“Faust” is a work that declared its greatness after the death of the author and has not subsided since then. The phrase “Goethe - Faust” is so well known that even a person who is not interested in literature has heard about it, perhaps without even knowing who wrote whom - either Goethe’s Faust, or Goethe’s Faust. However philosophical drama- not only the priceless heritage of the writer, but also one of the brightest phenomena of the Enlightenment.
“Faust” not only gives the reader a fascinating plot, mysticism, and mystery, but also raises the most important philosophical questions. Goethe wrote this work over sixty years of his life, and the play was published after the writer’s death. The history of the creation of the work is interesting not only because of the long period of its writing. The name of the tragedy itself opaquely hints at the physician Johann Faust, who lived in the 16th century, who, due to his merits, acquired envious people. The doctor was credited with supernatural abilities, supposedly he could even resurrect people from the dead. The author changes the plot, supplements the play with characters and events and, as if on a red carpet, solemnly enters the history of world art.
The essence of the work
The drama opens with a dedication, followed by two prologues and two parts. Selling your soul to the devil is a plot for all times; in addition, a journey through time awaits the curious reader.
In the theatrical prologue, a dispute begins between the director, actor and poet, and each of them, in fact, has their own truth. The director tries to explain to the creator that there is no point in creating a great work, since most viewers are not able to appreciate it, to which the poet stubbornly and indignantly responds with disagreement - he believes that for creative person What matters first is not the taste of the crowd, but the idea of creativity itself.
Turning the page, we see that Goethe sent us to heaven, where a new dispute ensues, only this time between the devil Mephistopheles and God. According to the representative of darkness, man is not worthy of any praise, and God allows him to test the strength of his beloved creation in the person of the hardworking Faust in order to prove the opposite.
The next two parts are Mephistopheles’ attempt to win the argument, namely, the devil’s temptations will come into play one after another: alcohol and fun, youth and love, wealth and power. Any desire without any obstacles, until Faustus finds what exactly is worthy of life and happiness and is equivalent to the soul that the devil usually takes for his services.
Genre
Goethe himself called his work a tragedy, and literary scholars called it a dramatic poem, which is also difficult to argue about, because the depth of the images and the power of the lyricism of “Faust” are of an unusually high level. The genre nature of the book also leans towards the play, although only individual episodes can be staged. The drama also contains an epic beginning, lyrical and tragic motives, so it is difficult to attribute it to a specific genre, but it would not be wrong to say that Goethe’s great work is a philosophical tragedy, a poem and a play rolled into one.
The main characters and their characteristics
- Faust is the main character of Goethe's tragedy, an outstanding scientist and doctor who learned many of the mysteries of the sciences, but was still disillusioned with life. He is not satisfied with the fragmentary and incomplete information that he has, and it seems to him that nothing will help him come to the knowledge of the highest meaning of existence. The desperate character even thought about suicide. He enters into an agreement with the messenger dark forces in order to find happiness - something for which life is truly worth living. First of all, he is driven by a thirst for knowledge and freedom of spirit, so he becomes a difficult task for the devil.
- “A piece of power that always wanted evil and did only good”- enough controversial image Mephistopheles trait. Focus evil forces, messenger of hell, genius of temptation and antipode of Faust. The character believes that “everything that exists is worthy of destruction,” because he knows how to manipulate the best divine creation through its many vulnerabilities, and everything seems to indicate how negatively the reader should feel about the devil, but damn it! The hero evokes sympathy even from God, let alone the reading public. Goethe creates not just Satan, but a witty, caustic, insightful and cynical trickster from whom it is so difficult to take your eyes off.
- From characters You can also highlight Margarita (Gretchen) separately. A young, modest, commoner who believes in God, beloved of Faust. An earthly simple girl who paid to save her soul own life. Main character falls in love with Margarita, but she is not the meaning of his life.
Topics
A work containing an agreement between a hardworking man and the devil, in other words, a deal with the devil, gives the reader not only an exciting, adventure-filled plot, but also current topics for thought. Mephistopheles tests the main character, giving him a completely different life, and now fun, love and wealth await the “bookworm” Faust. In exchange for earthly bliss, he gives Mephistopheles his soul, which after death must go to hell.
- The most important theme of the work is the eternal confrontation between good and evil, where the evil side, Mephistopheles, tries to seduce the good and desperate Faust.
- After the dedication, the theme of creativity lurked in the theatrical prologue. The position of each of the disputants can be understood, because the director thinks about the taste of the public who pays money, the actor thinks about the most profitable role to please the crowd, and the poet thinks about creativity in general. It is not difficult to guess how Goethe understands art and on whose side he stands.
- “Faust” is such a multifaceted work that here we will even find the theme of egoism, which is not striking, but when detected, explains why the character was not satisfied with knowledge. The hero was enlightened only for himself, and did not help the people, so his information accumulated over the years was useless. From this follows the theme of the relativity of any knowledge - the fact that they are unproductive without application, resolves the question of why knowledge of the sciences did not lead Faust to the meaning of life.
- Easily passing through the seduction of wine and fun, Faust has no idea that the next test will be much more difficult, because he will have to indulge in an unearthly feeling. Meeting young Margarita on the pages of the work and seeing Faust’s crazy passion for her, we look at the theme of love. The girl attracts the main character with her purity and impeccable sense of truth, in addition, she guesses about the nature of Mephistopheles. The characters' love leads to misfortune, and in prison Gretchen repents for her sins. The next meeting of lovers is expected only in heaven, but in the arms of Margarita, Faust did not ask to wait a moment, otherwise the work would have ended without the second part.
- Taking a closer look at Faust's beloved, we note that young Gretchen evokes sympathy among readers, but she is guilty of the death of her mother, who did not wake up after a sleeping potion. Also due to Margarita’s fault, her brother Valentin and illegitimate child from Faust, for which the girl ends up in prison. She suffers from the sins she has committed. Faust invites her to escape, but the captive asks him to leave, surrendering completely to her torment and repentance. So in the tragedy another theme arises - the theme moral choice. Gretchen chose death and God's judgment over escaping with the devil, and thereby saved her soul.
- Goethe's great legacy also contains philosophical polemical moments. In the second part, we will again look into Faust's office, where the diligent Wagner is working on an experiment, creating a person artificially. The very image of the Homunculus is unique, hiding the answer to his life and search. He yearns for real existence V real world, although he knows what Faust cannot yet realize. Goethe's plan to add such an ambiguous character as the Homunculus to the play is revealed in the representation of entelechy, the spirit, as it enters life before any experience.
- The problem of finding the meaning of life is also relevant in Goethe’s work. It is precisely because of the seeming absence of truth that Faust thinks about suicide, because his works and achievements did not bring him satisfaction. However, going through with Mephistopheles everything that could become the goal of a person’s life, the hero still learns the truth. And since the work belongs to, the main character’s view of the world around him coincides with the worldview of this era.
- If you look closely at the main character, you will notice that the tragedy at first does not let him out of his own office, and he himself does not particularly try to leave it. In this important detail the problem of cowardice is hidden. While studying science, Faust, as if afraid of life itself, hid from it behind books. Therefore, the appearance of Mephistopheles is important not only for the dispute between God and Satan, but also for the subject himself. The devil takes a talented doctor out into the street, immerses him in the real world, full of mysteries and adventures, so the character stops hiding in the pages of textbooks and lives again, for real.
- The work also presents to readers negative image people. Mephistopheles, even in the “Prologue in Heaven,” says that God’s creation does not value reason and behaves like cattle, so he is disgusted with people. The Lord cites Faust as an opposite argument, but the reader will still encounter the problem of the ignorance of the crowd in the tavern where students gather. Mephistopheles expects the character to succumb to the fun, but he, on the contrary, wants to leave as soon as possible.
- The play brings to light quite controversial characters, and Valentin, Margarita's brother, is also an excellent example. He stands up for the honor of his sister when he gets into a fight with her “suitors” and soon dies from Faust’s sword. The work reveals the problem of honor and dishonor using the example of Valentin and his sister. The brother’s worthy deed evokes respect, but it is rather ambiguous: after all, when he dies, he curses Gretchen, thus betraying her to universal shame.
Problems
So, Faust gets a second chance to spend his life, no longer sitting in his office. It’s unthinkable, but any wish can be instantly fulfilled; the hero is surrounded by temptations of the devil that are quite difficult for an ordinary person to resist. Is it possible to remain yourself when everything is subordinate to your will? This is the main intrigue of such a situation. The problem of the work lies precisely in the answer to the question: is it really possible to maintain a position of virtue when everything you desire comes true? Goethe sets Faust as an example for us, because the character does not allow Mephistopheles to completely master his mind, but still seeks the meaning of life, something for which a moment can really wait. A good doctor who strives for the truth not only does not turn into a part of the evil demon, his tempter, but also does not lose his most positive qualities.
The meaning of the work
After long adventures together with Mephistopheles, Faust finally finds the meaning of existence, imagining a prosperous country and a free people. As soon as the hero understands that the truth lies in constant work and the ability to live for the sake of others, he says cherished words “In a moment! Oh, how wonderful you are, wait a minute" and dies . After Faust's death, angels saved his soul from evil forces, rewarding him with an insatiable desire to be enlightened and resistance to the temptations of the demon in order to achieve his goal. The idea of the work is hidden not only in the direction of the protagonist’s soul to heaven after an agreement with Mephistopheles, but also in Faust’s remark: “Only he is worthy of life and freedom who goes to battle for them every day.” Goethe emphasizes his idea by the fact that thanks to overcoming obstacles for the benefit of the people and Faust’s self-development, the messenger of hell loses the argument.
What does it teach?
Goethe not only reflects the ideals of the Enlightenment era in his work, but also inspires us to think about the high destiny of man. Faust gives the public a useful lesson: the constant pursuit of truth, knowledge of science and the desire to help people save the soul from hell even after a deal with the devil. In the real world, there is no guarantee that Mephistopheles will give us plenty of fun before we realize the great meaning of existence, so the attentive reader should mentally shake Faust’s hand, praising him for his perseverance and thanking him for such a high-quality hint.
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The theme of the tragedy “Faust” by Goethe: The spiritual quest of the main character, doctor, freethinker and warlock Faust. His knowledge has become insufficient ordinary person, and he made an agreement with the devil Mephistopheles to extend his life for the duration of the existence of humanity. Faust wants to use this time for valuable discoveries. He wants to rise above reality not only in spirit, but also in his deeds.
At the center of the work is the problem of good and evil and their confrontation in man. Man, that is, Faust himself, is between these forces. Doctor Faustus' thoughts are noble and lofty; he strives to help people. But he constantly faces evil, the power of destruction, the power of denial. Faust finds himself in situations of choice between good and evil, faith and cynicism. Often he himself causes harm to others without meaning to. So he ruins Margarita’s life, pushes her to sin. Yet Faust never loses the purity of his soul.
It is in the struggle between evil and good that life path hero, develops and grows stronger invisible spiritual world his personality. Mephistopheles
says about this: “You will, like God, know good and evil.” This struggle directs Faust on a quest; it is she who reveals the truth to him. At the end of the tragedy, reason, light, and goodness triumph in the hero’s soul.
The idea of Goethe’s “Faust” is that without the existence of evil, darkness, doubt and emptiness next to goodness, creativity, faith, there would be no movement of the hero forward, there would be no value of knowledge. Faust is not just a character, he is the personification of all humanity, all its aspirations in one person. Therefore, the struggle between good and evil for Goethe is what moves the world of humanity forward, towards new knowledge.
The second main idea of Goethe's Faust is the affirmation of the greatness of man. In the tragedy, Faust goes through trials, doubts, sins, disappointments, temptations, grief, emptiness and guilt. Because of him, Margarita dies, he loses the beautiful Elena. However, in the finale, Faust turns out to be a man in whom it is precisely his lofty thoughts that win: humanity, love, a tireless mind, faith in beauty. Goethe affirms the possibilities of human development, the strength and beauty of the human mind.
The meaning of Goethe’s Faust, or rather, his writing, is to embody in the image of a doctor the highest spiritual impulses of man.
The theme of love is also present in Faust. It reveals itself from different sides. This is both great happiness, a great feeling, and at the same time fatal. The love of Faust and Margarita is passionate and great, but in our world it is better to hide such love, there is no place for it. The story of our heroes ends tragically. Love and passion lead the heroine to death.
Images of Goethe's Faust
Image of God. Good and light in the work are personified by the Lord, who argues with Mephistopheles in the prologue. God believes in man, that purity, goodness and truth will triumph in human soul. “And let Satan be put to shame”
The image of Mephistopheles. Denial and disbelief in the tragedy are personified by the devil Mephistopheles, Faust's companion. In human form, the devil looks very reasonable and sensible. He is polite and even gallant. The evil of Mephistopheles is not in his external behavior. He considers human life insignificant and limited, and the world as hopeless. Mephistopheles does not believe in anything good in this world; he has his own cynical explanation for everything. This is evil as Goethe sees it.
The image of Faust in Goethe's tragedy: The Doctor is a man of high spiritual aspirations. He is an active, intelligent, erudite person. In his search, Faust wants to find a way of existence in which dream and reality, heavenly and earthly, soul and flesh will merge and be in harmony. “Two souls live in me,” Faust admits. One of them is earthly and ardent, loves earthly life. The other gravitates towards heavenly purity, away from the body.
Faust is a doctor, for this he is loved and respected ordinary people. On the one hand, Faust appreciates this. He strives to help people. But the thirst for unlimited creativity and enormous achievements and important deeds does not leave him:
“I opened my arms to people.
I will open my chest to their sorrows
And joys - everything, everything,
And all their burden is fatal,
I’ll take all the troubles upon myself...”
In love, Faust is passionate and emotional. Seeing the charming Margarita on the street, he is instantly attracted to her.
His desire for new knowledge, knowledge of truths, and activity cannot be satisfied. Therefore, Faust’s mind is never at rest; the hero is in constant search. Faust negotiates with the devil to extend his life “until the end of humanity,” not only in order to gain unlimited knowledge of the world for himself, he also hopes to help people overcome the imperfections of this world.
The image of Margaret in Goethe's Faust
One of the most striking images of the tragedy “Faust” is the image of Margarita, the beloved of Doctor Faust. Margarita is shy, chaste and believes in God like a child. She lives by honest work, sometimes quite hard. Margarita would probably make a good wife. “You are created for the joys of family,” Mephistopheles tells her at their first meeting. As an almost angelic being, Gretchen senses Mephistopheles' hidden devilish essence and fears him.
However, Margarita is capable of great love, great passion. Having fallen in love with Faust, she is able to sacrifice everything in her life for him. Their love is contrasted with the relationship of Mephistopheles and Martha, reasonable and hypocritical.
Faust is attracted to Margarita by purity and innocence, including spiritual innocence. This sweet girl, almost a child, reminds him of an angel. Faust honestly believes that his love will be eternal. At the same time, he understands that a close relationship with this girl can destroy her quiet and peaceful life. In the town where Margarita lives, extramarital affairs for a girl are a great shame. But Faust gives vent to his passion, pushed by Mephistopheles. The girl's family is destroyed, her brother dies at the hands of Faust in a street skirmish. After the murder, Faust and Mephistopheles flee the city, leaving the girl alone. Disgraced, she finds herself in poverty, goes crazy and drowns her newborn daughter in a pond.
But even after Gretchen’s life and mind are ruined, something sacred remains in her soul, “the bright world of a child.” While awaiting execution in prison, she sees her beloved Faust again. He came to his senses and, with the help of Mephistopheles, tries to help her out. Margarita refuses to escape from prison: “I submit to God’s judgment... Save me, my Father, on high!” Margarita's soul, no matter what, will be saved.
Other works on this topic:
- MARGARITA Love for Margarita is the first temptation on Faust's path. Mephistopheles hopes that, carried away by Margarita, Faust will forget about his impulses and quests, give up knowledge...
- MEPHISTOPHELES In a dispute with God, Mephistotle is a cynic and a skeptic, refusing to see any meaning in human activity, believing that his mind “is for one thing only...
Goethe's Faust is one of the outstanding works of art, which, while delivering high aesthetic pleasure, at the same time reveal a lot of important things about life. Such works surpass in their significance books that are read out of curiosity, for relaxation and entertainment. In works of this kind, one is struck by the special depth of comprehension of life and the incomparable beauty with which the world is embodied in living images. Each of their pages conceals for us extraordinary beauties, insights about the meaning of certain life phenomena, and we turn from readers into accomplices of the great process spiritual development humanity. Works distinguished by such power of generalization become the highest embodiment of the spirit of the people and the time. Moreover, the power artistic thought overcomes geographical and state boundaries, and other peoples also find in the poet’s work thoughts and feelings that are close to them. The book is gaining worldwide significance.
A work that arose under certain conditions and at a certain time, bearing the indelible stamp of its era, retains interest for subsequent generations, because human problems: love and hatred, fear and hope, despair and joy, success and defeat, growth and decline - all this and much more is not tied to one time. In someone else's grief and in someone else's joy, people of other generations recognize their own. The book acquires universal human value.
The creator of Faust, Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), lived in the world for eighty-two years, filled with tireless and varied activity. A poet, playwright, novelist, Goethe was also a good artist and a very serious natural scientist. The breadth of Goethe's mental horizons was extraordinary. There was no such thing in life that did not attract his attention.
Goethe worked on Faust for almost his entire life. creative life. His first idea arose when he was a little over twenty years old. He finished the work a few months before his death. Thus, about sixty years passed from the beginning of the work to its completion.
It took more than thirty years to work on the first part of Faust, which was first published in its entirety in 1808. Goethe did not start creating the second part for a long time, having taken up it closely at the very recent years life. It appeared in print after his death, in 1833.
"Faust" - poetic work a special, extremely rare style system. In Faust there are real-life scenes, such as the students' feast in Auerbach's cellar, lyrical ones, like the hero's dates with Margarita, tragic ones, like the finale of the first part - Gretchen in the dungeon. In Faust, legendary and fairy-tale motifs, myths and legends are widely used, and next to them, intricately intertwined with fantasy, we see real human images and very real life situations.
Goethe is first and foremost a poet. There is no work in German poetry equal to Faust in the comprehensive nature of its poetic structure. Intimate lyrics, civic pathos, philosophical reflections, sharp satire, descriptions of nature, folk humor - all this fills the poetic lines of Goethe’s universal creation.
The plot is based on the legend of the medieval magician and warlock John Faust. He was a real person, but already during his lifetime legends began to form about him. In 1587, the book “The History of Doctor Faustus, the Famous Wizard and Warlock,” the author of which is unknown, was published in Germany. He wrote his essay condemning Faust as an atheist. However, with all the hostility of the author, the true appearance of wonderful person, who broke with medieval scholastic science and theology in order to comprehend the laws of nature and subordinate it to man. The clergy accused him of selling his soul to the devil.
Faust's impulse towards knowledge reflects the mental movement of an entire era of spiritual development of European society, called the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. In the eighteenth century, in the struggle against church prejudices and obscurantism, a broad movement developed for the study of nature, comprehension of its laws and use scientific discoveries for the benefit of humanity. It was on the basis of this liberation movement that a work like Goethe’s Faust could arise. These ideas were of a pan-European nature, but were especially characteristic of Germany. While England was going through its bourgeois revolution back in the seventeenth century, and France went through a revolutionary storm at the end of the eighteenth century, and in Germany historical conditions were such that, due to the fragmentation of the country, advanced social forces could not unite to fight against outdated social institutions. Pursuit the best people towards a new life was therefore manifested not in real political struggle, not even in practical activity, but in mental activity. Mephistopheles does not allow Faust to calm down. Pushing Faust to evil, he, without expecting it, awakens best sides hero's nature. Faust, demanding from Mephistopheles the fulfillment of all his Desires, sets the condition:
* As soon as I exalt a single moment,
* Crying out: “Just a moment, wait!”
* It's over and I'm your prey
* And there is no escape for me from the trap.
The first thing he suggests to him is to visit a tavern where students feast. He hopes that Faust, simply put, will indulge in drunkenness and forget about his quest. But Faust is disgusted by the company of drunkards, and Mephistopheles suffers his first defeat. Then he prepares a second test for him. With the help of witchcraft spells, he returns his youth.
Mephistopheles hopes that young Faust will indulge in feelings.
Indeed, the first beautiful girl, seen by Faust, arouses his desire, and he demands that the devil immediately provide him with the beauty. Mephistopheles helps him meet Margarita, hoping that Faust will find that wonderful moment in her arms that he will want to extend indefinitely. But even here the devil turns out to be beaten.
If at first Faust’s attitude towards Margarita was only crudely sensual, then very soon it is replaced by increasingly true love.
Gretchen is a beautiful, pure young creature. Before meeting Faust, her life flowed peacefully and smoothly. Love for Faust turned her whole life upside down. She was overcome by a feeling as powerful as the one that gripped Faust. Their love is mutual, but as people they are completely different, and this is partly the reason for the tragic outcome of their love.
A simple girl from the people, Gretchen has all the qualities of a loving female soul. Unlike Faust, Gretchen accepts life as it is. Brought up in strict religious rules, she considers the natural inclinations of her nature to be sinful. Later, she deeply experiences her “fall.” By portraying the heroine in this way, Goethe endowed her with features typical of a woman in his time. To understand Gretchen's fate, one must clearly imagine the era when such tragedies actually took place.
Gretchen turns out to be a sinner both in her own eyes and in the eyes of environment, with its petty-bourgeois and sanctimonious prejudices. Gretchen turns out to be a victim doomed to death. Those around her, who considered the birth of an illegitimate child a disgrace, could not take for granted the consequences of her love. Finally, at a critical moment, Faust was not near Gretchen, who could prevent the murder of the child committed by Gretchen. For the sake of love for Faust, she commits “sin”, a crime. But this strained her mental strength, and she lost her mind.
Goethe expresses his attitude towards the heroine in the finale. When Mephistopheles urges Faust to escape in prison, he says that Gretchen is condemned anyway. But at this time a voice is heard from above: “Saved!” If Gretchen is condemned by society, then from the point of view of heaven, she is justified. Until the last moment, even in the dark of her mind, she is full of love for Faust, although this love led her to death.
The death of Gretchen is a tragedy of a pure and beautiful woman, because of her great love caught up in a circle of terrible events. Gretchen's death is a tragedy not only for her, but also for Faust.
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The greatest German poet, scientist, thinker Johann Wolfgang Goethe(1749-1832) completes the European Enlightenment. In terms of the versatility of his talents, Goethe stands next to the titans of the Renaissance. Already the contemporaries of the young Goethe spoke in unison about the genius of any manifestation of his personality, and in relation to the old Goethe the definition of “Olympian” was established.
Coming from a patrician-burgher family in Frankfurt am Main, Goethe received an excellent home education in the humanities and studied at the Universities of Leipzig and Strasbourg. The beginning of it literary activity coincided with the formation of the Sturm and Drang movement in German literature, of which he became the leader. His fame spread beyond Germany with the publication of the novel "Suffering young Werther" (1774). The first sketches of the tragedy "Faust" also date back to the period of Sturmerism.
In 1775, Goethe moved to Weimar at the invitation of the young Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who admired him, and devoted himself to the affairs of this small state, wanting to realize his creative thirst in practical activities for the benefit of society. His ten-year administrative activity, including as first minister, left no room for literary creativity and brought him disappointment. The writer H. Wieland, who was more closely familiar with the inertia of German reality, said from the very beginning of Goethe’s ministerial career: “Goethe will not be able to do even a hundredth part of what he would be happy to do.” In 1786, Goethe was overtaken by a severe mental crisis, which forced him to leave for Italy for two years, where, in his words, he was “resurrected.”
In Italy, the formation of his mature method began, called “Weimar classicism”; in Italy he returns to literary creativity, from his pen came the dramas “Iphigenia in Tauris”, “Egmont”, “Torquato Tasso”. Upon returning from Italy to Weimar, Goethe retained only the post of Minister of Culture and director of the Weimar Theater. He, of course, remains a personal friend of the Duke and provides advice on major political issues. In the 1790s, Goethe's friendship with Friedrich Schiller began, a friendship and creative collaboration of two equal poets that was unique in the history of culture. Together they developed the principles of Weimar classicism and encouraged each other to create new works. In the 1790s, Goethe wrote "Reinecke Lis", "Roman Elegies", the novel "The Teaching Years of Wilhelm Meister", the burgher idyll in hexameters "Herman and Dorothea", ballads. Schiller insisted that Goethe continue working on Faust, but Faust. The First Part of the Tragedy was completed after Schiller's death and published in 1806. Goethe did not intend to return to this plan anymore, but the writer I. P. Eckerman, the author of “Conversations with Goethe,” who settled in his house as a secretary, urged Goethe to complete the tragedy. Work on the second part of Faust took place mainly in the twenties, and it was published, according to Goethe's wishes, after his death. Thus, the work on “Faust” took over sixty years, it covered Goethe’s entire creative life and absorbed all the eras of his development.
Same as in philosophical stories Voltaire, in Faust the leading side is philosophical idea, only in comparison with Voltaire it was embodied in the full-blooded, living images of the first part of the tragedy. The genre of Faust is a philosophical tragedy, and the general philosophical problems that Goethe addresses here acquire a special educational overtones.
The plot of Faust was repeatedly used in contemporary German literature by Goethe, and he himself first became acquainted with it as a five-year-old boy at a folk performance. puppet theater, who was playing out an old German legend. However, this legend has historical roots. Dr. Johann Georg Faust was a traveling healer, warlock, soothsayer, astrologer and alchemist. Contemporary scientists, such as Paracelsus, spoke of him as a charlatan impostor; from the point of view of his students (Faust at one time occupied a professorship at the university), he was a fearless seeker of knowledge and forbidden paths. The followers of Martin Luther (1583-1546) saw him as a wicked man who, with the help of the devil, performed imaginary and dangerous miracles. After his sudden and mysterious death In 1540, Faust's life became surrounded by many legends.
The bookseller Johann Spies first collected the oral tradition in folk book about Faust (1587, Frankfurt am Main). It was an edifying book, “a terrifying example of the devil’s temptation to the destruction of body and soul.” Spies has a contract with the devil for a period of 24 years, and the devil himself in the form of a dog, which turns into a servant of Faust, a marriage with Elena (the same devil), famulus Wagner, terrible death Faust.
The plot was quickly picked up by the author's literature. Shakespeare's brilliant contemporary, the Englishman C. Marlowe (1564-1593), gave his first theatrical adaptation in "The Tragic History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus" (premiere in 1594). The popularity of the story of Faust in England and Germany in the 17th-18th centuries is evidenced by the adaptation of drama into pantomime and puppet theater performances. Many German writers the second half of the 18th century used this plot. G. E. Lessing's drama "Faust" (1775) remained unfinished, J. Lenz depicted Faust in hell in the dramatic passage "Faust" (1777), F. Klinger wrote the novel "The Life, Deeds and Death of Faust" ( 1791). Goethe took the legend to a whole new level.
Over sixty years of work on Faust, Goethe created a work comparable in volume to the Homeric epic (12,111 lines of Faust versus 12,200 verses of the Odyssey). Having absorbed the experience of a lifetime, the experience of brilliant comprehension of all eras in the history of mankind, Goethe’s work rests on ways of thinking and artistic techniques, far from those accepted in modern literature, therefore best way approaching him is a leisurely commentary reading. Here we will only outline the plot of the tragedy from the point of view of the evolution of the main character.
In the Prologue in Heaven, the Lord makes a bet with the devil Mephistopheles about human nature; The Lord chooses his “slave”, Doctor Faust, as the object of the experiment.
In the first scenes of the tragedy, Faust experiences deep disappointment in the life he devoted to science. He despaired of knowing the truth and is now on the verge of suicide, from which the ringing of Easter bells keeps him from doing so. Mephistopheles penetrates Faust in the form of a black poodle, takes on his true appearance and makes a deal with Faust - the fulfillment of any of his desires in exchange for his immortal soul. The first temptation - wine in Auerbach's cellar in Leipzig - Faust rejects; After magical rejuvenation in the witch's kitchen, Faust falls in love with the young townswoman Margarita and, with the help of Mephistopheles, seduces her. Gretchen's mother dies from the poison given by Mephistopheles, Faust kills her brother and flees the city. In the scene of Walpurgis Night, at the height of the witches' Sabbath, the ghost of Margarita appears to Faust, his conscience awakens in him, and he demands Mephistopheles to save Gretchen, who was thrown into prison for the murder of the baby she gave birth to. But Margarita refuses to run away with Faust, preferring death, and the first part of the tragedy ends with the words of a voice from above: “Saved!” Thus, in the first part, unfolding in the conventional German Middle Ages, Faust, who was a hermit scientist in his first life, acquires life experience private person.
In the second part, the action is transferred to the wide outside world: to the court of the emperor, to the mysterious Cave of the Mothers, where Faust plunges into the past, into the pre-Christian era and from where he brings Helen the Beautiful. A short marriage with her ends with the death of their son Euphorion, symbolizing the impossibility of a synthesis of ancient and Christian ideals. Having received seaside lands from the emperor, the old Faustus finally finds the meaning of life: on the lands conquered from the sea, he sees a utopia of universal happiness, the harmony of free labor on a free land. To the sound of shovels, the blind old man pronounces his last monologue: “I am now experiencing the highest moment,” and, according to the terms of the deal, falls dead. The irony of the scene is that Faust mistakes Mephistopheles' assistants, who are digging his grave, for builders, and all of Faust's work on arranging the region is destroyed by a flood. However, Mephistopheles does not get Faust's soul: Gretchen's soul stands up for him before the Mother of God, and Faust avoids hell.
"Faust" is a philosophical tragedy; in its center are the main questions of existence; they determine the plot, the system of images, and artistic system generally. As a rule, the presence of a philosophical element in the content literary work suggests an increased degree of conventionality in its artistic form, as has already been shown in the example of Voltaire’s philosophical story.
The fantastic plot of "Faust" takes the hero through different countries and eras of civilization. Since Faust is the universal representative of humanity, the arena of his action becomes the entire space of the world and the entire depth of history. Therefore, the depiction of the conditions of social life is present in the tragedy only to the extent that it is based on a historical legend. The first part also contains genre sketches folk life(scene of a folk festival to which Faust and Wagner go); in the second part, which is philosophically more complex, the reader is presented with a generalized abstract overview of the main eras in the history of mankind.
The central image of the tragedy is Faust - the last of the great " eternal images"individualists born during the transition from the Renaissance to the Modern Age. He should be placed next to Don Quixote, Hamlet, Don Juan, each of whom embodies one extreme of the development of the human spirit. Faust reveals the most points of similarity with Don Juan: both strive into the forbidden areas of occult knowledge and sexual secrets, both do not stop before killing, their insatiable desires bring both of them into contact with hellish forces. But unlike Don Juan, whose search lies on a purely earthly plane, Faust embodies the search for the fullness of life. Faust's sphere is limitless knowledge. Just as Don Juan is completed by his servant Sganarelle, and Don Quixote by Sancho Panza, Faust is completed in his eternal companion, Mephistopheles. Goethe's devil loses the majesty of Satan, titan and god-fighter - this is the devil of more democratic times, and he is connected with Faust not so much by the hope of receiving his soul as by friendly affection.
The story of Faust allows Goethe to take a new, critical approach to the key issues of Enlightenment philosophy. Let us remember that the nerve of Enlightenment ideology was criticism of religion and the idea of God. In Goethe, God stands above the action of tragedy. The Lord of the “Prologue in Heaven” is a symbol of the positive principles of life, true humanity. Unlike the previous Christian tradition, Goethe’s God is not harsh and does not even fight against evil, but, on the contrary, communicates with the devil and undertakes to prove to him the futility of the position of completely denying the meaning of human life. When Mephistopheles likens a person wild beast or a fussy insect, God asks him:
- Do you know Faust?
- Is he a doctor?
- He is my slave.
Mephistopheles knows Faust as a doctor of science, that is, he perceives him only by his professional affiliation with scientists. For the Lord, Faust is his slave, that is, the bearer of the divine spark, and, offering Mephistopheles a bet, the Lord is confident in advance of its outcome:
When a gardener plants a tree,
The fruit is known to the gardener in advance.
God believes in man, which is the only reason he allows Mephistopheles to tempt Faust throughout his earthly life. In Goethe, the Lord does not need to interfere in a further experiment, because he knows that man is good by nature, and his earthly searches only ultimately contribute to his improvement and elevation.
By the beginning of the tragedy, Faust had lost faith not only in God, but also in science, to which he had given his life. Faust's first monologues speak of his deep disappointment in the life he lived, which was given to science. Neither the scholastic science of the Middle Ages nor magic give him satisfactory answers about the meaning of life. But Faust’s monologues were created at the end of the Enlightenment, and if the historical Faust could only know medieval science, in the speeches of Goethe’s Faust there is criticism of enlightenment optimism regarding the possibilities of scientific knowledge and technological progress, criticism of the thesis about the omnipotence of science and knowledge. Goethe himself did not trust the extremes of rationalism and mechanistic rationalism; in his youth he was much interested in alchemy and magic, and with the help of magical signs, Faust at the beginning of the play hopes to comprehend the secrets of earthly nature. The meeting with the Spirit of the Earth reveals to Faust for the first time that man is not omnipotent, but is insignificant compared to the world around him. This is Faust’s first step on the path of understanding his own essence and its self-limitation - the plot of the tragedy lies in the artistic development of this thought.
Goethe published Faust in parts beginning in 1790, which made it difficult for his contemporaries to evaluate the work. Of the early statements, two stand out, leaving an imprint on all subsequent judgments about the tragedy. The first belongs to the founder of romanticism, F. Schlegel: “When the work is completed, it will embody the spirit of world history, it will become a true reflection of the life of humanity, its past, present and future. Faust ideally depicts all of humanity, he will become the embodiment of humanity.”
The creator of romantic philosophy, F. Schelling, wrote in “Philosophy of Art”: “...due to the peculiar struggle that arises today in knowledge, this work has received a scientific coloring, so that if any poem can be called philosophical, then this is applicable only to Goethe’s “Faust.” A brilliant mind, combining the thoughtfulness of a philosopher with the strength of an extraordinary poet, gave us in this poem an ever-fresh source of knowledge...” Interesting interpretations of the tragedy were left by I. S. Turgenev (article “Faust, tragedy,” 1855), American philosopher R. W. Emerson (Goethe as a Writer, 1850).
The greatest Russian Germanist V. M. Zhirmunsky emphasized the strength, optimism, and rebellious individualism of Faust, and challenged interpretations of his path in the spirit of romantic pessimism: “In the overall plan of the tragedy, Faust’s disappointment [in the first scenes] is only a necessary stage in his doubts and search for truth” (“ Creative history"Faust" by Goethe", 1940).
It is significant that the same concept is formed from the name of Faust as from the names of others literary heroes the same row. There are entire studies of quixoticism, Hamletism, and Don Juanism. The concept of “Faustian man” entered cultural studies with the publication of O. Spengler’s book “The Decline of Europe” (1923). Faust for Spengler is one of the two eternal human types, along with the Apollonian type. The latter corresponds to ancient culture, and for the Faustian soul “the primordial symbol is pure boundless space, and the “body” is western culture, which blossomed in the northern lowlands between Elbe and Tagus at the same time as the birth Romanesque style in the 10th century... Faustian - the dynamics of Galileo, Catholic Protestant dogmatics, the fate of Lear and the ideal of the Madonna, from Dante's Beatrice to the final scene of the second part of Faust."
IN last decades The attention of researchers focused on the second part of Faust, where, according to the German professor K. O. Conradi, “the hero seems to play various roles that are not united by the personality of the performer. This gap between the role and the performer turns him into a purely allegorical figure.”
"Faust" had a huge impact on the whole world literature. Goethe's grandiose work had not yet been completed when, under his impression, Manfred (1817) by J. Byron, Scene from Faust (1825) by A. S. Pushkin, and the drama by H. D. Grabbe appeared. Faust and Don Juan" (1828) and many continuations of the first part of "Faust". The Austrian poet N. Lenau created his “Faust” in 1836, G. Heine - in 1851. Goethe's heir in 20th-century German literature, T. Mann, created his masterpiece "Doctor Faustus" in 1949.
The passion for “Faust” in Russia was expressed in I. S. Turgenev’s story “Faust” (1855), in Ivan’s conversations with the devil in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov” (1880), in the image of Woland in the novel M. A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita" (1940). Goethe's Faust is a work that sums up Enlightenment thought and goes beyond the literature of the Enlightenment, paving the way for the future development of literature in the 19th century.
Faust is a tragedy in two parts by Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Faust was conceived in the early 1770s. Goethe worked on it all his life. Without rushing to publish, he changed what he had written, put it aside, interrupting work for entire decades, and again returned to this plot. It took about 60 years for the tragedy to be completed and published in 1831, less than a year before the author's death. The premiere of the first part of Faust took place on January 19, 1829, in Braunschweig, the second on April 4, 1854 at the Hamburg Theater.
The first version of Faust, the so-called Prafaust, which remained unfinished, was created in 1773-1775. and was published only more than a hundred years later, in 1886, by the German philologist Erich Schmidt, who discovered his manuscript in the archives. In 1788, while in Italy, Goethe again turned to his Faust, making some adjustments to the text. In 1790, an unfinished sketch entitled “Faust” appeared in print. Fragments." The next stage of work was 1797-1801. It was then that a number of scenes that were fundamentally important for the basic concept of the great tragedy were written. In 1808, the first part of Faust appeared in print. Goethe worked on the second part in 1825-1831 (it was published in the posthumously published collected works of the poet in 1833).
Faust is a real person from the time of the Reformation. There is a lot of evidence dating back to the first half of the 16th century (sometimes contradicting each other) about the warlock and magician Doctor Faustus, his connection with evil spirits, his life and death. At the same time, a number of studies see the prototype of the Faustian conflict in the early Christian novel about Pope Clement, a work quite well known among medieval scribes. (It tells the story of how Simon the magician, “the father of all heresies,” proving his strength in a dispute with the Apostle Peter, changes the appearance of the noble Roman Faust, the father of the righteous Clement and the unfaithful Faustin, giving his face the features of his appearance. However, the art of witchcraft the heresiarch, by the will of God, turns against the satanic plans. In the legends about Simon the Magician, Helen the Beautiful is also mentioned.) In 1587, the legend of Faust, which spread both orally and in writing, took on literary form: a book by an unnamed author was published, published by Johann Spies. Its plot and moral are already set out in the title: “The story of Doctor Johann Faust, the famous sorcerer and warlock, how he signed an agreement with the devil for a certain period of time, what miracles he observed at that time, performed and performed himself, until he finally suffered his well-deserved reward." Faust in the folk book is interpreted as a rebel, striving to go beyond the limits of scholastic knowledge, an atheist, capable of challenging the devil himself. But thirsting for pleasure and glory, he is punished for his exorbitant pride, for lack of piety and inability to resist temptation. The story of Faust in legend and folk books is the story of the fall and destruction of the human soul.
The first to put the story of Faust into the form of drama was Shakespeare's contemporary Christopher Marlowe, attracted by the Renaissance scale of the personality of the hero of the legend. Faust from Marlowe's tragedy migrated to English pantomimes and plays for the puppet theater. Traveling English comedians returned Faust to his homeland: in the middle of the 18th century. In Germany, many dramatic variations of the story of Faust appeared, also intended for puppet shows and were openly buffoonish and entertaining in nature. (Goethe saw one of these performances as a child.) Love for German antiquity and folk art, passion for Hans Sachs, famous author farces of the 17th century, as well as the extraordinary popularity of the image of Faust among German enlighteners (typically G.E. Lessing’s appeal to this legend) fueled Goethe’s interest in this plot. “The meaningful puppet comedy about Faust sounded and echoed in me in many ways,” the poet testified much later in “Poetry and Truth.”
The first version of Goethe’s “Faust” - “Prafaust” - is a kind of sketch for the future grandiose painting. In "Praphaust" there is still no philosophical dispute between God and the devil about man, no agreement between Faust and Mephistopheles, and no scenes that determine the structure of the tragedy in its final version. But as in all Goethe’s works of the first half of the 1770s, the rebellious spirit of Sturm und Drang lives in this sketch ( literary movement in Germany 1770-1780). Faust here is not a sage and philosopher, transformed by Mephistopheles into a youth, but from the very beginning - a youth, ardent and passionate, strong personality, a “stormy genius”, marked by the features of his creator, preferring sensory perception of the fullness of life to rational knowledge, bravely rushing into the world. Love was given to him as a way to comprehend life. The story of Gretchen (absent in the legend) is developed in "Prafaust" in almost as much detail as in the later "Faust", and practically exhausts the plot of this version of the play.
"Prafaust" is a special phenomenon of that period of German history when the formation of national literature. Chopped, abrupt phrases (most scenes are written in prose), rough prosaic verse in the spirit of Hans Sachs, verbal pressure (an amazing number of exclamation marks) and a special fragmentation and sketchiness make up style features this tragedy. In the "Fragment", the first printed edition of "Faust", the prosaism of "Prafaust" was removed, some episodes were added, and the scene "Auerbach's Cellar in Leipzig" was rewritten in verse. Both “Prafaust” and “Fragment” are only approaches to a large-scale philosophical tragedy, which was revealed in its final poetic version.
A three-stage introduction—three—prologue opens the canonical version of Faust. “Dedication” is a lyrical testimony to the importance of the plot that never let go of the poet. The "Theatrical Introduction" expresses Goethe's concept of "the whole world is a theater." And finally - “Prologue in the sky”, declaring philosophical theme two-part play: what is a person? a harmonious creation of God, endowed with that strength of spirit that will help him, even the fallen one, rise from any abyss? or a base creature, subject to any temptation, unable to resist the devil, his plaything? The dispute in the “Prologue in Heaven” between the Lord and the spirit of evil, Mephistopheles, about Faust is an exposition of the dispute that Mephistopheles, having descended to earth, starts with Faust himself.
Faustus enters the tragedy as a wise old man, disillusioned with modern science tired of life and ready to commit suicide. A dialogue with the scientist Wagner, this embodiment of scholastic knowledge, a walk “outside the city gates” in a crowd of people remind the sage of dead knowledge that does not go beyond the scientist’s office. Taking up the translation into German The Gospel of John, after much thought, he changes the first phrase of the classic text. “In the beginning was the Word” - stands in the Gospel. “In the beginning was the Work,” writes Faust, expressing his conviction in the necessity of practical action. Faust's dissatisfaction with the boundaries set for human knowledge provokes the appearance of Mephistopheles.
Faust's pact with the devil existed in old legend, where he himself demanded that Mephistopheles fulfill all his desires and for this he obliged to sell his soul to the devil after 24 years. In Goethe, Mephistopheles offers a similar deal, promising the hero a second youth and all imaginable pleasures. The terms of the contract are not 24 years, but - arbitrarily - the moment when Faust decides that he has comprehended the truth, that there is nothing more beautiful in the world than the moment he is experiencing. Knowing the true price of earthly pleasures, the sage easily makes a deal: nothing can force him, convinced of the infinity of knowledge, to exalt a single moment of existence. Goethe made a deal with the devil for the philosopher Faust - an opportunity to go through the circle of life again, to finally understand its ever-elusive meaning.
If in the legend Mephistopheles was a demon traditional for medieval mysteries and tales (in a number of legends he is called the spirit of the Earth), existing only to seduce a person from the true path and cast him into the abyss of sin, then in Goethe the figure of Mephistopheles is immeasurably more complex. The devil was given to man as a companion, so that he, instigated by the demon, would never stop there (thus, the tragedy raised the question, if not about the apology of evil, then at least about its origin and place in Divine plan). Mocking everyone in the world, a cynical commentator on life, Mephistopheles is essentially the other side of the abyss called “Man.” The one that makes you question any truth and go further in your search. The famous, not without some cunning and sly ambiguity, self-characterization of Mephistopheles (“I am part of the force that does good without number, desiring evil for everyone”) is an expression of the dialectical relationship of polar principles in the world: good and evil, affirmation and negation, Faust and Mephistopheles. A complex relationship that allowed Goethe to notice that “not only the gloomy, unsatisfied aspirations of the protagonist, but also the ridicule and caustic irony of Mephistopheles” are hypostases of his own soul, the soul of Proteus.
The set of individual episodes that make up the multi-figure composition of both parts of Faust are stages on the hero’s path to the truth. The first test is love. The story of Faust and Margarita occupies almost the entire first part of the tragedy. Guided by Mephistopheles, who restored his youth, Faust finds himself in the role of another legendary hero- Don Juan, doomed just like Faust - only in a different form - to the eternal striving for the ideal. And, like Don Juan, Faust runs from love, and, like Don Juan, love for a woman cannot give him peace, make him stop the moment. The embodiment of the simplicity and naturalness of the natural principle, Gretchen, who leads Faust to the origins of folk life, at the same time, is flesh of her patriarchal philistine environment. An alliance with her would mean for Faust a stop on the way, immersion in a small burgher world, the end of knowledge. Margarita becomes a victim of petty-bourgeois prejudices, and, without denying the hero’s guilt in her tragic fate, Goethe ultimately acquits Faust: to the Mephistophelian exclamation “Condemned to torment,” a voice from above answers: “Saved!”
The second part of the tragedy, monumental, consisting of five acts, is a construction of extreme complexity. Everyday scenes are freely combined here with scenes in which Goethe’s fantastic visions, full of symbolism, are embodied: historical eras freely replace each other. In the syllable one can hear either the sonorous tread of Alexandrian verse, or the chopped speech of the German Middle Ages, or ancient choirs, or lyrical song. The tragedy is full of political allusions that require special commentary. And all this creates that poetic form into which only the philosophical and aesthetic quests of the late Goethe could be cast.
If the first part of Faust is full of pictures of everyday life, permeated with the currents of earthly life, then the second part has the character of a grandiose allegory. Faust's wanderings through worlds and spaces - the history of everything human development, as Goethe saw it at the turn of two eras: the era of feudalism, the end of which was put by the Great French revolution, and the beginning of the era of capitalism.
In the second part, Faust, wise by new experience, tormented by reproaches of conscience, feeling his weak-willed guilt before Margarita, realizes the limits of human capabilities. But the earth, nature returns vitality to him (a reflection of Goethe’s pantheism), and with them “the desire to stretch into the distance with a tireless dream in the pursuit of a higher existence.” Following the test of love, Mephistopheles leads Faust through the temptations of power, beauty, and glory.
The scenes at the emperor's court, where Faust receives the position of adviser to an insignificant ruler, are pictures of medieval Germany, the entire feudal system, which came to its historical end before the eyes of the poet, in the second half of the 18th century. The episodes with Helen the Beautiful returns Goethe's thought to the childhood of humanity, to antiquity, the culture of which has always been of great importance to the author. The emperor's court is engulfed in the chaos of decay, the union of Faust and Helen is an attempt to save this world with beauty, a reflection of the poet's thoughts about the beneficial influence of ancient culture, which Helen the Beautiful symbolizes, on European culture. Euphorion, the son of Faust and Helen, is depicted in the tragedy as a symbol of the union of “ancient and modern”. But there is no salvation in flight to the ancient ideal. The child born by Helen is doomed: Euphorion rushes upward, towards the sun, and dies like Icarus (it is known that the image of Euphorion is a tribute to the memory of Byron, who died in 1824 and who, unlike other romantics, aroused the keenest interest and deep respect of Goethe) .
The historiosophical concept presented in Goethe's Faust is that each socio-economic formation replaces the previous one through its negation. Deep meaning an episode related to Philemon and Baucis, a mythological married couple, was performed. Unlike the Greek myth, according to which the gods saved only the hut of Philemon and Baucis from fire in the entire village, rewarding them for their piety, in Goethe it was the old people’s house that needed to be demolished in the interests of new construction. The poet's sympathy for the touching couple is combined with the conscious need to deny their sweet patriarchal way of life, which slows down the progress of civilization. And Mephistopheles, acting as a destroyer, here (not for the first time) plays the role of a creator, creating tomorrow. The flame, in which the rural idyll disappears, clears the way for a bright future (it is characteristic that the image of Faust the city planner, according to contemporaries, arose in Goethe under the influence of news of the vigorous activities of Peter I and Prince Potemkin).
An artist wholly shaped by the 18th century, Goethe, who was destined to live another third of the 19th century, managed in Faust to reflect the emergence at the turn of the century of new social relations, based more than in all previous times on the power of money. Inevitable technological progress brings with it a new evil - a reason for the triumph of Mephistopheles, who anticipates the death of everything human in man. But an alternative to the triumph of Mephistopheles is Faust’s decision to devote himself to serving humanity, building its happy future, although the hero’s dream of draining the vast spaces hidden under the sea waves is frankly utopian: on a new land people will be able to start a new life, free from all violence, worthy of a person. The grandiose utopia built by Faust in his dreams and deeds is a reflection of Goethe’s acquaintance with the theories of the French utopian socialists of the 16th century. II century.
In serving humanity, in practical work, Faust finally finds himself and the highest meaning of existence. The embodiment of the eternal movement forward, he is ready to stop the moment when he hears the sound of shovels, indicating for him the beginning of work to drain the swamp. Faust’s famous dying monologue is imbued with the idea of collective daily work and eternal battle - “only those who have experienced the battle for life deserve life and freedom.” However, having found his final goal, Faust immediately becomes the prey of the devil. Stopping is equivalent to death. There is a deepest philosophical meaning is that by the end of his second life Faust is blind, and the sound he takes for the noise of work is actually produced by lemurs called by Mephistopheles to dig Faust's grave. Only a blind person can stop a moment. (However, a careful reading of the words of the sage, beginning with the most important clause given in the conditional mood: “Then I would say ...", shows that the demon, like a true scholastic, clung to the letter, but not the meaning of the whole phrase; thus, Faust did not find peace and God won the argument with the devil.) Knowledge is endless, absolute truth is only a series of relative truths.
Having seemingly suffered defeat in the battle with Mephistopheles, Faust still remains the winner. At the end of the tragedy, when he was placed in a coffin, his soul was carried away by angels to heaven. Faust’s “immortal essence” triumphs, symbolizing the triumph of Man.
"Faust" by Goethe - artistic synthesis creative path great poet. All the literary quests through which the author went through are presented here: “storm and stress”, “Weimar classicism” and even an echo of Goethe’s generally unaccepted romanticism. The tragedy contains a brilliant insight into dialectics as a method of understanding existence. Representing a complex complex of political, historical, theosophical and philosophical problems, “Faust” sums up the era of enlightenment and at the same time forms a timeless model of the entire universe.
The global significance of the tragedy "Faust" was recognized during the author's lifetime. The Russian reading public has many attempts to translate the tragedy. The translation by N.A. is recognized as the most accurate in relation to the original. Kholodkovsky, the most powerful in poetic power - B.L. Pasternak.
