subject of consideration but only its end.

" With ironic determination " Kafka reduces the numerous existing Prometheus stories on four variants.

All other statements have no factual reference:

The introductory sentence is very cryptic. The announcement, which comes from the basic truth must end back in the inexplicable. What is true of a legend? Why " must " end the truth in the inexplicable?

The three other Final Versions except the famous story seem at first arbitrarily taken from a variety of other possible final formulations. Actually, there are no variations but rather temporal extensions of the origin legend from pre-history to the present.

The last sentence with the existence of the Rocky Mountains may be a testament to the fate of Prometheus 's hardly. That does not say, the final sentence also, it remains only just stand in the room.

The individual records are strangely vague. The small piece is a statement of the myth in the historical process of the great deed through to forget. By forgetting the degree of Unverständlickeit growing. The saga is now trying to explain this very inexplicable.

Relation to other Kafka works

A reinterpretation of mythical figures is a multi- practiced in Kafka kind of prose. See various small pieces such as Poseidon, The Silence of the Sirens or the new lawyer or the Truth About Sancho Panza.

Text output

Franz Kafka. All narratives. Edited by Paul Raabe. S. Fischer, 1977, ISBN 3-596-21078- X.
Franz Kafka: Posthumous writings and fragments II Edited by Jost Schillemeit. Fischer Taschenbuch, 2002, pp. 69-70.

Secondary literature

Peter- André Alt: Franz Kafka: The eternal Son. A Biography. Publisher C. H. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4.
Bettina von Jagow, Oliver Year in Kafka 's Guide. Life - work effect. Cambridge University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-20852-6.

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