Prometheus (Kafka)

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Prometheus is a prose piece by Franz Kafka , written in 1918. It was first published in 1931. This is a seldom interpreted small work. It offers four variations on the fate of this mythical figure from ancient Greece .

Preliminary remark

In the original version of the Prometheus saga, Prometheus is the friend and founder of human culture, and he is even given as their original creator. He brought fire to people and he rebelled against the gods, who 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 also lasts forever.

In both antiquity and modern times, the Prometheus figure served as a model for a wide variety of literary works. In the little Kafka piece, three further statements are made, especially about the end of the legend of the generally known variant.

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The first sentence tries to explain the inexplicable part of the saga, “ since it comes from a reason for truth, it must end again in the inexplicable. “(In some editions this sentence is at the end of the piece).

Kafka names four legends about Prometheus:

  • The first is the well-known above. Statement: Prometheus had betrayed the gods and is forged on the rock for it. An eagle eats from its ever growing liver.
  • The second variant speaks of Prometheus' pain and that he presses himself further and further into the rock in front of his chopping beaks and becomes one with him.
  • Thirdly, the time and the general oblivion of the whole saga are considered.
  • The fourth statement reads: the gods, the eagle and even the wound “ get tired of what has become for no reason” .

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, only its end.
  • "With ironic determination" Kafka reduces the numerous existing Prometheus stories to four variants.

All other statements have no factual reference:

  • The opening sentence is very cryptic . The saga that comes from the ground of truth must end again in the inexplicable. What is true about a legend? Why "must" the true end in the inexplicable?
  • The three other final variants besides the well-known saga seem at first to be taken arbitrarily from a variety of other possible final formulations. Actually, however, there are no variations, but rather temporal extensions of the original legend from prehistoric times to the present day.
  • The last sentence with the existence of the rocky mountains can hardly be evidence of the fate of Prometheus. The final sentence doesn't say that either, it just stays in the room.

The individual sentences are strangely vague. The little piece is a statement about the myth in the historical process from the great deed to oblivion. With forgetting, the degree of incomprehensibility increases. The legend pretends to explain precisely this inexplicable.

Relation to other Kafka works

A reinterpretation of mythical figures is a type of prose practiced several times by Kafka. See various small pieces such as B. Poseidon , The Silence of the Sirens or The New Advocate or The Truth About Sancho Panza .

Text output

  • Franz Kafka. All the stories. Published by Paul Raabe . S. Fischer, 1977, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .
  • Franz Kafka: Legacy writings and fragments II. Edited by Jost Schillemeit. Fischer Taschenbuch, 2002, pp. 69–70.

Secondary literature

Web links

Wikisource: Prometheus (Kafka)  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alt, p. 576.
  2. ↑ Alt, p. 578.