12. Shaftesbury and German Neoclassicism. This decline not only in the mythology, but even in the symbolism of the image of Prometheus in the intellectual works of the French Enlightenment is again replaced by the lofty ideas of the Promethean feat in German neoclassicism of the second half of the 18th century.

However, already in the English enlightener of the seventeenth century, Shaftesbury, we find a narrowing of the image of Prometheus to the level of an ideal artist, which is very characteristic of the modern European period. According to Shaftesbury, the artist must act as the sculptor does; and the sculptor, according to Shaftesbury, should act as Prometheus did when creating man from clay and water. In this way, Shaftesbury postulated the coinage and distinctness of any poetic form. Any feeling and even passion should receive in poetry a harmonious, symmetrical and generally chased image. Shaftesbury's Prometheus is an ideal artist, and the entire act of Prometheus is reduced to sculptural and clear creativity

Condemning modern decadent poets, who can create only superficial and non-plastic images, Shaftesbury offers the following reasoning: "But a completely different being, unless I am mistaken, will be considered a man who rightly and in the true sense deserves the name of a poet, a true master or architect of his kind, who can describe both people and morals, and knows how to give every action its true form and proportions. But such a poet is already the second Creator, the real Prometheus, walking under Jupiter. (219) Like this supreme artist, or the universal plastic nature, he creates the form of the whole, proportionate and proportional in itself, with due subordination and correspondence of the component parts. He notices the connection of the passions and knows their correct tone and measure, according to which he quite correctly represents them, distinguishes the sublime in feelings and actions, and distinguishes the beautiful from the ugly formless, and the pleasant from the disgusting. A moral artist, who is so capable of imitating the creator, and who has so studied the inner form and structure of his kindred creations, is scarce, I think, so ignorant of himself, and will have difficulty in understanding the numbers which make up the harmony of the mind. For cheating is simply dissonance and disproportion. And although villains can be energetic and resolute and by nature capable of action, it is impossible that correct judgment and artistic talent should dwell where there is no place for harmony and honor."52

A similar and new understanding of creativity passed from Shaftesbury to the representatives of the German period of Sturm und Drang, which should include the young Goethe, Herder, and Lessing. As early as 1773, Goethe wrote his unfinished drama Prometheus,53 characteristic of the German period of Sturm und Drang, which glorified human creativity with a pantheistic interpretation of the image of Prometheus himself. The symbolism of Prometheus is here restored with all its idea of infinity, but in the spirit of the individualism of the time, the inner essence of which in this case is pantheism. In the foreground in this unfinished drama of Goethe is not just artistic creation, but the creativity of Prometheus of people for their eternal stay in the realm of all kinds of passions and feelings, joy and suffering, which overwhelm the soul even to the point of wanting to die. Prometheus also considers himself to be the eternal creator and his being to be endless. He says:

I don't remember my beginning,

And there is no will of the end in me,

I can't see him ahead;

I am — and eternal, for I am...

The overflow of the individual soul with powerful experiences in this drama in Goethe no longer fits within the boundaries of earthly individuality. Only death can open further expanses of spiritual experiences. Prometheus says here to Pandora: (220)

When to the innermost depths,

You feel, you are shocked,