What problems does Goethe address in Faust? “The general meaning of the tragedy “Faust”

In the image of the main character of the tragedy “Faust,” Goethe sees not only a reflection of himself, but also a man of his time, the period of Enlightenment, the heyday of German culture and philosophy.

Goethe and the Enlightenment

Johann Wolfgang Goethe certainly combined all the signs of genius. He was a poet, prose writer, an outstanding thinker, and an ardent supporter of romanticism. This is where one of the greatest eras in Germany ends - the Enlightenment. A man of his country, Goethe was instantly accepted into the ranks of the most prominent German philosophers. His sharp style immediately began to be compared with Voltaire's.

Biography

Goethe was born in 1749 into a wealthy patrician family. The basics of all sciences were taught to him at home. Later the poet entered the school, but this was not enough for him. He also graduated from the University of Strasbourg. After the treatise “The Sorrows of Young Werther” was published, he gained worldwide fame.

Goethe held an administrative position under the Duke of Saxe-Weimar for a long time. There he tried to realize himself, convey the advanced ideas of that century to everyone else and serve for the benefit of society. Having become prime minister of Weimar, he became disillusioned with politics. His active position did not allow him to engage in creativity.

Italian period

The writer fell into depression and left to regain his strength in Italy, the country of the Renaissance, the masterpieces of da Vinci, Raphael, and the philosophical search for truth. It was there that his writing style developed. He again begins to write stories and philosophical narratives. Upon his return, Goethe retained the position of Minister of Culture and the work of the head of the local theater. The Duke is his friend Schiller and often consults with him on important matters of the country's politics.

Goethe and Schiller

One of the turning points in the life and work of Johann Wolfgang was his acquaintance with Schiller. Two first-class authors not only begin to develop together the Weimar classicism founded by Goethe, but also constantly push each other to create new masterpieces. Under the influence of Schiller, Goethe wrote several novels and continued work on Faust, which Friedrich so wanted to see. Nevertheless, Faust was published only in 1806, when Schiller was no longer alive. The first part was created under the tireless supervision of Eckermann, Goethe's personal secretary, who insisted that the tragedy be published. The second part, at the behest of the author himself, was released posthumously.

Tragedy "Faust"

Without undue exaggeration, we can say that “Faust” is the poet’s main work. The tragedy in two parts was written over the course of sixty years. From “Faust” one can judge how the evolution of the writer’s creativity took place. By creating passages at certain periods of his life, Goethe concluded in this tragedy the whole meaning of life.

Doctor Faustus

The poet did not invent the main plot line; he took it from folk tales. Later, thanks to the thinker himself, the story of Faust will be retold by many writers, weaving this plot into the basis of their books. And Goethe learned about this legend when he was only five years old. As a boy he saw a puppet theater. It told a terrible tale.

The legend is partly based on real events. Once upon a time there lived Johann Georg Faust, a doctor by profession. He traveled from city to city and offered his services. If traditional medicine did not help, he took up magic, astrology and even alchemy. Doctors who were more successful and well-known in their community said that Faust was a simple charlatan who could deceive any naive person. The healer's students at the university, where he briefly taught, spoke of the doctor with great warmth, considering him a seeker of truth. Lutherans called him a servant of the devil. The image of Faust seemed to them in all the dark corners.

The real Faust died under very mysterious circumstances, quite suddenly, in 1540. Then legends and speculation began to be made about him.

The image of Faust in Goethe's tragedy

The work about Faust is a long life journey of a person who is endowed with a special view of the world, the ability to feel, experience, be disappointed and hope. The main character makes a deal with the devil only because he wants to understand all the secrets of the world. He wants to find the elusive truth of existence, to find the truth, and constantly desperately seeks out more and more new knowledge. He soon realizes that he himself will not be able to find answers to the questions, will not be able to reveal all the secrets.

For the sake of knowledge, the hero is ready to pay any price. After all, everything that is in Faust’s life, everything that moves him, is a quest. Goethe endows the hero with the full range of all existing emotions. In the work, he is either in ecstasy from having discovered a grain of new information, or on the verge of suicide.

The main task of the hero is not just to understand the world, but to understand himself. The image of Faust in the tragedy “Faust” is somewhat reminiscent of His life does not revolve in a circle, does not return to its origins. He constantly moves forward, making new discoveries, exploring the unknown. He pays for gaining knowledge with his soul. Faust is well aware of what he wants, and for this he is ready to summon the devil.

The main positive features that the image of Faust absorbed in the tragedy “Faust” are persistence, curiosity, and goodwill. The main character not only strives to acquire new knowledge, he wants to help others with it.

The image of Faust in Goethe's tragedy also has negative qualities: the desire to gain knowledge immediately, vanity, doubt, carelessness.

The main character of this work teaches that you cannot look back and regret something, you need to live in the present, look for what makes a person happy. Despite the terrifying deal, Faust lived an absolutely happy life, never regretting it until the last moment.

Image of Margarita

Margarita, a modest girl, naive in many matters, became the main temptation for the already middle-aged hero. She turned the scientist’s whole world upside down and made him regret that he had no power over time. The poet himself was very fond of the image of Margarita in the tragedy “Faust”, probably identifying it with the biblical Eve, who served the forbidden fruit to Adam.

If all the years of his life Faust relied on his mind, then, having met this seemingly ordinary girl on the street, he begins to rely on his heart and feelings. After meeting Faust, Margarita begins to change. She puts her mother to sleep in order to get a date. The girl is not as carefree as her first description might seem. She is proof that appearances can be deceiving. Having met Mephistopheles, the girl subconsciously understands that it is better to avoid him.

Goethe took the image of Margarita from the streets of his time. The writer often saw sweet and kind girls whom fate threw into extremes. They cannot get out of their environment and are doomed to spend their lives the way the women of their family did. Striving for more, these girls fall further and further down.

Having found her happiness in Faust, Margarita believes in a better outcome. However, a series of tragic events prevents her from enjoying love. Faust himself kills her brother, unwillingly. He curses his sister before his death. The misfortunes do not end there, and, having suffered more than she should have, having gone crazy, Margarita ends up in prison. In a moment of complete despair, a higher power saves her.

The image of Mephistopheles in the tragedy "Faust"

Mephistopheles is a fallen angel who has an eternal debate with God about good and evil. He believes that a person is so corrupt that, succumbing to even a slight temptation, he can easily give his soul to him. The angel is sure that humanity is not worth saving. Faust, according to Mephistopheles, will always be on the side of evil.

In one of the lines of the work, Mephistopheles is described as a devil who previously had sharp claws, horns and a tail. He does not like scholasticism, preferring to move away from boring sciences. Being evil helps the hero, without knowing it, to find the truth. The image of Mephistopheles in Faust is complex of contradictions.

Often in conversations and disputes with Faust, Mephistopheles reveals himself to be a genuine philosopher who observes with interest the actions of man and progress. However, when he communicates with other people or evil spirits, he chooses other images for himself. He keeps up with his interlocutor and supports conversations on any topic. Mephistopheles himself says several times that he does not have absolute power. The main decision always depends on the person, and he can only take advantage of the wrong choice.

Many of Goethe’s own thoughts were invested in the image of Mephistopheles in the tragedy “Faust”. They expressed themselves in sharp criticism of feudalism. At the same time, the devil profits from the naive realities of the capitalist system.

Despite the superficial similarity between the demon and the main character, the image of Mephistopheles in the tragedy “Faust” is absolutely opposite to him in the main thing. Faust strives for wisdom. And Mephistopheles believes that there is no wisdom. He believes that the search for truth is an empty exercise, because it does not exist.

Researchers believe that the image of Mephistopheles in Faust is the subconscious of the doctor himself, his fears of the unknown. At the moment when good begins to fight evil, the demon talks to the main character. At the end of the work, Mephistopheles is left with nothing. Faust voluntarily admits that he has achieved the ideal and learned the truth. After this, his soul goes to the angels.

Hero of all times

The eternal image of Faust became the prototype for many heroes of new literature. Nevertheless, he seems to complete a whole string of literary “loners” who are accustomed to struggling with life’s problems on their own. Of course, the image of Faust has notes of the sad thinker Hamlet or the expressive defender of humanity, the desperate Don Quixote, and even Don Juan. Faust is most like a womanizer in his desire to come to the truth in the secrets of the Universe. However, while Faust knows no bounds in his quest, Don Juan dwells on the needs of the flesh.

Each of the listed heroes has their own antipodes, which make their images more complete and partially reveal the internal monologue of each. Don Quixote has Sancho Panza, Don Juan has an assistant Sganarelle, and Faust fights philosophical battles with Mephistopheles.

Influence of the work

After the publication of the tragedy about the desperate lover of knowledge, many philosophers, cultural scientists, and researchers found the image of Goethe’s Faust so fascinating that they even identified a similar type of person, which Spengler called “Faustian.” These are people who are aware of infinity and freedom and strive for it. Even at school, children are asked to write an essay in which the image of Faust must be fully revealed.

This tragedy had a significant impact on literature. Inspired by the novel, poets and prose writers began to reveal the image of Faust in their creations. There are hints of it in the works of Byron, Grabbe, Lenau, Pushkin, Heine, Mann, Turgenev, Dostoevsky and Bulgakov.

“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 is not only the writer’s invaluable heritage, 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 the majority of viewers are not able to appreciate it, to which the poet stubbornly and indignantly responds with disagreement - he believes that for a creative person, what is primarily important is not the taste of the crowd, but the idea of ​​himself creativity.

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

1. 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 a messenger of 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.
2. “A piece of power that always wanted evil and did only good”- a rather contradictory image of the devil Mephistopheles. The focus of evil forces, the messenger of hell, the genius of temptation and the antipode of Faust. The character believes that “everything that exists is worthy of destruction,” because he knows how to manipulate the best of divine creation through his 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.
3. Among the characters, one can also single out Margarita (Gretchen). A young, modest, commoner who believes in God, beloved of Faust. An earthly simple girl who paid to save her soul with her own life. The main character falls in love with Margarita, but she is not the meaning of his life.

Themes

The work, containing an agreement between a hardworking person and the devil, in other words, a deal with the devil, gives the reader not only an exciting, adventure-filled plot, but also relevant 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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. “Faust” is such a multifaceted work that here we will even find the theme of selfishness, 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.
4. 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 insane 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.
5. 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 taking a sleeping potion. Also, due to Margarita’s fault, her brother Valentin and an illegitimate child from Faust also die, 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. Thus, another theme arises in the tragedy - the theme of moral choice. Gretchen chose death and God's judgment over escaping with the devil, and thereby saved her soul.
6. 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 a real existence in the 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.

Problems

So, Faust gets a second chance to spend his life, no longer sitting in his office. It’s unthinkable, but any desire 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 subordinated to your will - 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.

1. 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.
2. 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. This important detail hides the problem of cowardice. 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.
3. The work also presents readers with a negative image of the 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.
4. 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.

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 utters the 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 tragedy "Faust" was written over a very long time and unevenly - over fifty-seven years. The full text of Faust is divided into two large parts. The first includes the love story of Faust, who magically regained his youth, and the young girl Margarita. This story is traced from their first meeting until Margarita's death. The tragedy opens with two prologues: “Prologue in the Theater” and “Prologue in Heaven.” The prologue in the theater connects the work with modernity and is devoted to a discussion of what needs to be staged in the theater to satisfy the tastes of the public. The second prologue, conveying the Lord’s conversation with Mephistopheles, refers the reader to the Bible, thereby indicating the enduring significance of the play’s problematics.

The text of the first part is divided into twenty-five scenes. Events begin with the monologues of Faust, an old scientist, about his deep doubts about the usefulness and truth of his knowledge, about disappointment in fruitless science. These thoughts turn into a determination to change his life and indulge in secret magical activities, which leads to the appearance in the life of Faust of the demon Mephistopheles, bringing with him temptation with promises of youth and the fulfillment of all desires. To understand the author’s thoughts about the nature of Mephistopheles, the following dialogue between Faust and him is important:

Faust

- So who are you?

Mephistopheles

- I am a piece of power,

Always wanting evil, doing only good.

In Mephistopheles’ answer one should not see the devil’s simple desire to deceive a person. With these words, Goethe conveys his philosophical understanding of the impossibility of the triumph of evil in the world - it is always transformed into good. Goethe wants to say that evil is temporary, it is constantly negated by God's will, which creates good. It is this thought that explains the salvation of the criminal Margarita at the end of scene 25. This moral law of life was shared by Pushkin, Lermontov and other outstanding writers and thinkers. In the 20th century M.A. Bulgakov used this dialogue as an epigraph to the novel “The Master and Margarita”.

The second part of Faust was created in the 19th century (1806-1831). Unlike the first part, which was based on a love story, in the second part Goethe transfers the plot of the tragedy to conditional situations generated by ancient mythology and history. Antiquity, the cradle of modern humanity, is intertwined in Goethe with Christian beliefs and symbolism, images and ideals. The second part consists of five acts in which Faust's ascent to the insight of the truth about the purpose of human life occurs.

At the culmination of the fifth act, Faust proclaims the highest meaning of human life in work and service for the benefit of people. This is how he talks about the great work of draining the swamp and creating a flourishing region:

I am committed to this idea! Life years

It was not in vain; is clear to me

The final conclusion of earthly wisdom:

All my life in a harsh, continuous struggle

Let the child, and the husband, and the elder lead,

So that I can see in the brilliance of wondrous power

Free land, free my people!

It was in this monologue that the words that became textbook were heard:

Only he is worthy of life and freedom,

Who goes to battle for them every day!

Before the end of the tragedy, Goethe leads Faust to a bold statement of the “highest moment” he achieved as a “beautiful moment” - it lies in the creativity of man, his work, which bears fruit for subsequent generations. Faust begins to understand the purpose of man in life - he must bring good to people. Having overcome pride and selfishness, Faust is not afraid of defeat in a dispute with Mephistopheles, because he knows that he is now invincible:

Then I would say: a moment,

You're great, last, wait!

And the passage of centuries would not be bold

The trace left by me!

In anticipation of that wondrous moment

I am now tasting my highest moment.

It would seem that Faust violated the agreement, Mephistopheles triumphs:

Poor man, empty, pitiful moment!

But time is king; the last moment has come,

The old man who fought for so long fell,

The clock is standing!

Mephistopheles believed that he had defeated Faust by taking his life, but the devil turned out to have no power over the soul of a person if he makes a high choice in favor of the happiness of people. Mephistopheles possesses only Faust's body; angels descending from heaven carry away Faust's immortal soul. The result of the tragedy is that the person overcame temptation and evil was defeated.

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 his 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 his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). The first drafts of the tragedy "Faust" also date back to the period of Sturmership.

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 returned 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.

Just as in Voltaire's philosophical stories, in Faust the leading side is the philosophical idea, only in comparison with Voltaire it was embodied in 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 used many times in Goethe's contemporary German literature, and he himself first became acquainted with it as a five-year-old boy at a folk puppet theater performance of 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 a 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 Faust's servant, a marriage with Elena (the same devil), Wagner's famulus, and the terrible death of 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 of 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 a brilliant comprehension of all eras in the history of mankind, Goethe’s work rests on ways of thinking and artistic techniques that are far from those accepted in modern literature, so the best way to approach it 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 enters 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 in his first life was a hermit scientist, gains the life experience of a 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 the artistic system as a whole. As a rule, the presence of a philosophical element in the content of a literary work presupposes 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. In the first part there are also genre sketches of folk life (a 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” of individualists born during the transition from the Renaissance to the New 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 similarities with Don Juan: both strive into the forbidden areas of occult knowledge and sexual secrets, both do not stop at murder, insatiable desires bring both 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 to a wild beast or a fussy insect, God asks him:

- Do you know Faust?

- He is 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 profundity 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, the disappointment of Faust [the first scenes] is only a necessary stage of his doubts and search for truth” (“Creative the story of Goethe's Faust", 1940).

It is significant that the same concept is formed from the name of Faust as from the names of other literary heroes of the same series. 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 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 flourished in the northern lowlands between the Elbe and Tagus simultaneously with the birth of the 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 recent decades, the attention of researchers has focused on the second part of Faust, where, according to the German professor K. O. Conradi, “the hero, as it were, plays various roles that are not united by the personality of the performer. This gap between the role and the performer turns him into a figure purely allegorical."

"Faust" had a huge impact on all 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 educational 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 written by Johann Wolfgang Goethe

"Faust" analysis

Genre is a philosophical tragedy, therefore the main thing in it is not the external course of events, but the development of Goethe’s thought. By the scale of the depiction of reality, the depth of the images and the power of lyricism, the work can be called a poem.

The plot of the tragedy - the first part is an eternal love story, the second is a story of eternity. The first part depicts the “microworld” of a person, his individual, personal life, the second part, the “macroworld”, reflects the socio-political life of humanity.

Issues- life and death, good and evil, the essence of being, the purpose of man in the world, man and nature, man and the universe, knowledge of the world, love, art and its role in society

Subject— a person’s search for the meaning of life and his purpose.

The main character of the philosophical tragedy in verse - Doctor Faustus - embodies the social dreams of his time about a comprehensive knowledge of the world. The change from the medieval cultural formation to a new one, the Renaissance and the subsequent Enlightenment, is revealed in the best possible way in the artistic image of a man ready to give his soul for true knowledge. The prototype of the literary character was the real warlock Faust, who lived in Europe at the end of the 15th century. Goethe's Faust combined the features of all the literary Fausts that preceded him: the God-fighting Faust of K. Marlowe, the Protestant scientist Faust of Lessing, the genius Faust of Klinger. At the same time, the German classic's Faust turned out to be more lively and passionate than his predecessors. Goethe's Faust is, first of all, a poet: a man endowed with an unquenchable thirst for life, a desire to understand the universe around him, the nature of things and his own feelings.

The main character of the tragedy is alien to the bourgeois conventions of his time. He cannot, like Wagner, learn the secrets of existence from books. He needs the free expanse of forests and fields, the magical dances of fairies and witches' Sabbaths of the late German Middle Ages, the bodily sensuality of antiquity, embodied in the most beautiful woman who ever lived on earth, and the effective force of the New Age, capable of subjugating nature. Given by God to be torn to pieces by Mephistopheles, Faust is only partially likened to the biblical Job, who went through a chain of difficult life trials and tribulations. Goethe's hero, if he loses anything in the tragedy, is only himself - his best feelings (love for Margaret-Gretchen), his sincere intentions (to prevent a water spill on fertile lands). He is fascinated by the vital energy of Mephistopheles and his own dreams of beauty.

Like the classical heroes of romanticism, Faust is not able to perceive happiness in its earthly form. Carried away by witchcraft dances, he loses his beloved and daughter. He prefers happiness with Elena, but even here the hero will be disappointed: the legendary heroine is just a myth, a shadow of bygone times. Having emerged from Hades, she descends into it again after her deceased son, leaving Faust to his era. At the same time, Goethe’s hero, despite all the satanic temptations, does not lose his “good spiritual thoughts.” Making mistakes and sinning, he is not afraid to admit and try to correct his mistakes, he does not stop in his search for life and thereby pleases the Almighty, who declared at the beginning of the tragedy: “He who seeks is forced to wander.” And Faust is saved precisely because his life was “passed in aspirations” that allowed him to get closer to the truth, strengthen himself spiritually, and understand that the main thing is action that brings goodness and freedom to people.

Goethe's famous tragedy is a unique work that raises to the surface of the reader's perception not only eternal philosophical questions, but also a number of social and scientific problems of its time. In Faust, Goethe criticizes a narrow-minded society that lives by greed and sensual pleasure. The author, in the person of Mephistopheles, heartily mocks the German higher education system, built on methodical attendance at classes and compiling useless notes. Scientific issues were reflected in the philosophical dispute between Anaxagoras and Thales, who defended different points of view of the origin of the world - volcanic and water.