'Prometheus'

‘Prometheus’, a poem written by Goethe in 1774. It was intended to be part of a projected drama about Prometheus, of which a substantial fragment (414 lines) survives. The poem was printed by F. H. Jacobi without permission in 1785 in Über die Lehren des Spinoza and thereupon published by Goethe in the next edition of his works (1789). The fragmentary drama was first published in 1830. ‘Prometheus’, one of the most powerful and dynamic of Goethe's poems, is a denunciation and defiance of the gods, hammered out in free rhythms. It has been set to music by F. Schubert and by Hugo Wolf.