The poorly bound Prometheus

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The poorly bonded Prometheus ( French: Le Prométhée mal enchaîné) is a satirical-parodic story by André Gide , which appeared in 1899.

time and place

The story mostly takes place on a Parisian boulevard towards the end of the 19th century.

content

Prometheus can free himself from his rock on his own, descends from the Caucasus, strolls through the heart of the French metropolis and comes across a waiter in a restaurant. The latter observes guests and brings some together at his three-way tables. However, he would like to write down the name and occupation of the new guest before assigning the seat. Prometheus reluctantly mentions his name and inevitably describes himself as a match maker. The waiter, a storyteller, tells of his friend Zeus , who pretends to be a banker in Paris and is called the Miglionaire there. For fun, Zeus slapped a certain Kokles in the middle of the boulevard and gave a certain Damocles a 500-franc note anonymously - two arbitrary acts that tear the two gentlemen out of their dreary everyday life.

The disaster takes its course after the waiter has placed Prometheus, Damocles and Kokles at one of his three tables. The hungry eagle of Prometheus flies in, smashes the front window of the restaurant and knocks out an eye with the Kokles wing while landing at the table. The three messieurs deal with their divine gifts in different ways. Damocles builds up a guilt complex because of the money, can get rid of the banknote, but dies of grief. Kokles capitalizes on his glass eye. Prometheus is denounced by the waiter as a match maker without a license and ends up behind bars. The eagle worries about the prisoner, his living source of food. Prometheus always offers the animal a piece of its liver to eat. The eagle frees the emaciated Prometheus from captivity.

After Damocles' burial, Prometheus treats a funeral feast in the restaurant and tells the story of Tityrus over dinner, which Gide readers already know from “ Paludes ” . But it will be a new, more pleasant story. Tityrus, the sedentary one, cultivates the swamps “with God's help”.

The whole satire ends with blasphemy. Prometheus eats his eagle and turns out to be the narrator. He wrote the present story with one of those eagle feathers.

In an epilogue, a little out of context, there are Pasiphae and Minos - familiar to Gide readers from “ Theseus ” . Pasiphae would have liked to have given birth to a Dioscuri . But it only became the Minotaur - a calf.

Quote

Self-testimony

  • In January 1929 Gide wrote about his examination of the subject. He wanted to translate Goethe's Prometheus , but then dropped the intention because of "excessive difficulties". He read the poem at the age of twenty. It influenced his thinking and he learned from it that "everything great was tried by man only in revolt against the gods."

reception

  • Compared to Goethe's Prometheus, Gidesche is "not a rebel", but "an ironic". Gide mocks everyone who wants to limit the creative in the artist.
  • With his Zeus, who acts unmotivated, Gide turns away from conventional storytelling.
  • Martin asks why Prometheus lets the eagle eat his liver. The answer is in a heading in the text: “It has to grow, but I have to lose weight.” According to Martin, that means whoever wants to grow up has to do without, reveal himself, believe in himself.
  • Marianne Kesting has extracted five interlinked narratives - examples of actes gratuits - from the relatively short text . First and second, Damocles and Kokles talk about their lives. Third and fourth, Prometheus tells about himself and from the Ekloge one of Virgil . Fifth, an episode from the lives of Pasiphae and Minos is finally presented for the best. The writer, in this case the storyteller, hides behind the figure of Zeus, Prometheus, the waiter and the first-person narrator, which is obligatory for Gide. Furthermore, Kesting draws parallels to Kafka .

German editions

source
  • Raimund Theis (ed.), Peter Schnyder (ed.): André Gide: The badly bound Prometheus . Translated from the French by Gerda Scheffel. Pp. 315-361. The basis of the translation was two editions of the Editions Gallimard / Paris from the years 1920 and 1925. With an afterword by Marianne Kesting: “To The Badly Fettered Prometheus ”. Pp. 553-560. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VII / 1, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1991. 587 pages, ISBN 3-421-06467-9
German-language first edition
  • André Gide: The poorly chained Prometheus. Translator: Franz Blei . Weber Munich 1909. 51 pages. Original cardboard volume with 7 full-page illustrations by Pierre Bonnard . 25 copies
Secondary literature
  • Renée Lang: André Gide and the German spirit (French: André Gide et la Pensée Allemande ). Translation: Friedrich Hagen . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1953. 266 pages
  • Günter Krebber: Studies on the aesthetics and criticism of André Gides . Cologne Romanistic works. New episode. Issue 13. Geneva and Paris 1959. 171 pages
  • Claude Martin: André Gide . Translated from the French by Ingeborg Esterer. Rowohlt 1963 (July 1987 edition). 176 pages, ISBN 3-499-50089-2

See also

On the title of the satire: Gide varies the title of Aeschylus' tragedy .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Krebber, p. 50, 21. Zvo
  2. ↑ Source, p. 553, 13. Zvo
  3. ↑ Source, p. 317, 1. Zvo
  4. ↑ Source, p. 319, 2nd Zvu
  5. ↑ The eagle was sent by Zeus. The God of the Christians also forbids this “food”: “And this you should abhor the birds; they are not to be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle ... ”( 3 Mos 11:13  EU ).
  6. ↑ Source, p. 361, 6. Zvo
  7. ↑ Lang, p. 250, footnote 39
  8. ↑ Lang, p. 63, 17. Zvo
  9. ↑ Lang, p. 162, 9th Zvu
  10. ↑ Lang, p. 169, 10. Zvo
  11. ^ Lang, p. 182, 18.Zvo
  12. ↑ Krebber, p. 50, 29. Zvo
  13. ↑ Krebber, p. 50, 21. Zvo
  14. ↑ Source, p. 334, 1. Zvo
  15. ↑ Martin, p. 85, 12. Zvu
  16. ↑ Source, p. 554, 11. Zvu
  17. ↑ Source, p. 559, 5. Zvo
  18. ↑ Source, p. 556, 7th Zvo and p. 559, 12th Zvu
  19. ↑ Source, p. 6