Goethe's Faust: A Handbook of Ten Lectures (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Edward Howard Griggs

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1331025087 ISBN 13: 9781331025085

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2018

Synopsis

Excerpt from Goethe's Faust: A Handbook of Ten Lectures

The Introduction to Faust - Really a three-fold preface to Faust, if the Dedication be counted. Goethe probably 48 when the Dedica tion was written. Its personal character; indication of the place the figures of the Faust legend had occupied in Goethe's development. Peculiarly modern character of this personal introduction to the poem.

The Prelude on the Stage the external, the Prologue in Heaven the internal introduction to Faust. The one giving the contrasts of the drama from without, the other the opposition of forces from within; the one the earthly, the other the heavenly preparation for its action. Significance of this double foreshadowing of the character of the work.

The Prelude on the Stage - Its various purposes: (1) To connect Faust with the traditional puppet-play; (2) To suggest the contrast between artistic creations and their audience; (3) To suggest the irony in the relation of the inner to the outer life; (4) To foreshadow the drama in action, character and dramatic contrasts.

Separation of the real and ideal in the Prelude. - The consequent degrading of both. Action unelevated by the ideal as debased and selfish; the ideal, when no effort is made to express it in action, as sentimental and false. The weak sentimentality of the poet of the Prelude; vulgarity of the clown; sordidness of the manager.

The manager' a description of the poet's audience: truth and falsity in the view. Dramatic irony in the Prelude.

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Edition details

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1331025087
• ISBN 13: 9781331025085
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 69