Prometheus Bound Ep 1: Shakespeare, Elizabeth Alexander, and Nero Explain Lucan’s Pharsalia!

Christian Brady’s podcast series “Prometheus Unbound,” featuring Lucan’s Pharsalia as a gateway into the Roman Empire. We’ll cover everything from political partisanship, war lit, family feuds of epic proportions, intertextuality, the macabre, remakes of Golden Age Latin epics, political resistance through art, atheism and much, much more! All while looking at ways the modern world can help inform us about what was going on with forays into Canadian PSAs and mashups of 80s action movies.

This week, look for episodes 1 and 2, an introduction to Rome and the epic genre!

Intro Prometheus Bound Ep 1

Episode 1 End Notes:

The intro mix was created by Christian Brady with selections from

“Sleep Scape” by Aura Distorter at Sampleswap.org.

Henry V. Dir. Laurence Olivier. Two Cities Films. 1946. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036910/)

The Giant of Marathon. Dir. Jacques Tourneur. Galatea Film. 1959. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052604/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)

Thor and the Amazon Women. Dir. Antonio Leonviola. Coronet Film. 1963. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054382/)

The audio for excerpts in episode one are from

Julius Caesar. Dir. Joseph Mankiewicz. Perf. Marlon Brando, James Mason. MGM. 1953. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045943/?ref_=sr_2(

Quo Vadis. Dir. Mervyn LeRoy. MGM. 1951. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043949/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)

You can watch Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem “Praise Song for the Day” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH6fC3W3YvA.

Full text of the poem can be found at the NYTimes site (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-poem.html?_r=0).

For more examples of Inaugural/Presidential poetry, see Walt Whitman on Lincoln. The full poem can be found at http://www.bartleby.com/142/192.html.