Faust's main idea. Analysis of the play "Faust" by Goethe. It's a nasty day. Field

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 repeatedly used 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 that played 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 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 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, 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 the results of Enlightenment thought and goes beyond the literature of the Enlightenment, paving the way for the future development of literature in the 19th century.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe's great work “Faust” is recognized as a masterpiece of world literature. The author worked on the tragedy for almost 40 years. Therefore, “Faust” is not just a work, but a storehouse of Goethe’s worldly wisdom.

The main character of the poem is Faust, a scientist who knows a lot about many sciences. However, in his self-deprecating monologue, he calls himself a “fool”, because he never learned the secrets of existence. While criticizing himself, the hero still admits that he is much smarter than most other scientists.

Goethe's hero has a real prototype. He was the medieval doctor, scientist and sorcerer Faust. There is a version that Faust is not a surname, but a scientific nickname. Many legends and works of art have been created about the real magician doctor. For example, the Great Rembrandt created the engraving “Faust Summons the Spirit.”

The plot of the poem is in “”, where a deal is concluded, the object of which was the unusual scientist Faust.

At the end of the poem, the hero goes blind. Therefore, he sees the flourishing of the city for happy people only in his mind’s eye.

From the moment he made a deal with mystical forces, Faust experienced many pleasures, even entered into a legal marriage with the most beautiful ancient woman, Helen the Beautiful. But I never felt a truly happy moment. Epiphany comes to him unexpectedly when he suddenly realizes that the problem was his selfishness. Faust decides to build a city for people to live there happily. But by that time the hero was already old and almost completely blind. deceives his ward and only creates the appearance that he is helping to create a dream city. In fact, scary mythical creatures, lemurs, are already circling near Faust. Mephistopheles anticipates his victory in the argument. He thinks that Faust's soul will soon belong to him. However, when that “beautiful moment” comes, the soul of the main character flies to heaven, the angels take it away, saying that the soul is saved.

Why did it happen that in the finale it is man who wins, and not mystical forces? The answer must be sought in the author's great faith in humanity. Goethe believed that the seeking person, the free spirit, deserves forgiveness.

In heaven, the hero meets his true beloved - who was also forgiven in the first part of the poem. This relatively happy ending is an ode to the humanity of Faust and Margaret.

The author subjects his hero to great trials, various temptations, takes him through hell, purgatory and heaven, believing that only a tested soul is capable of realizing all the secrets of existence. Goethe affirms the greatness of a man who seeks, is free in spirit and has an open heart to something new in life.

At the end of the poem, she understands why life is worth living. Helping others, not just yourself, is what is important. And so he is finally truly happy.

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 repeatedly used 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 that played 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 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 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, 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 the results of Enlightenment thought and goes beyond the literature of the Enlightenment, paving the way for the future development of literature in the 19th century.

He worked most of his life, namely, sixty years. The work was included in the golden fund of literature. We also suggest that you read a summary of Faust if you have read the full version and want to remember the main plot points or characters. Let's begin the analysis by looking at the history of the creation of this famous work.

History of creation

In 1744, Goethe had an idea for a plot; he wanted to tell about the essence of human existence. The creation was completed a year and a half before his death. The real fate of the poet influenced the creation of the play. He experienced several love affairs and believed that love is a higher power.

The prototype of the main character is a real character, a warlock. When analyzing the play "Faust", one should also take into account the genre uniqueness of the work. This is a tragedy. The play "Faust" was disassembled by contemporaries into quotes that became phraseological units.

Composition and issues

The work consists of two parts. The first has 25 scenes, the second has 5 actions. In the first part, a clear time frame is established - the action takes place in medieval Germany. And in the second, the space expands significantly to the ancient era. The introduction, which consists of 3 scenes, is striking in its unusualness, and they are also the beginning. In them we learn the subsequent plot lines.

The play "Faust" raises not only eternal questions, but also social ones. Faust vehemently criticizes the current society of selfish people who live by emotions. The issue of the German education system is raised, which, according to the author, will not lead to anything good.

The eternal conflict between good and evil is revealed.

Topics

An analysis of Goethe's play "Faust" would be incomplete without a clear understanding of the theme of the tragedy. Let's consider these points in more detail.

Second love line with Helen. Everything that happened seemed to Faust like a dream and something incredible. It was then that he realized that his earthly love was for Margarita, and Helen still seemed unattainable to him.

2. Theme of morality. The knowledge of an ordinary person was not enough for Faust, he tormented himself, sought peace of mind and made a deal with Mephistopheles. It was that Faust is alive as long as humanity is alive.

Main characters

Since you probably read the entire work, you remember all the main characters, but let’s pay attention, nevertheless, to the key characters and their brief descriptions. Use these images in your analysis.

Faust is a doctor, an intellectually developed person striving for heavenly knowledge. For which he is ready to do anything.

Mephistopheles is the devil and companion of Faust. Cynic.

Margarita is the doctor's beloved, a timid girl with a big and kind heart.

Analysis of the play "Faust"

The love line emphasized Faust's personal qualities. Their relationship with Margarita was passionate, but also illegal, which was considered unacceptable in their village. After Faust's fight with the girl's brother, who was killed, the Doctor and the devil flee the village, leaving Margarita completely alone. Abandoned and frustrated, she drowns the baby in a pond. But reason returns to Faust when his beloved ends up in prison. At that moment, she already refuses his help and gives up her life to the will of God.

Faustus cannot get enough of what he already knows. But he gives his soul not only for himself, but also so that others can comprehend the truths of existence. Throughout the entire work, the doctor is a fighter against evil. Only at the end of the tragedy does peace come to his soul.

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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.