JOSÉ LEITE DE VASCONCELLOS –ON THE PATHS OF PROMETHEUS

Abstract

In the poetry of José Leite de Vasconcellos (1858‑1941), the founder of the National Archaeological Museum of Lisbon, the boundless greed of his longing for knowledge is palpable. This trait that guides his life and work and is kept throughout his poetics sets the bid to read this article. José Leite de Vasconcellos, focused on the light of the Promethean myth, bears the libertarian flame, paradigm of humanism in Antiquity, but also points out stigmas of the ancient hybris that will launch itself tragically in the twentieth century. This period witnesses the dehumanization and loss of values perverting the progress provided by research and the advances of science, even questioning the symbolic projection of the myth.