Prometeo e le istanze sociali nella drammaturgia di lingua inglese

In European literature of XIX and XX century the mythical struggle between Prometheus and Zeus has often been used as a mould for analysing social conflicts and criticizing power systems. This article focuses the main contributions in English literature, particularly in the history of playwriting. A diachronic survey of the works of Thomas Hobbes, Percy Bisshe Shelley, Thomas Kibble Hervey, Joseph Lloyd Brereton, John Edmund Reade, John Lehmann, George Ryga and Tony Harrison concerning the Promethean tradition is here articulated with a typology built also on the ideological content (there are 1) works inspired by Shelley and in general pre-Marxist ones;2)Marxist-inspired works; 3) post-Marxist, i.e. revisionist works). A special consideration is dedicated to Ryga’s Prometheus Bound (1978) and Harrison’s film-poem Prometheus (1998); the former is here first published in an Italian translation