Editing Prometheus (section)

====Twentieth century====
[[File:Otto Greiner - Prometheus.jpg|thumb|upright|left|''Prometheus'' (1909) by [[Otto Greiner]]]]
[[Franz Kafka]] wrote a short piece titled "[[Prometheus (short story)|Prometheus]]", outlining what he saw as his perspective on four aspects of this myth:
<blockquote>According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.

According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.

According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, forgotten by the gods, the eagles, forgotten by himself.

According to the fourth, everyone grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily.

There remains the inexplicable mass of rock. The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.<ref>Translated by Willa and [[Edwin Muir]]. See Glatzer, Nahum N., ed. "Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories" Schocken Book, Inc.: New York, 1971.</ref></blockquote>

This short piece by Kafka concerning his interest in Prometheus was supplemented by two other mythological pieces written by him. As stated by [[Reiner Stach]], "Kafka's world was mythical in nature, with [[Old Testament]] and Jewish legends providing the templates. It was only logical (even if Kafka did not state it openly) that he would try his hand at the canon of antiquity, re-interpreting it and incorporating it into his own imagination in the form of allusions, as in 'The Silence of the Sirens,' 'Prometheus,' and 'Poseidon.'"<ref>Stach, Reiner (3013). ''Kafka: The years of Insight'', Princeton University Press, English translation.</ref> Among 20th century poets, [[Ted Hughes]] wrote a 1973 collection of poems titled ''Prometheus on His Crag''. The [[Nepal]]i poet [[Laxmi Prasad Devkota]] (d. 1949) also wrote an epic titled ''Prometheus'' (प्रमीथस).

In his 1952 book, ''[[Lucifer and Prometheus]]'', [[R.J. Zwi Werblowsky|Zvi Werblowsky]] presented the speculatively derived [[Jungian]] construction of the character of [[Satan]] in Milton's celebrated poem ''[[Paradise Lost]]''. Werblowsky applied his own Jungian style of interpretation to appropriate parts of the Prometheus myth for the purpose of interpreting Milton. A reprint of his book in the 1990s by Routledge Press included an introduction to the book by Carl Jung. Some [[Gnostics]] have been associated with identifying the theft of fire from heaven as embodied by the fall of [[Lucifer]] "the Light Bearer".<ref>R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, ''[[Lucifer and Prometheus]]'', as summarized by [[Guy Stroumsa|Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa]], "Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus", in  ''Gilgul: Essays on Transformation, Revolution and Permanence in the History of Religions, Dedicated to R.J. Zwi Werblowsky'' (Brill, 1987), p. 311; Steven M. Wasserstrom, ''Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos'' (Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 210</ref>

[[Ayn Rand]] cited the Prometheus myth in ''[[Anthem (novella)|Anthem]]'', ''[[The Fountainhead]]'', and ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', using the mythological character as a metaphor for creative people rebelling against the confines of modern society in [[The Fountainhead]] and for the punishment given to "Men of Production" for their productivity and ability in [[Atlas Shrugged]].

[[The Eulenspiegel Society]] began the magazine ''Prometheus'' in the early 1970s;<ref name="auto">{{cite web|url=http://www.tes.org/2017/01/23/prometheus_return/|title=Welcome Back, 'Prometheus' {{!}} The Eulenspiegel Society|website=www.tes.org|language=en-US|access-date=2017-07-07|archive-date=2017-08-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170810110718/http://www.tes.org/2017/01/23/prometheus_return/|url-status=live}}</ref> it is a decades-long-running magazine exploring issues important to [[Kink (sexuality)|kinksters]], ranging from art and erotica, to advice columns and personal ads, to conversation about the philosophy of consensual kink. The magazine now exists online.<ref name="auto"/>

The artificial chemical element [[promethium]] is named after Prometheus.

Saturn's moon [[Prometheus (moon)|Prometheus]] is named after him.

''[[American Prometheus]]'' is a book released in 2005 about [[J. Robert Oppenheimer|Robert J. Oppenheimer]], the "father of the [[Nuclear weapon|atomic bomb]]".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kifer |first=Andy |date=2023-07-10 |title=Behind 'Oppenheimer,' a Prizewinning Biography 25 Years in the Making |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/books/oppenheimer-american-prometheus-sherwin-bird.html |access-date=2024-07-05 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=2023-07-11 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230711192636/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/books/oppenheimer-american-prometheus-sherwin-bird.html |url-status=live }}</ref>