Though Goethe’s play is subtitled A Tragedy we must not assume that we are obliged to understand the play according to Aristotle’s description in the Poetics. Certainly, among European literatures and in the later seventeenth century, tragedies have been generally understood this way, a definition largely interpreted by Neoclassical theorists. Thus, the term immediately evokes a series of categories that are still in common use; (hero, innocent, suffering, fate, tragic flaw, guilt and repentance, reversal, catastrophe). Even where these specific categories may be seen not to apply, neo-Aristotelian theory has left a substratum of assumption about the nature of drama and particularly of tragedy, namely that it deals with individuals confronting profound moral, emotional, and psychological issues and it is this psychological consistency that is necessary to make a drama “believable.” However, it is only with this new psychological focus does love emerge as the great subject for tragedy. Faust contains, without doubt, such a tragedy of passion in the Gretchen sequence. From the vantage point of the later eighteenth century, Neoclassicism had substantially narrowed the meaning of tragedy, for at least in Germany and England through the seventeenth century it had referred to any drama with an unhappy outcome. This recent change in meaning suggests that tragedy stands in the title not as a term to be taken for granted but as one to be questioned and defined by the play. Goethe proposes the genre of his play in the two prologues. At the end of the “Prelude on the Stage” the director calls upon his people to pace out in the ‘narrow’ stage, the whole circle of creation to move from heaven through the world to hell. This is a call for “worl...
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... end, it poses its conflicts in terms of morality, its underlying subtext praising the supremacy of virtue and morality, and punishing carnal sin. In the story, woman suffers, but through her travails she achieves salvation and forgiveness: in Faust, Goethe introduced the sacrificing woman, the “eternal woman,” “la femme eterne” or “ewige webliche, the female ideal that ultimately consumed nineteenth-century German Romantics.
Thus, the Gretchen story is Goethe’s most famous addition to the Faust legend. Here we find the oldest core of the play, the most coherent sequence of scenes, realism, accurate psychology, a delicate grasp of social issues-in short, the culmination of the eighteenth-century love tradition and the great tragic love story of the nineteenth century. The “Gretchen episode” in Goethe’s autobiography enables us to achieve a clearer sense of Goethe’s
The tradition of the tragedy, the renowned form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis, has principally become a discontinued art. Plays that evoke the sense of tragedy-the creations of Sophocles, Euripides, and William Shakespeare-have not been recreated often, nor recently due to its complex nature. The complexity of the tragedy is due to the plot being the soul of the play, while the character is only secondary. While the soul of the play is the plot, according to Aristotle, the tragic hero is still immensely important because of the need to have a medium of suffering, who tries to reverse his situation once he discovers an important fact, and the sudden downturn in the hero’s fortunes. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is the modern tragedy of a common man named Willy Loman, who, like Oedipus from Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, exhibits some qualities of a tragic hero. However, the character Willy Loman should not be considered a full-on tragic hero because, he although bears a comparable tragic flaw in his willingness to sacrifice everything to maintain his own personal dignity, he is unlike a true tragic hero, like Oedipus, because he was in full control of his fate where Oedipus was not.
Tantillo, Astrida Orle. " Damned to Heaven: The Tragedy of Faust Revisited."Monatshefte Für Deutschsprachige Literatur Und Kultur 99.4 (2007): 454-468. Print.
Goethe, Johnann Wolfgang von. The Sorrows of Young Werther. Trans. Elizabeth Meyer and Louise Bogan. Forward by W.H. Auden. New York: Vintage, 1990.
At First the article Touches on the questioning of what Faust is. In summery, Faust is the protagonist of an old German story about a guy who is actually really successful, but at the same time is somewhat dissatisfied with his life life. He had a serious lust for earthly happiness, alo...
Benjamin, Walter. The Origin of German Tragic Drama. Trans. John Osborne. London: n.p., 1998. Print. fourth
In Faust, Margaret was the most pious, virtuous woman in the beginning. She attended church devoutly, worked for the betterment and care of her family, and kept herself pure in public eyes. Margaret's brother took pride in his sister's resistance to her nature. His family was seen as good because of the female members, but as soon as a woman succumbs to her nature, her family is shamed. As the seduced inno...
“Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, "What's in it for me?”- Brian Tracy. Faust is illustrated to be an exceedingly sophisticated scholar and alchemist; a man of discontent, and is compelled to obtain a vast amount of the world’s knowledge that surrounds him. In spite of all his triumphs, Faust becomes strangely unsatisfied at his life accomplishments’, “Oh God, how hard I’ve slaved away, With what results? Poor foolish old man, I’m no whit wiser than when I began!”(Goethe Lines 121-20).
Von Goethe, Johann W. “The Sorrows of Young Werther.” Romanticism. Ed. John B. Halsted. New . . York: Walker Publishing Company, 1969.
Romanticism was deeply interested in creating art and literature of suffering, pain and self-pity. With poets pining for a love long gone and dead and authors falling for unavailable people, it appears that romantics in literature were primarily concerned with self-injury and delusion. In Goethe's novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther", we find another romantic character fulfilling his tragic destiny by falling victim to extreme self-deception.
The Romanticism period is marked by changes in societal beliefs as a rejection of the values and scientific thought pursued during the Age of Enlightenment. During this period, art, music, and literature are seen as high achievement, rather than the science and logic previously held in esteem. Nature is a profound subject in the art and literature and is viewed as a powerful force. Searching for the meaning of self becomes a noble quest to undertake. In the dramatic tragedy of “Faust” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, we find a masterpiece of Romanticism writing that includes the concepts that man is essentially good, the snare of pride, and dealing with the supernatural.
Faust’s one desire was to seek out to gain more knowledge out of life, and so he makes a pact with the devil or the “baron”,mestopheles and faust sets out from the long years in his study with mestopheles to seek and fulfill this desire in the outside world, by simply interacting with the everyday life. Faust shows no weakness towards the lustful drinking party in auerbachs cellar, on the contrary he openly says that he is “inclined to leave immediately.” (line: 2295) Here he holds on to his individuality which he had shown a clear part of it before entering the cellar when he said “I never was at ease with other people, they make me feel so small and continually embarrassed.” (lines: 2058-2060) the people around the individuals have the ability to make someone feel “small” or less fortunate than other; some individuals are effected and some or not. Those who are effected undergo what is called secondary socialization, where their personality is influenced and is changed and reformed according to these people. In fausts case; he shows no sign of weakness and does not try to fit in and so he clearly shows that he isn’t enjoying himself like the other men and so he wants to leave. This did not effect his personality but another temptation did, and that was the temptation of lust or love. His strong powerful personality seems to change in the blink of an eye when he looks into the mirror in the witch’s kitchen and sees the image of the lady; he seems to forget everything especially his aim to seek knowledge and his new aim becomes this woman and all he wants is to get to her.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. The Sorrows of Young Werther. Trans. Elizabeth Mayer and Louis Bogan. 1774; New York: Random House, 1970.
A modern tragedy of today and a tragedy of ancient Greece are two very different concepts, but ironically, both are linked by many similarities. In “Poetics”, Aristotle defines and outlines tragedy for theatre in a way that displays his genius, but raises questions and creates controversy. Aristotle’s famous definition of tragedy states:
...adaptation. Goethe is keen on the belief that the primal sin is non-action and not erring, and that movement, action, and striving, are equated with virtue. This sentiment is also reflected in the Prologue where the Lord said that striving and error is the path of the righteous man and eventually to salvation. It is only with passivity that man would completely lose his way. These principles however are somewhat lost in the movie adaptation due to the visual effects, but not completely. Upon looking back, it is perceived that Faust never stopped in his quest. He may have made numerous and grave mistakes along the way but there was always a part of him that knew deep down inside (especially in the actual play) that what he had with Margaret were genuine emotions of love and was only marred by the incessant devious plots of Mephisto that cause him to be blinded.
Looking at Faust, we can draw an analogy between love and a disease. If a person has vulnerabilities, love can exploit them and manifest itself in that person. When Faust kisses Gretchen’s hand, she says “How can you kiss my hand? / It is so ugly and so rough! / So much I have to scour and scrub and sand” (139). This shows us that Gretchen has a very low self-esteem. The act of Faust kissing her coarse hands reminds her of her own poverty. Faust notices and takes advantage of this, engaging her in conversation and throwing out subtle hints of his interest in her – “She was an angel, if she was like you” (140). Gretchen is confused as to what Faust sees in her, and says that Faust must be bold to think that “So light a girl would give him all he wanted” (142). She cannot understand that her body gives her what her lack of sophistication does not. She gets caught up in the fact that Faust is vastly superior in social status. This is apparent in her ...