“What then art thou?”: Demogorgon, Son of God and Savior of the World in Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound

Abstract

ABSTRACT At the climactic fall of Jupiter in Prometheus Unbound, the deposed tyrant god asks his destroyer—the mysterious Demogorgon—“What then art thou?” This article seeks an answer to that question by uncovering the linguistic and theological contexts of Demogorgon. Specifically, I position Prometheus Unbound among historical arguments on Christology in the early nineteenth century, in which traditional arguments for the divinity of Christ were bolstered by Christian apologetic readings of classical myth. However, against these apologetic syncretists, novel reconsiderations of classical mythology and biblical hermeneutics in the period coincided with challenges to Christ’s divinity and Trinitarian theology. Amid the resulting Christological instability, Prometheus Unbound synchronizes Christian religious belief with pagan mythical figures, most notably recasting Demogorgon—the destroyer of gods—as Christ Himself. By rewriting the symbol of Christ, Shelley is free to reimagine Christian eschatology in terms that transvaluate the teachings of the English state church. This article sheds light on the religious implications of Prometheus Unbound’s enigmatic figure Demogorgon, and also contributes to critical conversations on Shelley and Christianity, and the development of Christian doctrine in the early nineteenth century.