Author: Eric Alfred Havelock

Publisher:

Published: 1950

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13:

In nine essays, classics scholar Havelock shows how, in his 'Prometheus Bound, ' Aeschylus dealt with what is the most tragic dilemma of the condition of mankind: the conflict between the intellect and the will. In this ongoing universal drama, modern intellectual man can recognize himself as "the twentieth century philanthropist, civilized, sophisticated, but agonized and controlled by a belligerent will, an almost impersonal force, which denies his vision and tortures his sensibilities. He finds technological man at the mercy of dictatorship. He finds the innocent arbitrarily caught up in suffering. He finds overtones of sympathy and vicarious compassion matched against their exact opposite, a studied and deliberate indifference. In sum, he confronts the tragic dialectic of our own era, in which intellectual man is crucified." The second part of the book contains a new translation of Aeschylus' 'Prometheus Bound' followed by an appendix that discusses the theology of the original work--From publisher description.