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PrometheusTRANSCRIPT
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Introduction
Dealing with the notion of rewriting in the field of
comparative literature implies the perspective from which the
writer looks at the story and thus the motives lying behind
each writer’s experience. In other words, when a mythical or
historical figure, an event or even an idea, a concept is
handled by more than one writer, and by the way appears in
more than one text, especially when the writers belong to
different periods of time, distant “chronotopes”, to use
Bakhtin’s term, all the texts are to be dealt with in such a way
that enables the comparatist to grasp the multiplicity of
visions and subsequently the writers’ intentions.
The mythical figure of Prometheus, the God who stole
fire from heaven in order to make man’s life easier, and who
was pusished by Zeus. In fact he was chained to rock where
an eagle continuously kept eating his liver until he was finally
freed by Heracles; is very appealing to many writers,
especially romantic ones who saw he was expressive of their
romantic attitudes.
In this paper, I will deal with Goethe’s Prometheus,
Lord Byron’s Prometheus ,ad Abu-l-Kacem Echabbi’s
“Nashidu-l-Jabbar”
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-----------------(The song of the mighty one, or thus sang Prometheus). I will
demonstrate how the romantic vision is the basic motivator
behind the romantic interest in the story of Prometheus.
This is going to be examined in two major parts; first
dealing with the generic departures that the initial story
undergoes, then, in the second part, relating the four texts
together to the deep level of the mythical story through the
consideration of particular archetypal notions or events.
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I/ Generic Departures:
from the play to the poem
In the light pf Brunel’s argument about comparative
studies, that “a text is not totally pure”1, the presence of
references to other cultures, languages and literatures within
a given text; spotting the references to external elements, be
it an idea, a character, a concept or even a quotation is the
basis for comparative literature.
Presented in this way, re-writing is somehow an
“affilaiation” to use Edward Said’s term. Accepting such an
assumption, one can present the works as part of a whole,
one can move then from verticality to horizontality and
subsequently move from the synchronic to the diachronic.
Along with Said’s concept, Brunel’s Laws of irradiation can be
used as the initial spark that will direct us in our comparatist
study of the romantic rewritings of the Promethean myth.2
Brunel’s Laws of irradication set “lighting” against
“illumination”; being more than mere lighting, illumination
bears artistic motives and is thus done on purpose. In fact,
according their drives and perspective, artists use
illumination to foreground a space and background another.
Applying this notion of illumination to the commparatist study
we are undertaking, we can consider that the poets retrieved
aspects of the original story and backgrounded others. A
1 Brunel, Précis de littérature comparée, 292 Brunel, Précis de littérature comparée, 34, 35
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-----------------good instance is the fact that the poets retrieved the actors
of the original story, but not the whole events and this is
done on purpose, if we apply Brunel’s Laws of irradiation, to
fit the poets’ motives.
1/ Romantic Prometheus
Myths gained a positive dimension from the
renaissance on, whereby a myth can be used as sign systems
bearing a connotative meaning, a message, even a meta-
message that can be related to the user’s intentions. In the
Poetics of Myth, Meltinsky puts out that:
During the renaissance, interest in the mythology of
antiquity emerged once again. Myth was seen positively as a
series of poetic allegories tinted by a moralizing veneer; as a
manifestation of the sentiments and passions that
accompanied human emancipation: or as an allegorical
expression of religious, philosophical, and scientific truths.3
Such a statement sets the re-estimation of the
ancient myths as “a series of poetic allegories” expressing
“human emancipation”. The expressive quality of such an art
as romanticism meets the mythical figure of Prometheus in
the fact that the original story and its protagonist are
reflective of the rebellious, individualistic and expressive
attitudes of romanticism. As to the notion of rebellion, both
romanticism and Prometheus are rebellious; the first against
the traditional mimetic orientations of art, the second
against the tyranny of Zeus. Harold Bloom goes further
defining romanticism as “the literature of internalized quest,
of Promethean aspiration”.4
3 Meltinsky, The Poetics Of Myth, 34 Bloom and Trilling, Romantic Poetry and Prose, 6-9
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-----------------In fact, this quality of individuality inherent in the
romantic poet is what enables us as comparatists to draw a
parallel between him and the mythical figure of Prometheus.
Thus, the romantic interest to the story and character of
Prometheus must not be understood as a mere adaptation,
but rather as an identification with, and to some extent, an
appeopriation of the character of Prometheus whose moral
qualities match those of the romantic poet “possessing a
special kind of faculty which sets him apart of his fellow
men”5
2/ From the play to the poem
As comparatists, we cannot study the romantic
rewriting of the Promethean myth without dealing with the
notion of genre. In fact the myth of Prometheus undergoes
real changes in generic terms; it started as a tragedy ( a
lyrical drama with Aeschylus) and moves to another literary
category, poetry with Goethe, Byron and Echabbi, noting that
the last two went further in choosing a specific genre that is
the song of praise.
Knowing that “myths are larger than life”6, one can
define them as sociolects, being bigger than life, they have
been transformed into idiolects, they have been so to suit a
particular context. A myth then, is a sociolect transformed
into an idiolect, to something peculiar and smaller to suit the
artist’s drives.
3/ The compared works
5 Head, Romanticism, the Cambridge guide to Literature in English, 20066 Cited in Comparative Literature course, Dr Belletaief, 2009
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-----------------A/ Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound
The Prometheus Bound stands midway between
Prometheus the Fire-giver and Prometheus Unbound. In
“grandeur de conception” and imagery it has never been
surpassed, not even in the works of Shakespeare, for here is
the very essence of tragedy, her inmost spirit revealed in its
sternest mood, in all its prostrating and annihilating force.
The Prometheus Bound is the representation of
steadfast endurance under suffering, and indeed, the
immortal suffering of a god, banished to a desolate rock over
against the earth-encircling ocean. Prometheus suffers not on
an understanding with the Power that rules the world, but in
atonement for his rebellion against that power, and this
rebellion consists in nothing else than his design of making
man perfect. There is little exterior actions in this piece: from
the beginning Prometheus suffers and resolves, he resolves
and suffers the same throughout.
B/ Goethe’s Prometheus
The present reading of Goethe's Prometheus sets out
to examine the new work to which the myth is put in the
poem. His Prometheus does not stand in a modern opposition
to classical accounts of the myth. We can say that the poem
rather establishes itself at the forefront of a long
reinterpretative tradition engaging with the Prometheus
story. Often read as an “agent provocateur” in the German
Enlightenment project, Goethe's Prometheus nevertheless
argues like a rationalist critic of religion while instructing
humans in social behaviour.
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-----------------In the history of modern literature, certain classical
myths seem readily to suggest themselves as figures of
identification. Not mere frequency, but the cumulative
significance attributed to these myths makes them constant
points of reference. A further and earlier cultural
identification is offered by the Prometheus myth in the (late)
eighteenth century. Goethe made not one, but four attempts
at the myth, yet all but the poem remained fragments.
Carrying an already heavy baggage of literary
treatments from antiquity through the Renaissance and up to
the eighteenth century, the myth offered several angles from
which it could be approached. Retelling the old story of
Prometheus, Goethe comes to stand shoulder to shoulder
with Aeschylus in his reworking and further development of
the mythological tradition, at the forefront of which Goethe's
poem establishes itself.
The poem stands out as the pinnacle of Goethe's
early hymns that represent and engage with ancient gods. In
fact,the voice of the speaker in the poem is always that of
Prometheus. The poem opens with an initial imperative
directed at Zeus that is matched by an insistent 'I' at the end
of the last section.
Instead of invoking gods by listing their attributes
and relating stories of their cult like in traditional hymns,
Goethe's poem presents a god who insists on telling his own
story. Where the speaker of hymns is traditionally and
necessarily human, this poem presents a god raving against
other gods. In eighteenth-century aesthetics a hymn is
defined as '’une louange a l'honneur de quelque divinité'’ and
'’la recompense, le salaire des immortels'’.
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-----------------This poem is in fact full of accusations against the
gods, perhaps not the salary to which immortals are
accustomed. It has therefore recently been suggested that
Goethe’s Prometheus should be read as an 'Antihymne' that
negates, or defies, the gods in a language and form that
hymns employ to invoke and praise them. In that sense the
poem appropriates a form in order to undo the work to which
that form has traditionally been put.
C/ Byron’s Prometheus
In the early nineteenth century, the Promethean
figure became a central theme or ideal in English literature.
Poets, like Lord Byron, began writing in the revolutionary
spirit of the times and using Prometheus as a symbol of
protest against religion, morality, limitations to human
endeavours, prejudice, and the abuse of power. Prometheus
is one such literary work; Byron is using the character
Prometheus to create a poem that becomes a model for
rebellion.
Prometheus begins with the apostrophized
appellation Titan and a question, “What was thy pity’s
recompense?” The answer is the silent suffering of the rock,
the vulture and the chain, for eternity. Byron goes on to say
later in the poem that the “precepts”7 turn Prometheus into a
symbol or model for Man. Prometheus is silent throughout his
7 the principles of a course of action or conduct
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-----------------suffering. His will does not speak “…but in loneliness,” and
even then, he is jealous that the sky could listen, nor will he
utter a sigh for fear of the echo.
Why does Byron silence his Titan so? In Aeschylus’s
Prometheus Bound, the sentenced Titan is reprimanded by
the Chorus about his far from silent speech, “You are free of
tongue, too free”. Prometheus’ easy tongue is an expression
of his powerless situation.
In fact, for Byron words are useless; they show the
speaker’s helpless submission to his oppressor, Zeus. In
Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, the active power lies in the
unseen character Zeus. This is very different from Byron’s
telling of the myth.
Byron’s “Prometheus”, written some two thousand
years after Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, is a response
from his age where power is not just rivalrous, but
reciprocal8. The Titan has power of his own over the
“Thunderer” (Zeus). That power lies in the way the Titan
demonstrates his indifference to the threats of the other. The
“Thunderer” takes “pleasure” in creating things that he may
destroy/annihilate, but he refuses the Titan the “boon” to die;
there-in lies his weakness. He leaves himself open for
Prometheus’ defiant refusal, and refuse he does.
Prometheus’ weapon of choice is “Silence,” and in
that silence is his foe’s sentence. We see the refusal to reveal
the prophecy of Zeus’s downfall from power in the following
lines:
8 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”, 144
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-----------------The fate thou didst so well foresee, But would not to appease him tell; And in thy Silence was his Sentence.
The refusal of the prophesy has power of its own as well.
Dennis suggests that “this power comes from the absence of
expression that persuades the “Thunderer” of its accuracy”9.
One could also say that this power may come from the fact
that Zeus is all-knowing, yet he cannot see his own fate while
Prometheus can. At the end of the second stanza of the poem,
we see Zeus’s anxiety that his “Sentence” may be real. It is a
reciprocation of power.
And in his Soul, a vain repentance, And evil dread so ill dissembled, That in his hand the lightnings trembled.
We as readers get the imagery of the hand of Zeus
holding a lightning bolt ‘trembling’ as his victims would once
have done, which shows the exchange of power from Zeus to
Prometheus.
The final stanza of the poem brings the whole ordeal
to a human level. Byron wants us as readers to see
Prometheus as he does; as one with an “impenetrable Spirit”
born of patience and endurance. Prometheus now has what
his oppressor lacks. “Zeus, whose soul has felt vain
repentance, is no longer invulnerable”10. It was the
“Thunderer’s” own actions in refusing the Titan the “boon to
die” and the “wretched gift” bequeathed him, that proved
victorious for his victim. Prometheus triumphs through
suffering.
9 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”. 14910 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”, 148
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-----------------Lord Byron writes that we can learn a “Mighty
lesson” from Prometheus. He is a sign and symbol and Man
can learn from his actions and conduct
A Mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force.
“The “boon” to Man is that if we model ourselves
after Prometheus’ “precepts,” we may achieve triumph
trough our suffering”11. The poem goes on to describe the
similarities between the Titan and man; man is part divine,
like Prometheus, in the fact that they were both created by a
divinity, and something of that resides within them. Man also
has a form of foresight, like the Titan, that allows us to
“foresee” our death, which eventually will come because of
our mortality.
Like thee, Man is part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny.
These lines also give us a description of one of the
gifts Prometheus is said to have given Man, the gift of partial
prophesy. The poem focuses on this gift, in the form of
foreseeing our death and suffering, and the model for Man’s
actions rather than focusing on Prometheus’ more well-known
gift of fire. “Byron is trying to bring this Promethean myth to
a more human level, and to focus on the human struggle,
rather than the god-like gift of fire that is trivial in
comparison”12.
11 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”, 14812 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”, 149
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-----------------A final lesson we are to learn from Prometheus is to
“Make Death a Victory.” “Prometheus teaches us not to want
life, and thus to want less than our opponent(s)”13. In the
poem, we see this when Prometheus remains silent in his
suffering while his opponent, Thunderer, demands his
prophesy (to save his life). This is his message, and the
message Lord Byron wants to pass on; the final lines of the
poem
And a firm will, a deep sense, Which even in torture can decry Its own concenter’d recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory.
Lord Byron’s “Prometheus” presents a different
perspective than the ancient myths, with a purpose for
rebellion. Take to heart the message: The Promethean Spirit,
a symbol of strength for struggling humanity, a struggle
worth the price of death.
D/ Echabbi’s “Nasidul Jabbar” or “The Song of the Mighty
One”
Echabbi’s poem contains all the concepts cited above;
those of defiance, suffering, resistence, victory. They are all
articulated in the poem with some additional elements, one of
the most important elements is “art” related to “al shaaer”;
the poet and “al mashaaer”; feelings that are present
throughout the poem.
13 Dennis, Making Death a Victory”: Victimhood and Power in Byron’s “Prometheus” and the “Prisoner of Chillon”, 148
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-----------------Another important added element is the deliberate
identification with Prometheus, with the mythical figure of
Prometheus evident in the poem’s subtitle “aw hakatha
ghanna Prometheus”; “or thus sang Prometheus”. Echabbi is
deliberately mixing up with Prometheus so that at the end of
the poem we end up ignoring who is who. Some said that
echabbi was retrieving the song that Prometheus once sung
but this assumption is not really valid since it is clearly set
from the beginning of the poem that echabbi was simply
replacing or substituting himself as a poet for the myth.
Clear substitution between the mythical figure and a
certain historical figure, that of the poet is articulated in
Echabbi’s poem in a metaphor related to space, in the
correlation between “high” and “low” where the semantic
field of “high” keeps extending to lofty and extraordinary,
and that of the “low” extending to vile, normal a,d incapable
of imagination. At the heart of this imagination, is the faculty
of creation as opposed to fancy. In fact imagination is a
faculty that can only be owned by an extraordinary, subliome
person who is the poet. The sublime in Echabbi’s poem is
evident in all the elements of resistance, defiance, striving to
a god-like figure. Thus, the association of the poet with the
prophetic; a point that will be discussed later on in this paper.
The substitution of the poet with Prometheus is
articulated through “singing”, it is one form of poetic
rendering, one form of art which is an important way to
knowledge and happiness.
Wa assirou
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-----------------The idea of voice of the poet/ poetry that is filling an
empty world with presence is a very high metaphor because
there is a religious point of view that created the world then
filled it up, so the container or the world is only filled by the
voice of the poet. Thus, the poet is here elevated to a god-like
position. Voice is here again associated with the poet, and
this is another match with the figure of Prometheus since,
voice is related to name, the poet has the poet of the namer.
The repetition of voice filling the gap of the world, a
repetition of a voice which responds to something and which
has the right to answer back violently as a form and ironically
as another form. Ni fact, that voice is not the same , it a voice
that fills the gap, a voice that is godly, thus it becomes a
different kind of voice, indifferent and self-sufficient. A voice
not bothered by what others would say or even what “al
kadar” may do, and this notion of different kind of voice
brings us to the notion of defiance. It also brings us to the
differentiation the poet makes between himself and the rest
of humanity those he calls “al atfal” or kids
…
This line leads us to deal with the metaphor of space
again, a metaphor that is central to the construction of the
poem as a whole. In fact, the metaphor of space governs the
whole structure of the poem; it is a whole way of constructing
a global grid as well as subgrids.
An important grid turns around the binarism over
light Vs darkness; this binarism is dependent on its own and
is interrelated to the spatialized metaphor. In fact, light is
above in the sky whereas darkness is below, light is an
attribute of the poet holding the torch of knowledge that
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-----------------remains all the time in the sky but it must descend on earth,
in order to rule out darkness, to brighten and erase it. This is
evident through the position of the poet as “al nesr”; the
eagle. The poet here positions himself above
The notion of lightness is also developed into:
Annour
These lines are opposed to “al lahib” or something
burning, where light becomes synonymous to evil as opposed
true light. Hence the distinction between two kinds of light.
Light is also perceived in the poet’s face dscribed as
“moshrik” or shining, and this is a characteristic of a prophet.
Echabbi’s poem seems to assert that beauty lies in
the culmination of these concepts of light whereby the poet
fuses light by nearing light, and this image enables us to say
that everything in the poem is constructed in the binary
opposition of light and darkness. All these metaphors of
“high/low” and “light/darkness” send to another metaphor,
that of the poet bound to suffer in order to serve humanity,
here fire is substituted with poetry and the power of poetry.
In fact the power of poetry retrieves suffering,
resistance and the notion of endurance “”in spite of my
enemies and ill ness”. All these notions form a binary
opposition between the speaking “I’ and the
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-----------------“enemies/illness”, and set the “I” of the poem as someone
who does not yield to all external forces, again the metaphor
of high/low interrelates with this one setting “Al kadar” in a
high position and “al Aâdae” in low one.
As a3ichou
Indeed, the poet is facing two huge enemies, the
monarch of gods and demons and “al kadar”. He ended up
defeatinig these forces by a victory that lies in resistance.
One can assert that in Echabbi’s poem, the ceaseless
challenge to all the cosmic forces or “al kadar” and all the
earthly forces or “kids”; all of them articulate in that original
high/llow equated with light/darkness metaphor to bring forth
a center which is the poet, fighting but never yielding.
II/ Relating the poems to
the original play:
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-----------------It is clear that the story’s “emplotment”, to use
Ricoeur’s term, of men with gods is what makes the myth of
Prometheus stand for the most expressive literary archetype.
We may say that this is the motivator behind the romantic
interest to this particular story whereby the poets express
their challenging, revolutionary vision that is transformed
into a wider vision, that of the poet-god or “the poet –
Prometheus” who is able to foresee the world and delineate
its countenance.
1/ Zeus or the tyranny of Gods:
As far as the myth of Prometheus is concerned, the
tyranny of Zeus is what makes him stand as the antagonist of
the heroic figure of Prometheus. This is quite evident in
Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, in which the divine force
embodied in Zeus seems to be unthankful to Prometheus’s
aids:
The tyranny of the Gods, such service renderedWith ignominious chastisement requites
In Goethe’s Prometheus, the ungratfulness og the
Gods is expressed through another moral defect that is
“jealousy”:
My hearthWhose glowYou envy me.
In Byron’s Prometheus, Zeus is even rendered as a
mean character who:
Refused thee even the boon to die.
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-----------------In “thus sang Prometheus”, Echabbi does not
associate tyranny to the divine only; it is also associated with
“al kadar” or destiny that never stops torturing him:
Wa a9oulou
2/ Will and obstinacy:
The notions of will, endurance and struggle are
relevant to all the texts at hand including the original play,
Prometheus Bound in which the ideas of pain, resistance and
pride are reverberated in the protagonist’s soliloquies. These
notions are evident in Echabi’s
The romantic poet’s persistence against hardships,
whatever they are, is often related to his own self-esteem
hence Byron’s statement, “And strengthen Man with his own
mind” may summarise such concepts of endurance and
persistence within the framework of romanticism. This notion
of persistence culminates in both Byron’s and Echabbi’s
poems in the notion of death. In fact, the first converts the
conception of death into an achievement since it is resulted
from the quester’s choices and free will and thus
Making death a victory
This is also evident in Echabbi’s acceptance of death
as a triumph since he will be transferred into a hoped for
world:
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-----------------Fa inni
3/ the poet as a prophet:
Promethean challenging to Zeus through the qualities
of generosity and freedom are normally the characteristics of
a prophet and this is what made the myth appealing to the
romantic poets that revisited the original story as a source of
prophetic archetype that suits the romantic vision of the poet
and poetry. In fact, the quality of “forethought” suggested in
the meaning of the name of Prometheus, is exploited by each
poet and is thus further elaborated in each text.
In Echabbi’s poem, the notion of forethought is not
simply referred to, but it is what governs the progression of
the poem as a whole. This is quite evident from the very
beginning, from the “ I shall live” that echoes Aeschylus’s “I
foresee all that shall come to pass”, his Prometheus foresees
his fate and that of Zeus, and this what makes him anticipate
in Goethe’s poem, the future of man made of both pain and
joy:
It will be a race like me,To suffer, to weep,To enjoy and to rejoice,And to pay no attention to you,As I do!
In Lord Byron’s Prometheus, foresight is more
pessimistic, in fact for him, man is only capable of foreseeing
his own death, and this is one of the central gifts bestowed by
Prometheus to humanity:
And man in portion can foreseeHis own funeral destiny
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-----------------In Echabbi’s “Thus sang Prometheus”, however, the
protagonist is depicted as being free from Zeus, thus the poet
eradicates the notion of suffering that has been central to the
depiction of the mythical figure of Prometheus. He presents
us with a glorious, emancipatory protagonist directed towards
as well as motivated by light:
…………….ka nasri
All the poets unite to say that the reason why this
mythical figure is so interesting to them is the promethean
transcendental potentiality to make him a symbol valid to an
“enlightening” work of art.
Conclusion
Bringing all together Echabbi’s “Nashidu-l-Jabbar”,
Lord Byron’s Prometheus and Goethe’s Prometheus, as
examples of the romantic rewritings of the myth, in
conjuncture with Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound; a
comparatist study focusing on the romantic vision of the
Promethean myth shows that what makes the story of
Prometheus adaptable for the romantic poems at hand is the
intersection of the character of Prometheus and that of the
romantic poet; a quester, a revolutionary and a philanthropic
hero.
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