Promethean ethics and nineteenth-century ecologies

Abstract

This essay analyses multiple strands of Promethean thought across nineteenth-century British literature, demonstrating how Prometheanism—as the modern myth of freedom from nature—is interwoven with ecological realities and discourse. We chart the Promethean myth through its expression as a symbol of political aspiration in the Romantic era into the Victorian period, where it becomes entangled in the discourse of work ethics. Victorian authors, we show, deployed a Promethean imaginary to spiritualize both humanity's subjugation of nature and the imperial subjugation of non-white peoples. Engaging with W.E.B Du Bois, as well as ecocritical scholars like Amitav Ghosh and Sylvia Federici, we consider how the Promethean ethos shaped a technophilic discourse of human mastery that continues to yield destructive ecological and social consequences.