Promethean ethics and nineteenth‐century ecologies

Abstract

AbstractThis 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.