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62) The
Bible of Literature - Goethe, Faust
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languages (via Skype): Rainer: + 36 20 549 52 97 or + 36 20 334 79 74
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The Bible of Literature - Goethe,
Faust
Everyone knows him, Goethe
everywhere, in every city in Germany there is a street named after him.
Throughout the Middle Ages, there
were legends of people who were honoured or hunted as miracle doctors or
witches. They were curious people who delved a little deeper into the things
of nature and often worked as hairdressers or barbers. At that time, they
were also doctors and responsible for pulling teeth, for example. They
experimented with everything and sometimes were lucky. Many were said to
have made a covenant with the devil in order to maintain special abilities or
eternal life. At that time, it was not only God, who could give this favour,
but also the devil. And one of these beneficiaries was Doctor Faust. One of
the many before Goethe who took up this legend and made it a story was, for
example, an Englishman named Marlowe.
Goethe began his work with a
prelude, in which he complains about the theatre as a simple business and the
poet as a pure descriptor of entertaining scenes, who was obliged to make
the ignorant, uninterested audience laugh and cry. Then we are invited to
heaven for a short dialogue between two old gentlemen, who share world
domination, the good and the bad. And who has not lost patience by then will
be immediately rewarded with the current story. Goethe connects it with what
was then a current event, which then filled all newspapers. A pregnant girl
had been left alone by her lover. The world collapsed for her. Now she was a
whore in the eyes of society and would be expelled. In desperation, she
decided to secretly give birth to the child and then kill it. What could the
poor thing have done differently, since she had seen many such examples. However,
the matter became known and a court sentenced her to death. Goethe, like most
of his more enlightened contemporaries, was probably outraged that society
was driving these young women to do atrocities so that they could later be
sentenced.
The simple structure of the plot
was also suitable for opera and other branches of art.
In the second part, it gets
interesting. Goethe gives a personal overview of 2500 years of European
cultural history. I just want to give 2 short examples:
- Faust accompanied by Mephisto is
at a royal court and they are supposed to offer something special to show at
the command of the high lords. Mephisto makes appear Paris and Helena, the most
beautiful couple. Faust falls in love with Helena and asks Mephisto to
provide him with this woman, to which the Christian lord of the underworld
replies, which was probably the first open denial of God that he only had an
influence on the Christian world of gods and that others were responsible for
Greek mythology .
- Faust and Mephisto come to
Greece with the help of various magic tricks and accompanied by a liquid of
amino acids, which are stored in a glass container called Homunculus (small
human), who seeks the origin of life. This artificial human gets so close to
the catamaran of a sea nymph drawn by dolphins that his glass breaks on the
planks of the boat and his liquid spreads into the sea. That way, he had
already solved the riddle around 200 years ago: Life originates from the sea
(This thought actually was developed by Epicurus 341 - 270 BC, Goethe
had certainly read his writings in the original ancient Greek version.).
The fact that his work has been
read by so few people is due to its timelessness and its understanding is
only possible if the reader has previously informed himself about almost every scientific field of nature and culture.
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Sonntag, 2. August 2020
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