The thesis deals with Michel Faber's novel The Fire Gospel, which is one of the novels constituting Canongate Myth Series. The series is a collection of novels and short stories which modernize myths originating from different cultures. The selected novel is a modernization of the myth of Prometheus. The thesis tries to determine, which elements of the Ancient Greek myth Faber has kept, and how have they been altered. The novel is compared with one of oldest and the most well-known adaptations of the myth, Aeschylus’ tragedy Prometheus Bound. The presentation of both literary works is accompanied by a short overview of the development of myth and its primary function, as well as the development of a novel as the main literary form of the modern contemporary literature. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to the analysis of the novel The Fire Gospel regarding its literary characters, motifs, themes and structural elements, which appear both in the novel and the Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound. The research has answered the two set research questions and has shown that Michel Faber modernized and transferred the myth of Prometheus to Christian environment. This is not unprecedented, as the analogy between this myth and Christianity has appeared many times throughout the history of literature. The results also show that Michel Faber kept the key features of literary characters and some main motifs, such as theft, suffering and chaining.
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