“The general meaning of the tragedy “Faust.”

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………3

Reflection of enlightenment rationalism in the tragedy “Faust”...4

The problem of knowledge and cognition……………………………………………………..5

Comparison: Fausta and Wagner…………………………………………...7

Conclusion……………………………………………………………8

Introduction

Only a few poets develop their own, completely personal relationship with Poetry. Johann Wolfgang Goethe belonged to such poets. The more you get to know him, the more you understand: he was not just involved in the world of poetry - this world of poetry was contained in him, and he was its ruler.

Goethe never cared about self-expression - and he would not even want the personality of the poet to be reflected in his creations. As a matter of fact, he wanted to be a person who would reflect being in himself - so completely and in detail that a conversation of equals would develop between a person and being. For the sake of such an unprecedented dialogue, one had to become a poet, and then create with confidence, authority, and dignity. A person who is equal to the world, to being, is not just a poet in poetry, but a creator, and therefore a man of action rather than words, and, in any case, not a bookish person. Goethe treated words on paper with disdain. And poetry had to reflect the general thought about the world. “After all, I don’t place the word so highly, // To think that it is the basis of everything,” says Faust in Goethe; Goethe himself judged this way - about the poetic word, the literary word.

Goethe's lyrics go back not to the immediacy of feeling, but to the breadth of the world, which the personality, internally transforming, strives to embrace. Its source is thought (but not dry and abstract!). A thought is not a feeling.

The word “thought” here means philosophical, scientific content, and for Goethe, first of all, natural scientific content, the world as nature, and in all its manifestations (from the structure of the universe and geology to plants and to man, to his history, to the history of his spirit , culture) and in many ways of comprehending it - from beauty to its exact knowledge.

Reflection of enlightenment rationalism in the tragedy "Faust".

The idea of ​​Goethe's Faust is rooted in the Enlightenment with its grandiose optimism: enlighteners were able to refute the presence of evil in the world - or bypass evil with their explanations. Goethe's Faust is much broader than such enlightenment with its heroic beauty. Goethe defined the genre of the work - tragedy. Faust should be read as a tragedy. True, this tragedy is special. In it, the positive outcome of the whole is brought forward: the Lord God, who condescended to a patient conversation with the devil, who allows him to cruelly test the learned Faust, argues in Lessing’s style: “He who seeks is forced to wander,” but in his dark aspiration he recognizes the right path: “Instinctly , of his own accord // He will break out of the impasse.” Faust fearlessly makes a bet with the devil: he knows that his desire will never be quenched - after all, this is not his personal, but a universal human trait - the infinity of the desire for the unknown: all people by nature thirst for knowledge. As a matter of fact, the three parties to the agreement - God, the devil, Faust - hold approximately the same view of the essence of man and nevertheless argue about something the outcome of which is clear.

What is this “Faust”? Without hesitation we can say: a truly German theme, prepared by the entire spiritual development of the 18th century; around it gather the deepest and most pressing problems discussed by German thought. With Goethe it turns out that way: world history and modernity, the origin of the Earth, German literary life, the essence of man - all this is contained in his extraordinary work, and to discuss all this a special unique literary genre with its symbolic-mythological language has been developed.

And as a German theme of the 18th century, Faust is the embodiment of an insatiable thirst for knowledge. This theme was experienced by Goethe himself - like no one else. When creating Faust, he relied on his immense dreams and aspirations. You can’t just think that Faust is Goethe. Not at all: this is his “inner image” thrown away from himself, subjected to criticism - in the real Goethe, in addition to the greed of knowledge, there was also reasonable humility, without which everything conceived crumbles into dust before being, as happened with Faust. Lessing wrote in 1778: “The value of a person is determined not by the possession of truth, real or imaginary, but by honest labor used to achieve the truth... If God, having concluded the truth in his right hand, and the eternal desire for truth in shuitzu, but with the fact that I would be endlessly mistaken, he told me: “Choose!”, I would humbly clung to his left hand, saying: “Father, give! The pure truth - it’s only for you!” Many German writers of the second half of the 18th century, starting with Lessing, worked on works about Faust. Goethe shows what happened next - after man chose not the truth, but the desire for it and the path of error.

The problem of knowledge and cognition.

Goethe's Faust opens with a monologue of an old doctor - a monologue in which the main reasons for his torment are expressed. He comprehended philosophy, law, medicine, theology; he spared no effort in studying these sciences, and, despite this extensive knowledge, he feels like a pathetic fool. Here we are faced with the first reason for Faust’s dissatisfaction, with disappointment in science, with the consciousness that science cannot satisfy the demands that he makes for knowledge. Let us listen further to Faust, and we will see the entire path of doubt experienced by European society in the transitional era. “I,” says Faust, “turned to magic: perhaps, through the power and lips of the spirit, numerous secrets will be revealed to me... I will find out what lies in the deepest secrets of the universe, I will comprehend the creative forces and the beginnings of existence.”

These words contain new curious features of Faust’s worldview. We will find out what Faust expected from science, and we will find out where he began to look for the answer when science did not satisfy him. The next important idea that emerges from the above words is new way knowledge of nature, which Faust chooses. Faust indulges in magic; tries to combine into one means of understanding the world both positive knowledge based on experience and observation, and direct penetration into the secrets of nature. He cannot believe, and at the same time, religion has not yet lost its meaning for him. He takes the cup of poison from his lips, which has already been brought to them, when he hears the ringing of the bell and the prayerful singing of the choir, with which Easter morning is greeted in German cities. The memory of his childhood years, of the grateful feeling that this ringing evoked in his soul in those days, keeps him from committing suicide. In the next scene, outside the city gates, walking with Wagner, he stops at a stone and remembers: “Here I often sat, alone in thought, tormenting myself with prayer and fasting, rich in hope, firm in faith.” This path on which Faust stands, this oscillation between faith and knowledge, is the third, main feature of his worldview. The fourth feature is the inner consciousness that this middle path is unstable, that metaphysics does not give it any solid point of support. When the Spirit of the earth, summoned by Faust, personifying the life of nature in its entire great whole, appears before him, Faust is depressed by this phenomenon: the gaze of a mortal cannot bear absolute contemplation, Faust retreats back in horror. Faust feels that there is no way out for him. He feels the duality of his nature. “Ah, two souls live in my chest: one still wants to separate from the other, with its tenacious organs, one clings to the world in a healthy aspiration of love; the other, in the mountain of high ancestors, rises powerfully from decay.” This dualism of human nature, as we will see, was the cause of torment for another representative of the “world’s sorrow” - Manfred. Why is a person instilled with aspirations for the absolute, the eternal, when his pitiful earthly shell keeps him on earth, in the chains of the temporary, the relative? Faust constantly oscillates between a high idea of ​​himself as the bearer of these upward impulses and the consciousness of his insignificance. “I am the image of a deity!” he exclaims; and after a while he says: “I am like a worm that burrows in the dust.” Thus, the reasons for Faust’s torment can be summarized as follows: Faust cannot renounce the striving for the absolute instilled in him by tradition, but he cannot, on the other hand, under the influence of critical thought, be satisfied with the means by which tradition resolved these strivings, i.e. faith.

Comparison: Faust and Wagner.

Wagner, in contrast to Faust, is satisfied with formal, dry knowledge; he is not interested in nature, he does not know doubts and hesitations; this is a real scholastic who is occupied with the very process of learning; he does not seek absolute truth.

Wagner is sure that first of all it is necessary to learn the rules of rhetoric, master eloquence, establish diction and develop a good syllable.

Faust considers all formal tricks useless. Only the speech that comes from the soul is convincing:

When something seriously owns you,

You won't chase words

And reasoning full of embellishment,

The brighter and more flowery the turns,

They're boring...

Faust's main idea: “The key of wisdom is not in the pages of books.”

Moving from one book to another, from page to page, is Wagner’s supreme bliss. Wagner is a type of limited pedant without high aspirations and a lofty goal that warms his studies. This is a type of useless scientist who accumulates knowledge, but does not expand his horizons with it, and does not introduce new ideas into the world. If Faust depicts the torments of inquisitive honest thought, then Wagner embodies the complacency of falsified science, taking the means for the end, satisfied with its quantitative superiority in the field of knowledge.

Conclusion.

The creation of the German poet-thinker, inexhaustible in beauty and depth, “Faust” contains not a ready-made truth, but an indicative lesson in its achievement. Eternal creation; it contains communication with the truth, the unattainable truth, the tragic experience of striving for it.

Faust is by no means Goethe’s “favorite” hero, and the reader should not identify himself with him. “Faust” is one of those works that are given not to sympathy, but to thought, to the constant consideration of what and how is happening here. Decidingly at odds with the concrete humanity of Russian classical literature, Goethe’s “Faust” offers the Russian reader the task of reflecting on the educational ideas of Freedom, Equality, ... brings J.V. Goethe to tragedy "Faust", assessing a new historical type... . Insolvency rationalism XX century. Realism and modernism: reflection Exodus options...

The spiritual quest of humanity in the tragedy of I.-V. Goethe "Faust".

The history of the creation of tragedy and its place in Goethe’s work.

Most Fausta is not an original invention . This image arose in the depths of folk art and only later entered book literature.

The hero of folk legend, Doctor Johann Faust, is a historical figure. He wandered through the cities of Protestant Germany during the turbulent era of the Reformation and peasant wars. Whether he was just a clever charlatan, or really a learned doctor and brave natural scientist, has not yet been established. In the period from 1770 to 1782, references to “Faust” are often found in Goethe’s correspondence with friends and colleagues and in his autobiography. During this period, individual fragments of the tragedy were heard by the author’s immediate circle. Literary circles We were looking forward to the presentation of the work.

In "Ur-Faust" there is already the backbone of the future first part of the tragedy. The main motives are not fully developed. The tragedy of knowledge has not yet reached its extreme tension. The image of Mephistopheles is also not complete: he is not yet a tempter, but only a mocker mocking the Student. The remaining fantastic figures do not appear.

The little development of the initial part created in the reader the feeling that this was not a philosophical, but a love tragedy. The tragedy of Margaret is depicted by the young Goethe with great inner feeling. Goethe created the image of a rebel against the forces of church, state and tradition that fetter the human mind and feelings in “Ur-Faust.” This Protestant is against the church and religion. The deity for Goethe-Pra-Faust is life itself, reality itself, embodied in the image of an earthly spirit, and his assistant , the power of the earth, - cursed as such by the church.

But in “Ur-Faust” the duality in the worldview of the young Goethe also clearly appears. Goetz dies because he opposes the imperial power. “Ur-Faust” does not have a monolithic, purposeful worldview; he is ruined by this duality: he cannot separate an action from the consequences arising from it. The hero in "Ur-Faust", who thought to find highest freedom in the joys of love and in return for this, having mercilessly crushed the tradesman Gretchen, falls into despair, and his path, as far as can be judged from the surviving fragments, is lost in deep darkness.

In the decade from 1776 to 1786, Goethe changed his views not on literature and creativity. He comes to the conclusion that literary protests against the existing order are fruitless, because they are not supported by either the people or the burghers. But Goethe still remained an ardent enemy of official religion.

At this stage, Goethe realizes the need to revise and reveal the image of Faust. The restless spirit, the titanism of the hero, his search for an ideal remained. But Goethe understands the insufficiency of only internal sources of strength, which was characteristic of the period of “storm and stress”. Goethe was in no hurry to endow the hero with his wisdom: Faust had to live and develop in a natural way for him.

Faust grows up in the truest sense of the word. The hero of "Ur-Faust" is young , not yet 30. In 1788, when Goethe took on the continuation of the tragedy, he was 39. He saw Faust differently - an old man, wise in the sciences, but retaining a lively mind and desire for truth. This is how Goethe introduces new motive. The hero's despair at the futility of science is aggravated by the fact that there is nothing ahead, so by concluding a contract with the devil, he starts life over again. This is what the fragment with rejuvenation (“The Witch’s Kitchen”) is for.

Returning to work on Faust, Goethe makes a very important note. It defines a kind of ideological core of the tragedy - the first draft of the plan. In it, in addition to other thoughts already put on paper, such thoughts also appear as “the dispute between form and the formless,” “the preference for formless content over empty form,” “Wagner’s clear, cold scientific aspiration” - this is the plan for Faust’s future conversation with Wagner.

Goethe's changing aesthetic concepts prevented him from continuing to work on the tragedy. He was no longer attracted to the German Middle Ages, Gothic, or the legend of Faust. A trip to Italy changes his idea of ​​creativity and literature. Now he strives for classical clarity and harmony, for the unity and harmony of its individual parts.

The biblical story of how Satan killed faith in Job, trying to bring troubles upon him, prompted Goethe to preface the story of Faust with a dispute between Satan and God about Faust. The desire for good or the tendency for evil? - such a beginning gives the tragedy a pan-human scale.

"Ur-Faust" was a tragedy of the personalities and destinies of the heroes, and became a tragedy for man in general. “Walpurgis Night” also appears in the first part.

When Goethe conceived Faust, he did not imagine the volume of the future work. But after he wrote "Ur-Faust", he became convinced of the impossibility of containing such a large within the framework of one play. It became obvious that Faust needed to be divided into two parts. In the plan of the 1790s, it was already clearly delineated what each of the parts would be about. In the first part, the action revolves around the hero's personal experiences; in the second plans to show the hero's relationship with the outside world.

In general, in the first act, Goethe embodied the results of his many years of reflection on the nature of contemporary power and reported the historical experience of his era.

The first part of Faust was fragmentary, clearly divided into scenes, each representing a separate whole, but the second part became compositionally a single whole.

Work on second part lasted from 1827 to 1830-1831. Goethe seals the finished manuscript in an envelope and asks for the work to be published only after his death.

Goethe worked on Faust throughout his life.

Key dates creative history"Fausta" are:

1774-1775 - “Urfaust” (Ur-Faust),

1790 - publication of “Faust” in the form of a “Fragment”,

1806 - end of the first part,

1808 - publication of the first part,

1825 - work began on the second part,

1826 - completion of “Helen” (first draft - 1799),

1830 - “Classical Walpurgis Night”,

1831 - “Philemon and Baucis”, ending of “Faust”.

The tragedy, written over almost 60 years (with interruptions), was begun during the period of “storm and stress”, but ended in an era when German literature dominated romantic school. Naturally, “Faust” reflects all the stages through which the poet’s work followed.

The first part is in close connection with the Sturmer period of Goethe's work. The theme of a girl abandoned by her lover, who in a fit of despair becomes a child killer (Gretchen), was very common in the literature of “sturm und drang” (cf. “The Child Killer” by Wagner, “The Priest’s Daughter from Taubenheim” by Bürger, etc.). An appeal to the age of fiery Gothic, Knittelvers, a language saturated with vulgarisms, a craving for monodrama - all this speaks of a closeness to “sturm und drang”. The second part, reaching special artistic expression in “Helen”, is included in the circle of literature of the classical period. Gothic contours give way to ancient Greek ones. The scene of action becomes Hellas. The vocabulary is cleared. Knittelvers gives way to poems of an antique style. The images acquire some kind of special sculptural density (old Goethe’s passion for the decorative interpretation of mythological motifs, for purely spectacular effects: masquerade - scene 3 of Act I, the classic Walpurgis Night, and the like). In the final scene of Faust, Goethe already pays tribute to romanticism, introducing a mystical choir, revealing Catholic heaven to Faust.

Like Wilhelm Meister's Years of Wandering, the second part of Faust is largely a summary of Goethe's thoughts on the natural sciences, politics, aesthetics and philosophy. Individual episodes find their justification solely in the author’s desire to give artistic expression to some scientific or philosophical problem (cf. the poetic texts of “Metamorphoses of Plants”). All this makes the second part of Faust cumbersome, and since Goethe willingly resorts to allegorical disguise of his thoughts, it makes it very difficult to understand. Goethe failed to complete Faust. This was prevented by death from a heart attack on March 22, 1832.

Genre originality of tragedy.

Goethe called Faust a tragedy, thereby emphasizing that it depicts
an exceptionally acute life conflict that led to the death of a character.
Since the tragedy in question is aimed at a deep philosophical understanding of the world, the meaning of human life, it is usually called philosophical.
But, analyzing the genre nature of Faust, modern scholars note that
This work has features of various genres. By many indicators
it is close to a dramatic poem, a poetic work in which
dramatic, epic and lyrical principles are combined. At the core
dramatic poem has an internal dynamic plot that reflects
development of a conflict between ideological and moral principles. IN
In Goethe's work of this type, the conflict is clearly embodied in the confrontation
two main characters. At the same time, Faust has a strong lyrical beginning.
For example, the scene of the appearance of
Faust in Margarita's room. The tragedy Faust became the source of many musical works.

Aesthetic principles Goethe in "Prologue at the Theatre".

The tragedy begins with the "Prologue in the Theater." In the conversation of the director, poet and comic actor, in their different interpretations there are no irreconcilable contradictions in what should be shown on stage; all three seem to complement each other, and in their judgments about the goals and essence of art, the reader recognizes the aesthetic principles of the creator of Faust. The poet defends the high purpose of art. Not a tinsel sparkle that can deceive untrained eyes only for a moment, but perfect, true beauty, which is the embodiment of the artist’s many years of thoughts - this is the essence of art. Such art becomes the property of centuries, the subject of admiration for posterity.

Offspring! This is what I'm tired of talking about! - argues the comic actor. And his objection cannot be rejected, because art cannot and should not pass by its contemporaries; it first of all addresses itself to them, to their heart and mind, and only through them to descendants, to centuries. Goethe reveals the secret of the charm of great works: they give food to everyone, being able to satisfy everyone in the most amazing way. Everyone searches in them and finds their own, in tune with their thoughts, feelings, and moods.

So, the gigantic philosophical problems that have worried people for centuries will appear in tragedy in an allegorical allegory, in an everyday picture, in a clownish scene.

Epic in tone, images, breadth of reality, it is at the same time inspired and lyrical.

A philosophical dispute about man and his future as the beginning of a tragedy (“Prologue in the sky”).

“Prologue in Heaven” opens with a hymn to mighty nature, universal expanses, eternal motion, a hymn to the Sun and the earth:

And with incomprehensible speed,
The globe of the earth is spinning.

The darkness of the night and the radiance of the day alternate, the tides of the seas and gusts of storms rustle. All this is subject to the mysterious laws of nature.

The Lord embodies the positive, creative forces of nature and man. But Mephistopheles denies and doubts, does not believe in the triumph of human genius. Mephistopheles must tell the Lord about the fate of man on earth. They argue about the possibilities of the human mind and will.

- “I see only the suffering of man,” says Mephistopheles, “reason is of no use to man.”
...property is

To be a brute from among the brutes! -

Mephistopheles ironically laments.

A person seems to him like an absurd grasshopper, who rushes about stupidly and inevitably ends up in the mud. Mephistopheles is ready to bet that even a person with high aspirations, such as Doctor Faustus, will succumb to base temptations and turn off the path, abandoning his quest.

While his mind is still wandering in the darkness,

But he will be illuminated by a ray of truth, -

The Lord answers Mephistopheles. He believes in man. This is the faith of Goethe himself, the faith of the enlightener in the power of reason, in the final victory of the conscious, humane principle.
But victory must be won. The dispute is not resolved. Let a person search, let him move towards the truth through suffering and doubt. Mephistopheles was given to Faust as a companion, “let him stimulate him to action.”

At the city gates folk festival. Goethe colorfully represents all layers of German society. There are apprentices and students, beggars and maids, burghers and peasants. The soldiers sing a boastful song. And then there is the sedate conversation of elderly townspeople. They talk about local news and news from afar. They love to hear how “somewhere in Turkey, in a distant place, peoples are cutting and fighting,” while at home the burghers crave silence:

Turn the whole world upside down, -

Only here it’s the same as before

Everything remains.

Outside the city gates, the eternally young land is already green. The violins are playing, the peasants are dancing. They recognize Doctor Faustus, surround him, and have a conversation. Today is a holiday and you can forget about all the troubles that plague the poor people. It's the spring festival, and people have escaped the clutches of the medieval city, which embodies the darkness of the Middle Ages: gray boring houses, narrow unsightly streets, squares where the guilty and innocent are executed. Performances were staged in these same squares during the fair season.

Mephistopheles, the spirit of doubt that arouses action, appeared at the moment when a turning point occurred in Faust’s soul. Plunging into the midst of the people, hearing the voices of living life, Faust is ready to embark on a new path. To Faust’s question “So who are you?” Mephistopheles answers:

... I am part of the eternal power,

Always wishing evil, doing

Only good things.

Mephistopheles is a tempter who despises man and does not believe in his strength; this makes him alien and hostile to Faust. But Mephistopheles knows how to vigilantly see the reverse side of things, he contains a skeptical philosopher with a critical mind, and with this he complements Faust. Many truths and sound judgments of the author himself were put into the mouth of Mephistopheles.
The meeting with Mephistopheles accelerates Faust's decision to break with the past, get out of the dark hole and enter “a world where life sparkles.” Mephistopheles proposes, and Faust agrees to conclude an agreement with him.

Faust is sure that he will not ossify “on the bed of sleep, contentment and peace.” He is not looking for empty entertainment, but for higher knowledge. To experience everything, to taste all the happiness and sorrow of humanity, to know the highest meaning of life on Earth - such is the Promethean scope of his aspirations.

The image of Faust. Stages of the hero’s spiritual quest:

Faust image

Faust" consists of two parts. According to the apt remark of one of the Russian literary scholars, the first part of "Faust" can be called "theatrical", and the second "mystical". If you carefully read in the tragedy, you can find not only "two Fausts", but also "two Mephistopheles."

Faustus of the first part of the tragedy is a sage with a rebellious mind, a man who does not want to remain within the framework of everyday life, unable to come to terms with the fact that knowledge has a divine limit. In the second part, Faust is a builder, an architect, concerned about the benefits for humanity. It is in serving his neighbor that Faust finds the meaning of his life. The denouement of the second part of Faust is more tragic than the first. An old man who has lost his sight, Faust continues his life's work - building a dam. But this construction, alas, takes place only in his mind, and his orders are carried out by lemurs - ethereal inhabitants of the kingdom of the dead. But here, too, Mephistopheles finds himself in the role of a loser: even the ghostly work completed by Faust shortly before his death turns out to be proof that the rebellious doctor remains with God.

A) Why Faus was chosen by God and Mephistopheles to resolve the dispute;

"Prologue in Heaven" has a symbolic philosophical meaning. In the center of this part of the work is the dispute between God and Mephistopheles (this is the name given to the devil). The Lord symbolizes good, Mephistopheles symbolizes evil. The “Prologue” begins with the chants of the three archangels. Admiring the perfection of the Universe, they sing “praise of the greatness of God’s works.” The voice of Mephistopheles suddenly bursts into their chants, he mocks the main creation of God - man, who, in his opinion, is not worthy of any praise:

I have nothing to say about suns and worlds:I see only the torment of a person.Funny god of the earth, always, in all centuriesHe is the same eccentric as he was at the beginning of the century!His life would be a little betterWhenever he had a chance to ownThat reflection of divine light,What he calls reason: this propertyHe could only use it for one thing -To become a beast from among the brutes!Allow me - even though the etiquette here is strict -To decorate the speech with comparison: he looks likeNo give or take the long-legged grasshopper,Which jumps on the grass and then takes offAnd he always repeats the old song.

In response to the words of Mephistopheles, the Lord calls the name of Faust, seeing in him a man worthy of admiration. The devil is ready to bet that this representative of the human race will not stand the test and will prove himself to be a base creature. God allows Mephistopheles, in the person of Faust, to test the powers of man, in which he is completely confident.

B) True and false science: Faust and Wagner;

Wagner belongs to this “philological” movement new science which arose during the Renaissance. This "philological" humanism continued to develop in XVII-XVIII centuries. His last refuges were historical and philological faculties and gymnasiums of the 19th and early 20th centuries.So, Wagner is a humanist philologist. And Faust belongs to the movement that turned to the direct study of nature. But he, as we know from himself, passed all the faculties. At one time he paid tribute to classical philology, but now he has also gone further than Wagner in it. Turning to their conversation, one can notice that Wagner considers it important to master all the formal laws of rhetoric.

But Faust no longer attaches much importance to them. The dispute between Wagner and Faust reflects the struggle against the classicist dogmatists of the Gottsched school, which was waged by representatives of Sturm und Drang, who affirmed the need for sincerity in literature and sought to ensure that poetry expressed genuine feelings and passions, neglecting all formal rules. They also differ in relation to the past. Wagner is most attracted to it, but Faust considers studying it a fruitless exercise.

B) The love of Faust and Margarita;

At the center of Goethe's tragedy is the story of Doctor Faustus, in whose image the author's faith in the limitless creative possibilities of man, in his mind and soul is embodied. Faust not only recognizes himself as a person, but also contrasts himself with the rest of the world.

This opposition also manifested itself in the tragic love story of Faust and Margarita. Having regained his youth with the help of Mephistopheles, Faust falls in love with the first beautiful girl he saw - the modest and hardworking, but pious and narrow-minded Margarita. Mephistopheles hopes that in her arms Faust will find that sweet moment that he wants to prolong indefinitely. He helps Faust seduce Margarita. She is an ordinary woman who enjoys both rich gifts and the admiration of a noble gentleman. And Faust is attracted not only by her beauty and freshness, but also by Margarita’s spiritual purity and kindness. He is not embarrassed by the fact that she is a commoner and uneducated. The tragedy arises later: Faust could not and did not want to marry the girl, and therefore she was doomed to shame.In Margarita, the ability to selflessly love is combined with a sense of duty. She sincerely believes in God and tries to guide the atheist Faust on the path of truth. The girl deeply experiences her “fall”. At the same time, she hopes for God’s protection and salvation of her soul. After all, after the murder of Margarita’s brother, Faust was forced to hide, and the entire burden of the shame of the birth of an illegitimate child falls on Margarita’s fragile shoulders. She turns out to be a sinner both in the eyes of others and in her own eyes. Gretchen cannot understand why the love that gave her such joy is contrary to morality. This passion is the indirect cause of the death of brother Valentin and the death of his mother, whom Margarita accidentally poisoned. Now Faust's beloved, who killed her unborn child in a fit of madness, is doomed to execution.

Faust, who finds out about this, rushes to the rescue and finds Gretchen in prison. He wants to take Margarita with him. But it's too late! In a brief moment of enlightenment, she admits herself guilty and wants to suffer punishment in order to save her soul: “I submit to God’s judgment.” The desire to live and love fights in her soul with the horror of hell. Gretchen's last words are addressed to her beloved. “Dead!” - Faust exclaims in despair. "Saved!" - a voice comes from heaven. She was forgiven, and now Margarita’s soul is free.

D) Temptation of Faust.

The first temptation offered to him is a wild life, but F. quickly leaves Auerbach's cellar: the company of drunkards is not for him. The second temptation is love: Mephistopheles returns F.’s youth, believing that sensual pleasures will forever distract his ward from high aspirations. The first part of the tragedy is devoted to the history of relations with Margarita. Mephistopheles miscalculated again, and although love for F. turned out to be disastrous for Gretchen, F. himself did not behave as the devil expected. Having experienced joy mutual love, F. begins to get bored, but does not admit it even to himself.

In the second part, F. must experience the temptation of power, beauty, and action. With Mephistopheles he finds himself at the emperor's court and proposes some financial innovations. Then, striving for absolute beauty, he asks to use devilish spells to summon the Beautiful Helen to him. Mephistopheles turned out to be powerless to control the pagan world, and F. turns for help to certain Mothers living in a mysterious world. F. manages to extract her from oblivion, he marries her, and their son Euphorion is born, who inherited boundless aspirations from his father, which leads the young man to death. Elena also leaves F., returning to her world.Mephistopheles returns to F. - trials and temptations resume. F. is not attracted by wealth, power, or fame; he craves activity, and useful activity. The Emperor provides F. with a plot of land on the seashore in order to improve this land. Mephistopheles creates all sorts of obstacles for his ward, making him the culprit in the death of two old men, Philemon and Baucis. F., nevertheless, is full of thirst for activity; he believes that he has finally found his ideal in everyday work. Once again old, blind and weak, he is happy and utters that very forbidden phrase for him and expected by Mephistopheles: “I am now experiencing the highest moment.”

6. What does Faust see as the meaning of human life? (Part 2, Act 5).

Faust devoted his entire life to science, studied mountains of books, unsuccessfully tried to find answers to questions in them. difficult questions being. The scientist realizes that he has reached a dead end and is deeply concerned about his helplessness. Faust denied himself everything: he has no family and children, he spent every minute of his life trying to get closer to the truth, and now - everything is in vain! Having lost the meaning of life, Faust decides to commit suicide, intends to drink poison, but at the last minute the devil appears in front of him, who promises to show the scientist worlds and wonders that no mortal has ever seen, to reveal the secrets of the Universe. Mephistopheles offers him exactly what a common person cannot get in this world. Faust agrees.
First, Mephistopheles tests a person with crude temptations. He takes him to the cellar, where everyone is drinking and having fun, and tests him by showing him a lovely, pure girl, Margarita. Margarita became a victim of the world to which she belonged. Faust blames himself; he now understands the degree of responsibility of each person to other people.
Mephistopheles shows Faust other worlds. He takes the hero to the emperor's palace to test him with the temptation of power. Then they get into Ancient Greece to the beautiful Elena, which also leaves the hero indifferent. By agreement with Mephistopheles, Faust, having found his ideal, must exclaim: “Stop, just a moment! You are wonderful! - and then the devil can rightfully take his soul. So far Faust could not say that about anything. They continue to search, they go a long way. Already a hundred-year-old man, the blind Faust finds the truth:

Only he is worthy of life and freedom,
Who goes to fight for them every day.

Faust realized that true happiness is to live for others, to benefit the people, the country, and to work constantly. He dreams of building a city for millions of honest workers on a piece of land reclaimed from the sea:

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!

In his immortal work Goethe showed the tragedy of a person’s spiritual quest, which can last a lifetime. A person, in his opinion, should be focused on the future, should search, dare, and not despair. Only then will his life be filled with meaning.

7. Faust and Mythistophiles - the struggle and unity of opposites on the social and moral path of humanity.

In Goethe's philosophy, the idea of ​​the dialectical unity of opposites is perhaps one of the main ideas. In the struggle of contradictions, the harmony of the world is created, in the clash of ideas - truth. The poet constantly reminds us of this.. Two heroes works - Faust and Mephistopheles - clearly demonstrate this dialectical relationship between the positive and negative principles.

Born of superstitious folk fantasy, the image of Mephistopheles in Goethe’s work embodies the spirit of negation and destruction,

Mephistopheles destroys and destroys a lot, but he cannot destroy the main thing - life.

Therefore, in the dispute between Faust and Mephistopheles, and they constantly argue, one must always see some kind of mutual replenishment of a single idea. Goethe is not always for Faust and against Mephistopheles, most often he wisely recognizes the correctness of both. Putting lofty philosophical allegories into his images, Goethe by no means forgets about the artistic concreteness of the image. Faust and Mephistopheles are endowed with certain human traits, the poet outlined the uniqueness of their characters. Faust is dissatisfied, restless, a “stormy genius,” passionate, ready to love passionately and hate strongly, he is capable of being mistaken and making tragic mistakes. His nature is hot and energetic, he is very sensitive, his heart is easily hurt, sometimes he is carelessly selfish out of ignorance and is always selfless, sympathetic, and humane. Faust is not bored. He's looking for. His mind is in constant doubt and anxiety. Faust is the thirst for comprehension, the volcanic energy of knowledge. Faust and Mephistopheles are antipodes, the first thirsts, the second is saturated, the first is greedy, the second is fed up, the first is eager to go “beyond”, the second knows that there is nothing there, there is emptiness, and Mephistopheles plays with Faust as with a foolish boy, looking treats all his impulses as whims, and cheerfully indulges them - after all, he, Mephistopheles, has an agreement with God himself.

Mephistopheles is balanced, passions and doubts do not bother his chest. He looks at the world without hatred and love, he despises it. There is a lot of sad truth in his caustic remarks. This is by no means the type of villain. He mocks the humane Faust, who destroys Margarita; it is not in his ridicule that the truth sounds, bitter even for him - the spirit of darkness and destruction. This is the type of person who is tired of long contemplation of evil and has lost faith in the good principles of the world.

Mephistopheles is sometimes a kind fellow. He does not suffer, because he does not believe in good, evil, or happiness. He sees the imperfection of the world and knows that it is eternal, that no amount of effort can change it. He finds it funny a person who, despite all his insignificance, is trying to fix something in the world. These attempts of a person are funny to him, he laughs. This laughter is condescending. Mephistopheles even takes pity on man, believing that the source of all his suffering is the very spark of God that attracts him, man, to an ideal and perfection, unattainable, as is clear to him, Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles is smart. How much irony, mockery of false learning and human vanity in his conversation with the student who mistook him for Faust! He exposes false teachings (“they rush to despiritize phenomena”), ironically teaches the young man: “Stick to the words,” “Vanent speech is always easy to put into words,” “Saving unfoundedness will save you from all adversity,” “Everyone involuntarily believes in him who is the most.” arrogant,” etc. Along the way, Goethe, through the mouth of Mephistopheles, condemns the conservatism of the legal foundations of society, when laws are “like a burden of hereditary disease.”

This is how Goethe's main characters appear.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was the most outstanding representative of the Enlightenment in Germany at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. He wrote about himself: “I have a huge advantage due to the fact that I was born in an era when the greatest world events took place.” The great poet, philosopher and thinker embodied his historical experience in the brilliant tragedy “Faust”. The poet created a brilliant parable about Man, his duty, calling, purpose on Earth.

The beginning of the tragedy consists of two prologues: “Prologue in the Theater” and “Prologue in Heaven.” In the first prologue, the poet expresses his views on art and talks about the impossibility of a talented artist combining true creativity with making money. In the second prologue, the author uses images of Christian mythology to give rise to the story of his hero, but puts educational content into them.

The author creates a conjectural picture of events in heaven, when the fate of a person is decided. Mephistopheles appears before the Lord and expresses his opinion about man, considering him a pitiful and insignificant creature. It's about about Faust, a famous scientist, but his desire to find the truth seems senseless to the devil. God, who created people, defends the abilities of his children for goodness and goodness. Recognizing the underdevelopment of man, he says:

While he is still wandering in the darkness, But he will be illuminated by a ray of truth...

There is a dispute between the rulers of Good and Evil about the soul of Faust: who will get it? What will the hero choose? If he follows the path of good, God will win; if he chooses evil, he will confirm the devil’s opinion about people. Celestials argue for the soul of one of the best representatives of the human race.

Faust devoted his entire life to science, studied mountains of books, and tried unsuccessfully to find in them answers to the complex questions of existence. The scientist realizes that he has reached a dead end and is deeply concerned about his helplessness. Faust denied himself everything: he has no family and children, he spent every minute of his life trying to get closer to the truth, and now - everything is in vain! Having lost the meaning of life, Faust decides to commit suicide, intends to drink poison, but at the last minute the devil appears in front of him, who promises to show the scientist worlds and wonders that no mortal has ever seen, to reveal the secrets of the Universe. Mephistopheles offers him exactly what an ordinary person cannot get in this world. Faust agrees.

First, Mephistopheles tests a person with crude temptations. He takes him to the cellar, where everyone is drinking and having fun. Faustus indignantly rejects such a stupid waste of life in a drunken stupor. Then the devil tests him by showing him the lovely, pure girl Margarita. Faust, who has spent his entire life among books, cannot resist and seduces her.

Goethe realistically depicts a German town, the morals of its inhabitants, and the harsh patriarchal principles of morality. Margarita is a simple, modest girl. Faust really likes both she herself and the way of life of her family; in Margarita he sees the ideal to which he strives. But getting married and staying forever in a wretched place means for Faust the end of his creative quest. He refuses Margarita, and all the residents, who just yesterday considered the girl the most pious and decent, attack her with accusations of violating moral principles.

Everyone turns away from Margarita with contempt, she kills her child, ends up in prison, where she awaits execution. This is how she pays for her love. In a half-mad state, she mistakes Faust, who appears, for the executioner who has come to execute her. Horrified, she begs him for mercy. Margarita became a victim of the world to which she belonged. Faust blames himself; he now understands the degree of responsibility of each person to other people. Material from the site

Mephistopheles shows Faust other worlds. He takes the hero to the emperor's palace to test him with the temptation of power. But this did not satisfy Faust either. Then they find themselves in Ancient Greece to the beautiful Helen, which also leaves the hero indifferent. By agreement with Mephistopheles, Faust, having found his ideal, must exclaim: “Stop, just a moment! You are wonderful! - and then the devil can rightfully take his soul. So far Faust could not say that about anything. They continue to search, they go a long way. Already a hundred-year-old man, the blind Faust finds the truth:

Only he is worthy of life and freedom, Who goes to battle for them every day.

Faust realized that true happiness is to live for others, to benefit the people, the country, and to work constantly. He dreams of building a city for millions of honest workers on a piece of land reclaimed from the sea:

Let the Child, the husband, and the elder lead my whole life in a harsh, continuous struggle, So that I can see in the brilliance of wondrous power The free land, my free people!

In his immortal work, Goethe showed the tragedy of a person’s spiritual quest, which can last a lifetime. A person, in his opinion, should be focused on the future, should search, dare, and not despair. Only then will his life be filled with meaning.

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Goethe began to write Faust during the period of Sturm und Drang. The young writer was captivated by the ancient Renaissance legend of a brave thinker whose thirst for knowledge led to a rebellion against the authority of the church, to a fall from God and to an alliance with the devil. Original edition Goethe did not publish “Faust” (1773-1775), known as “Ur-Faust.” Only half a century after his death, in 1887, was a copy of the author’s manuscript made by a Weimar lady found. Goethe did not touch Faust. Only in Rome in 1788 did he resume work.

In 1790, the first publication appeared - “Faust, Fragment”. The main character here is the same as in “Ur-Faust”, a stormy genius, there are no fundamental differences. After the “Fragment” appeared in print, work was interrupted again. Soon after french revolution, in 1797-1801, Goethe again took up his pen and radically changed the concept of his tragedy. It is based on the idea of ​​a person’s life calling. Here Faust is not a stormy genius, but a Man. The first part of Faust, in the form in which we now read it, was published in 1808.

Prologue in Heaven

The action of the tragedy begins with the “Prologue in Heaven.” The Lord, the archangels and Mephistopheles appear before the viewer. Goethe presents these images in an educational, free-thinking way. The very appearance of the Lord on the stage of the theater shocked the pious spectators and readers, and the Lord’s complacent and tolerant address to the messenger of hell, “I knew no enmity towards people like you,” aroused their protest. “Prologue in Heaven” invariably served as a target for the criticism of “Faust” that came from church circles.

The scene opens with the archangels “reporting” to the Lord about the state of the universe. This world is beautiful: the planets move in it according to immutable laws, on earth there is a regular change of day and night, ebb and flow, storms and calm. Everything is natural here, all contradictions merge into harmony.

The words of Mephistopheles invade the praises of the archangels with sharp dissonance:

I have nothing to say about suns and worlds:

I see only the torment of a person...

The blow was delivered accurately. “The torment of man” is a fact that overturns the version of the perfect structure of the world.

Mephistopheles' bitterly ironic remark raises his image high above traditional primitive ideas about the spirits of evil. Already here the image of the “great denier” is outlined, the bearer of criticism, often true and deep. And yet Mephistopheles remains the genius of evil, his love for humanity is only an appearance.

According to Mephistopheles, man’s torment is caused by the fact that, unlike animals, he is given a grain of reason. She encourages him to strive for the light, but the mind is weak, and a person’s attempts to rise above his lot invariably end in failure, which makes him unhappy.

Moreover, the mind, according to Mephistopheles, is not only insignificant, but the most evil, bestial actions of man stem from it. Granted him a pitiful piece of reason

He could only use it for one thing -

To become a beast from among the brutes!

For all the nihilistic one-sidedness of the last judgment, Mephistopheles here also expresses some kind of partial truth.

Nowadays, these words make us remember Hiroshima, the ovens of Auschwitz and Majdanek. In Goethe's time, readers of Faust perceived these words as an allusion to the terror of the French Jacobins.

Putting into the mouth of Mephistopheles a furious debunking of reason, Goethe builds his tragedy on a problem around which at that time there were heated debates between progressive people and the ideologists of the noble reaction. This is the question of whether the path that advanced people have followed so far was correct, and the question of which path humanity should follow from now on.

By debunking reason and presenting man's quests as insignificant, reactionaries believe that they are doing something pleasing to God, but in Goethe, the Lord sees a positive beginning in man's quests, even erroneous ones. He is confident that, relying on reason, which is not at all insignificant, a person is able to independently, that is, without help from above, overcome inevitable mistakes and reach the right way. The Lord from “Prologue in Heaven” is not only the wise creator of the perfect mechanism of the cosmos, the immutable laws of nature, but he is the god of humanists, a strong believer in man, a bearer of the broadest humane views, alien to religious dogma.

Entering into an argument with Mephistopheles, the Lord points him to Faust. However, Mephistopheles believes that Faust is an example that confirms his views. After all, Faust suffers precisely from the unrealizability of his aspirations:

It's from the sky best stars he wishes

Then in the land of all the highest pleasures,

And there is nothing in it, neither near nor far,

Cannot quench the oppressive sadness.

This is how a concept about a person arises - central, although not the only one. dragedda theme "|fauats> The dispute will be resolved by an experiment, the object of which is Faust. The conditions for setting up the experiment are very clear: the Lord will not interfere with Mephistopheles, will not help Faust. The Lord’s opponent is given full opportunity tempt Faust. The whole question is whether the messenger of hell will be able to extinguish Faust’s “insignificant” mind and return him to an animal state. As a result of such an experiment, a clear answer will be obtained whether a person is powerful or weak in mind. The reader of the Prologue has reason to expect a happy outcome from the experiment. However, the temptations that Faust is exposed to are very strong. Faust is a man, and he is characterized by deep contradictions. In a dispute with the ideologists of reaction, it made no sense to oppose the slander against reason with a schematically straightened image of the righteous. Such a decision would mean abandoning the dispute.

It was, of course, easier to declare Faust’s “salvation” in the “Prologue” than to realize an optimistic perspective in the course of the tragedy in a convincing way for his contemporaries, to justify the apostate who entered into a deal with the messenger of the underworld. The reader of Goethe's Faust was familiar with the legend, which in any version invariably led to the death of the “sinner.” Before Goethe, only Lessing outlined the justification of Faust, and even after Goethe, Lenau, Heine and many others also ended their works about Faust with the traditional triumph of Mephistopheles. It was the justification of Faust in the second part of Goethe's tragedy that caused many criticisms against the author.

The Heavenly Prologue was written in the very years when the early German romantics began to persistently introduce mysticism into literature. In Goethe there is the Lord, the archangels, but mysticism is completely absent. This is an allegory; it was needed in order to clearly pose to the reader the completely earthly ethical problem of universal coverage. And the action of the prologue, despite the fact that it takes place in heaven, is constructed in an earthly way - rationally, clearly. The dispute arises on the basis of the “report” of the archangels and is conducted in the same way as people argue: logical arguments, arguments, experiment. All this is addressed to the intellect, to the mind of the readers, and not to their religious feelings, and an application has already been made for a life-affirming solution to the problem posed. Beauty is in clarity, in regularity - this principle of classicist aesthetics determines the artistic structure of the prologue. There is no room left for the mysterious, the mysterious, the mystical.

Faust's attitude towards God. The earthly nature of his aspirations

Representing humanity, Goethe's Faust simultaneously retains a number of traits characteristic of people of the 16th century. The hero of the tragedy does not doubt the existence of God, Christ, and the afterlife. However, God does not occupy any significant place in his mind. But on his own initiative, Faust is not inclined to remember God, and, what is especially characteristic, he does not turn to him even at the most critical moments of his life. At the same time, there are no signs that, having concluded an agreement with Mephistopheles, he considers himself a sinner, and he also does not have attacks of repentance. Shortly before his death, Faust begins to be burdened by his hellish companion; he would like to get rid of magic, but this is in order to become fully human, and not in order to return to God. Much more readily than God, the pantheist Faustus remembers the spirits with which all nature is populated. He makes fiery appeals to such spirits in his first monologues, on a walk outside the city gates, etc.

Without questioning the existence of the devil, hell, torments beyond the grave, Faust - and in this way he stands several heads above his contemporaries - does not experience the slightest fear of the supernatural: neither in the “witch’s kitchen”, nor at the Sabbath of spirits on Walpurgis Night. Worship before otherworldly forces does not work. Although these scenes are very colorful and produce strong impression, they do not generate a mystical mood. And then, to the worst, the author invariably mixes a good spoonful of humor.

The features of Faust's advanced worldview are most fully manifested precisely in the fact that everything otherworldly - heaven, hell, the afterlife - is of no interest to him. Without denying their existence, he practically ignores them, decides to act as if they did not exist. Entering into an agreement with Mephistopheles, Faust motivates his bold decision as follows:

Here on earth my aspirations live,

Here the sun shines on my torment;

When the moment of separation comes,

I don’t care what happens.

Goethe motivates his hero with this philosophical position based on the ancient motif of Faust’s apostasy and his union with hell, which is fundamental to the legend. A new, plausible interpretation of Faust's behavior is given, one in which the question of Faust's sinfulness is decisively pushed into the shadows. The image of Faust outgrows the image of the legend, rises above it, it becomes understandable and close to the progressive people of Goethe’s time, to those who are fighting for a worldview that frees man from the tutelage of religion and the church.

In the prologue in heaven there was only talk about the Fa-“Night” mouth. For the first time he appears before the reader

(by the viewer) in the next scene - “Night. Ancient Gothic room." The earthly action of the tragedy opens with the opening monologue of Faust:

I understood philosophy

I became a lawyer, I became a doctor...

Alas! With zeal and labor And I penetrated into theology -

And in the end I became no smarter

What I was before... I am a fool of fools!

Before us stands the majestic image of a scientist who painfully experiences the limitations of contemporary book science. Faust is doubly unhappy in the knowledge that he, a professor, cannot bring real benefit to people, convey true knowledge to his listeners.

Already in this first scene, the image of Faust evokes the reader's complete sympathy. Goethe departs from the traditional image of the “sinner”; Faust is not interested in secrets the afterlife, he does not strive for power over people, he is not going to perform “miracles,” and, what is especially important, the thought of an alliance with “evil spirits,” with hell, is completely alien to him. In a word, he is not a sorcerer or a warlock. Since the books and instruments of the ancient laboratory are powerless, Faust, a man of the 16th century, turns to magic in a noble desire to understand “the entire world’s internal connection,” that is, the decisive laws of natural life.

In a decisive divergence from earlier developments of the plot, the hero of Goethe's tragedy summons with the help of magic not the devil, but the Spirit of the Earth, that is, the Spirit who personifies living, creative, active nature. The spirit that came to the call of the caster characterizes its functions as follows:

Life and movement

In eternal space...

So on the machine of passing centuries

I weave the living clothes of the gods.

However, the spirit of the Earth rejects the mortal’s claim to come directly, magically, to the knowledge of the “secrets” of nature. He disappears. Faust's hope for magic has collapsed, and he falls into despair.

Wagner

Wagner appears. His appearance only increases Faust's grief. With the image of this young scientist, who resembles his teacher so little, the author highlights positive features in Faust - the depth and uncompromisingness of his scientific quest. Wagner does not strive for any decisive discoveries, but “with delight he moves “from little book to little book” 1...”. With this half-comic character, Goethe's work includes an element of satire, a condemnation of scientific pettiness. The conversation between the seeker of truth and the money-grubber from science takes place in a very peculiar emotional atmosphere: Faust’s sorrowful thoughts are interrupted by the comic remarks of his interlocutor. Tragic and comic beginning closely intertwined. Faust's conversation with Wagner once again reminds him of the futility of his efforts to work for the benefit of people: these are the kind of students he raised.

Walk outside the city gates

Disappointment in book science, the collapse of hopes for magic - all this gives rise to the intention to commit suicide. When Faust brings the cup of poison to his lips, the Easter singing of the parishioners can be heard from the neighboring church. Only memories of his childhood, of the joy that walking among the spring nature, prompt Faust to abandon his intention to “fly to a better world.”

The motif of spring nature continues into the next scene of Faust and Wagner's walk. Nature, spring, people - these are the elements dear to Faust. The sorrowful tension subsides, despair subsides for a short time, and Faust feels a surge of strength. The ingenuous joy of the festive crowd is close to him, and this trait makes his image richer, more concrete, strengthening the reader’s sympathy for him, while Wagner’s contempt for the “rude” entertainment of the people makes this “bookworm” even more pathetic and funny.

The central moment of the scene is Faust’s meeting with an old peasant, who brings Faust a cup of wine and recalls how, in the plague year, Faust, then a young man, together with his father, treated the peasants at the risk of his own life. But it is precisely this gratitude of the peasants that awakens the pain that had subsided. Alas! The peasants are wrong. There's nothing to thank him for. Neither his father nor he himself saved anyone from the plague, although they ardently strived for this. The longing for a different life arises again. In a fit of despair, Faust calls upon the “spirits living on high.” He does not appeal to the spirits of the underworld, but such a call is enough for Mephistopheles to begin to implement the intention that he expressed in a dispute with the Lord. He appears to Faust and Wagner in the form of a black poodle.

The beginning of existence is in action

Returning home from a walk, Faust decides to work. He sets about translating the Gospel of John from Greek. He does not so much translate as argue with the original text, fights with it, tries to correct what is philosophically unacceptable. Here the idea of ​​Faust, a progressive thinker, is concretized. Not accepting the religious interpretation of the world, Faust moves on to the materialistic recognition of the beginning of all action - “The beginning of being is in action.” In the conditions of the crisis at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, this formula sounds like a direct challenge to supporters of the dethronement of man, to those who preach passivity, submission, and humility. This is a direct rebuff to reactionaries who slander reason. Goethe defends the basic principle of the Enlightenment teaching: “people are capable, by acting intelligently, of changing the world for the better.”

Mephistopheles

As a result of the poodle's spell, Mephistopheles appears before Faust in the guise of a wandering student. Goethe gave him human characteristics. With a half-ironic interpretation of the “devil,” he almost destroyed the atmosphere of mystery that surrounds this image in the legend. The hellish functions of Mephistopheles give rise to philosophical reflection on the nature of evil. This is how Mephistopheles introduces himself to Faust:

I deny everything - and in my mouth the essence is mine

In short, everything that your brother calls evil—

The desire to destroy, evil deeds and thoughts

That's all - my element.

Removing the religious concept of “sin,” Goethe sees “good” in what leads a person forward. “Evil” is that which opposes creation, interferes with it, extinguishes creative enthusiasm, and destroys what has been created. But by destroying the false, negation objectively promotes movement and creation. Goethe dialectically removes the absolute opposition of “good” and “evil.” Mephistopheles is characterized not so much by direct destruction as by skepticism, a cynical attitude towards man and his creative potential, the desire to extinguish any quest, to find the weak side in everything. As a representative of the principle of universal negation, Mephistopheles sometimes grows into a monumental, ominous image, sometimes he is humanized and is not much different from a typical “cynic”, an evil, cold, intelligent person, often with with good reason destroying illusions.

Treaty with Mephistopheles

Faust entered into an alliance with the messenger of hell in a state of deep despair, disillusioned with science and magic. Mephistopheles offers him his services. Faust is not at all delighted with his new acquaintance and has little faith in the positive outcome of the deal with Mephistopheles. But he has no choice. The terms of the agreement are very peculiar:

What will you give, you pathetic demon, what pleasures?

Human spirit and proud aspirations

Is it possible for someone like you to understand?

No matter how great Faust’s despair is, he remains a brave, strong-willed man. He is full of consciousness of his dignity. What benefits can Mephistopheles offer him? Faust does not name the values ​​for which he is ready to give his soul. And unlike all previous developments of the plot, the duration of the contract is not specified.

When on the bed of sleep, in contentment and peace,

I'll fall, then my time has come!

When I exclaim: “A moment,

You’re great, last, wait!”

- then Faust will be ready to die, and then let his soul go to Mephistopheles. But will such a moment really come? In this declaration, "when" means "if".

With the appearance of this question, the development of the tragedy takes on a new direction: it becomes a review of life, a search for the meaning of human existence.

A decision has been made: Faust will leave his learned seclusion and, in the company of his servant Mephistopheles, will rush into life so that, having experienced everything in the world, he will try to find the satisfaction he is looking for. Mephistopheles suggests first getting acquainted with the “small world”, that is, with people in their private life (episodes of wandering in the first part of the tragedy), and then watching “ big light“- state life and in general everything that rises above the existence of individual people (II part of the tragedy). From now on, each episode is a new experiment, a new “test” of life. Each “test” appears in a double light: through the eyes of the enthusiast Faust, who is looking for truly valuable content, and through the eyes of the cold cynic Mephistopheles.

Wandering

The introductory part, in which the majestic ideological perspective of the tragedy is given, is over, the journey begins.

The journey is led by Mephistopheles. He leads his “master”, Faust, and chooses material that should give Faust satisfaction. What kind of “satisfaction” this is can be clearly seen from the first episode of the journey.

Auerbach's cellar

Mephistopheles brought Faust into the company of regulars at Auerbach's cellar in Leipzig. Students gathered here - very young (Frosh) and already experienced students with bald spots on their heads and saggy bellies (Sibel). The burgher (Altmaier) is with them. The whole scene is designed in crudely comic tones. Here reigns the animal element that Mephistopheles intended for Faust. Idleness, drunkenness, rude jokes and no less rude songs (about a rat, about a flea), brawls, low-level love affairs - this is where this reckless company finds the “taste of life”. Of course, Mephistopheles fails completely. Drunken fun disgusts Faust, and the miracles of Mephistopheles do not make the slightest impression on him. During this scene, Mephistopheles sings the “Song of the Flea.” It is a satire on princely favorites, on the dominance of insignificant and harmful people in the royal courts.

Witch's kitchen

The failure of the experiment in Auerbach's cellar makes Mephistopheles wary. It turns out that defeating Faust is not as easy as it initially seemed. It is necessary to return the hot blood of youth to Faust in order to make him more receptive to sensual pleasures. Mephistopheles leads Faust to the “witch’s kitchen,” where Faust drinks the drink of youth. The drink did its job. And yet, Mephistopheles’ calculations were only partially justified. He again underestimates the strength of Faust’s resistance when he tells him that, having drunk the witch’s potion, he will now mistake “any woman” for Helen the Beautiful. Faust's love cannot be reduced to primitive sensuality alone, as Mephistopheles wants.

In creating this scene, Goethe relied on paintings and engravings by ancient artists. From here comes the witch’s sieve, her flight on a broom through a chimney, a cauldron, monkeys, etc. In general, all these “fears,” like the absurd mutterings of the witch and the “animals,” are designed to cloud Faust’s consciousness and weaken him resistance. However, Faust is not easily confused.

Stupid nonsense, crazy movements,

Deceit and lies are the most vulgar all around -

In the chaos of the witch’s kitchen, Goethe inserts individual motifs with a great satirical sound: irony towards the Christian dogma of the triune God, the motif of a broken crown, the fragments of which must be glued together “with the sweat and tears of people.” The scene was written in 1788; Goethe was at that time confident that the collapse of the monarchy in France was imminent.

Mephistopheles' prosaic advice to Faust - to "sweat" after taking the "medicine" and much more in this scene is indicative of the author's ironic attitude towards "terrible" motives, for the conventionality of all this fiction associated with superstitions. In the author's free interpretation, “devilishness” becomes funny.

Drama of Margarita

The meeting with Margarita, the second episode of the journey, grows into an independent, albeit subordinate overall plan drama. 1The power of the impression it makes on the viewer can compete with the grandiose introductory part of the tragedy. Here the action went beyond Faust's thoughts and doubts. The latter acts for the first time in a world of everyday phenomena that is new to him, and experiences new great joys and sorrows. In this part, the reader's attention is focused not only on Faust. The image of Margarita, her tragic death evoke deep sympathy from the reader. In this part of the tragedy there is a wider representation external world, there are a few more people here - Margarita, her brother, neighbor Martha, the girl at the well, Margarita’s mother and the rogue father. Instead of a university world, here the reader sees provincial petty burghers.

The tragedy of Margarita is at the same time the tragedy of Faust. But the story of the unfortunate girl is also of independent interest, regardless of the role she plays in Faust’s life. Goethe speaks here about the unfortunate lot of many girls, as defenseless as Gretchen. "Based on the typicality of Margarita's fate, Goethe acts as an exposer of the burgher, at first glance, prosperous way of life. No, the people from Margarita's environment are not at all idyllic creatures. A venerable widow, % Gretchen's mother is very pious, she constantly communicates with her fathers. But this super-piety does not prevent her from giving loans on the mortgage of things. Margarita's brother, Valentin, is not at all the ideal brother as he is portrayed in Gounod's opera. The Landsknecht is accustomed to boasting to his comrades in the tavern about his sister’s beauty and impeccable behavior. And so, when bad rumors begin to circulate about her, he is offended in his vanity, and even dying in a duel with the offender of his “good name,” he rudely defames the unfortunate woman in front of all the people. Gretchen. And what stupid gloating sounds in the scene “At the Well” are Lieschen’s words addressed to her “sinned” friend Berbelchen. The inert, inhuman, stupid morality of all these fathers, Valentinovs and Lischens dooms the unfortunate girl, abandoned by her lover, to public disgrace.

Denouncing the hypocritical, cruel morality of the burgher circle, Goethe at the same time vehemently protests against the inhumane legislation that condemns the “child killer” to execution. Such a law was in force in the German states of the 18th century. The theme of Margarita's death was taken by the author from the reality of his time *. The development of an ancient plot did not prevent Goethe from incorporating into the circle of his drama large and acute problems of contemporary social life: criticism of the burghers, the laws of the feudal state. In Part II of the tragedy this tendency will be more fully developed.

But what is surprising is that Margarita herself is closely connected with this patriarchal burgher world. She shares many of the views of this environment; she does not know any other life, no other moral laws. And yet the author, with some subtle, barely noticeable strokes, separates her from those around her. Quiet and modest, always absorbed in worries about her mother, little sister, and her responsibilities around the house, Margarita somehow does not have time to think about herself. A captive of a narrow life, she remains pure, unaffected by the petty and vulgar selfish claims of the people around her. Her beauty - the subject of Valentin's stupid vanity - does not arouse any conceit in Margarita herself. With what dignity she rejects the compliments of the “noble stranger” (Faust), who decided to court her.

The beautiful young lady is not here!

I can walk home alone.

For a long time she can’t believe that her “poor conversation” might seem interesting to her interlocutor. There is no doubt that her conversation is indeed poor, her horizons are not broad, but Faust, of course, expresses not only his own, but also the author’s attitude towards Margarita when he exclaims:

Oh, why innocence, simplicity

He doesn’t know how priceless and holy she is!

And with what sincerity and spontaneity Margarita reveals her feeling when she tells fortunes on the petals of a flower (“He loves or does not love”), when she kisses Faust for the first time and confesses her love to him: “I love you with all my heart, my dear!”, and also in his soulful monologue songs.

Margarita has retained real great human feelings in that world of burgher vulgarity and self-interest, with which she is so closely connected with her skills, impressions, and habits. She belongs to this world, and at the same time she is completely different. A brave and beautiful, absolutely unselfish feeling for her lover elevates Margarita above all the people in her circle.

The German writer Thomas Mann subtly noted that Margarita not only tends to express her feelings in songs, but she herself, her entire appearance belongs to the sphere folk song. Goethe gave this image in the spirit of folk song ideals; Margarita’s connection with the bourgeois environment is a more external phenomenon. We again meet here with an example of the creative dialectic of the great poet. It is therefore not surprising that Marx named Gretchen his favorite literary heroine.

The tragic fate of Margarita consists mainly of very real and earthly human relationships. Responsibility for the death of the girl lies with Faust, with the soulless burghers, and, to some much lesser extent, with Margarita herself. The enormous impression that Margarita’s drama makes on the reader and viewer is closely related to the real character, to the typicality of this episode.

The images of Faust and Margarita, for all their concreteness and richness of individual characteristics, are the broadest generalizations. Faust represents the type of person who is characterized by incessant movement, searching, dissatisfaction with oneself, and dissatisfaction with what has been achieved. In this respect, Margarita, with her passive attitude to life and reconciliation with her lot, represents the complete opposite of Faust. Margarita clearly cannot follow Faust in his wanderings and quests. All her thoughts and aspirations are aimed at the quiet joys of family life. It is equally impossible to imagine Faust, who had just escaped from the cell of a scientist, settling down again, becoming the father of a family. In order to make Faust and Gretchen a happy couple, Goethe would have to break the internal logic of both images, and these would be different people. Such a restructuring would inevitably force the author to remove the main problem of the entire work, so clearly expressed in the prologue and in the contract scene. With all his deep respect for a healthy and strong family foundation, Goethe could not declare the family to be the ultimate goal of Man’s quest. Therefore, the relationship between Faust and Margarita inevitably had to come to a break. The meeting with Margarita is only the most significant episode on Faust’s path to the “beautiful moment.” For Faust, the meeting with Margarita is not an “adventure” at all. Love for the girl captured Faust completely and became a source of deepest emotions. At the end of the scene “Forest and Cave,” he compares himself to a waterfall that “rushes greedily towards the fatal abyss” and in its fall captures a modest hut perched on the edge of the abyss.

Faust left Margarita, fleeing retribution for the murder of Valentine. There is no reason to believe that Faust decided not to return to Margarita. However, he still allows himself to be carried away to the Harz Mountains for the annual festival of witches who flock here from all over the country (the ancient tale of Walpurgis Night). Mephistopheles' plan is to stupefy Faust and make him forget Margarita. However, in the midst of the demonic dance, Faust sees a pale girl with a red stripe around her neck. He remembers Gretchen, and no excuses of Mephistopheles achieve their goal; Faust is again irresistibly attracted to Margarita. Only now (scene “Cloudy day. Field”) Faust learns from Mephistopheles about what happened to Margarita after he left her. IN terrible anger To Mephistopheles, he does not listen to his warnings about danger. He will return to Margarita at any cost, save her from execution, and take her with him. *

Margarita's drama, and with it the entire first part of Faust, ends with a scene in prison that is stunning in its tragic power. At the sight of her returning lover, the mad Margarita partially regains consciousness. Love and the desire to live flare up with renewed vigor. But the memories of her dead child, her mother who died from a sleeping drink, her brother who died in a fight - all through her fault - are too painful for her. Gretchen is a fragile, unresponsive creature. She cannot cope with the troubles that have befallen her, she cannot begin new life after everything that happened to her. Therefore, all of Faust’s efforts to save Margarita’s life and take her away from prison are frustrated by the internal resistance of the unfortunate girl. She remains in prison in order to lay her head on the block the next morning. Voice from above: “Saved!” - proclaims that the innocent-guilty woman has retained her spiritual purity and beauty, despite everything for which the unjust law condemns her to execution.

The meeting with Margarita brought Faust the greatest joys and deepest suffering. She led him to the consciousness of grave guilt before his beloved girl, to despair. He has now entered deeply into people's lives. His human horizons expanded. He gave in to the egoistic impulse and showed weakness. Here he is a man with a small letter. But Mephistopheles was defeated in this episode too. Indeed, despite all Faust’s guilt, his attitude towards Margarita cannot be reduced to base feelings, and Faust’s moral fall is followed by his revival. As soon as Faust (already at the beginning of the second part of the tragedy) emerges from a state of deep and prolonged stupor, the basic, typical for a real Man, “vigorous desire for a higher life” is again revived in him.

Artistic merits of Part I of Faust

Goethe's Faust (Part I) was highly praised by Pushkin, Belinsky, Herzen, and Chernyshevsky. IN during the XIX century, it is the first part of Faust that arouses great interest among readers. According to the most various reasons the second part of Faust is rejected. So it was in the poet’s homeland, and so it was in Russia. In the first part, more fully than in the second, the concreteness of poetic imagery, liveliness, and plasticity of all the different characters and situations are combined with the grandiose vastness of the concept. The images of Faust, Mephistopheles, Margarita are both the broadest generalizations and clearly defined individual characters. Faustus represents “humanity” taken from the side of its best aspirations, but this is not a schematic “righteous man”, but a real man with living passions, which often lead him to mistakes. Mephistopheles represents “denial”, “destruction”, but at the same time it is a living image of an inveterate skeptic and cynic. The heroes of the tragedy go through real life situations, they are characterized by vivid human feelings.

The first part of “Faust” is a synthesis of all individual creative experiments of Goethe, both from his youth (“storm and stress”) and from the period of full creative maturity. Sublime, pathetic expression of thoughts about the meaning of human life, about man’s capabilities and obstacles to his aspirations (Faust’s monologues) are combined with colorful folk scenes (“Walk Behind the City Gates”). Scenes full of the most sincere lyricism (Faust in Margarita's room, Margarita's songs) give way to genre humorous pictures in the style of Hans Sachs (Mephistopheles and Martha). The sharpest satire (Mephistopheles and the student) and deliberately crude comedy (Auerbach's Cellar, The Witch's Kitchen) do not prevent the author from moving on to the most intense tragedy in the final scene of the first part (Prison).

The free epic stringing of events is replaced by a truly dramatic construction (the drama of Faust before the conclusion of the treaty, the tragedy of Margarita).

Read the analysis of the second part in the pdf file

"Faust" is a great testament to descendants. It affirms faith in reason, in a person’s ability to change social life, build it on a reasonable and fair basis. In “Faust,” Goethe calls for peaceful creative work, for the community of peoples in the conquest of nature, and declares the highest dignity of man to be the unceasing, tireless, everyday struggle for the happiness of people. Many great people, remarkable revolutionary figures recalled famous words from Faust's dying monologue.

Faust and the Tragedy of Margaret

The image of Faust embodies faith in the limitless possibilities of man. Faust embodies the ardent desire to know the meaning of life, the desire for the absolute, the desire to go beyond the limits that limit a person.

In the process of searching Faust, overcoming the contemplation of German social thought, puts forward action as the basis of being. Goethe's work reflects the works of genius - dialectics (the monologue of the Spirit of the Earth and the contradictory aspirations of Faust himself).

Gretchen's story becomes an important link in the process of Faust's quest. The tragic situation arises as a result of the insoluble contradiction between the ideal of a natural person, as Margarita appears to Faust, and the real appearance of a limited girl from a bourgeois environment. At the same time, Margarita is a victim of social prejudices and dogmatism of church morality. In an effort to establish the humanistic ideal, Faust turns to antiquity. The marriage of Faust and Helen is a symbol of the unity of two eras. The result of Faust's quest is the conviction that the ideal must be realized on real earth.

“Only he is worthy of life and freedom who goes to battle for them every day!” - this is the final conclusion arising from Goethe’s optimistic tragedy.

An important place in the first part of the tragedy is occupied by the story of Gretchen.

Mephistopheles seeks to distract Faust from his lofty thoughts and kindles in him a passion for a girl who he accidentally met on the street. At some point, Mephistopheles succeeds in his plan. Faust demands that he help him seduce the girl. But Margarita’s girl’s room, in which he appears, awakens the best feelings in him. He is fascinated by the patriarchal simplicity, purity and modesty of this home.

Margarita herself embodies the world of simple feelings, natural, healthy existence.

Faust, who discarded with contempt dead knowledge, having escaped from the twilight of his medieval office, reaches out to her to find the fullness of life’s happiness, earthly, human joy, not immediately seeing that Margarita’s small world is part of that narrow, stuffy world from which he was trying to escape.

The atmosphere around her becomes heavier and darker.

The bright, joyful intonations in Margarita’s voice have already disappeared. In mental turmoil, she prays in front of the silent statue. New blows immediately await her: the reproaches of her brother and his death, the death of her mother, poisoned by Mephistopheles. Margarita feels tragically lonely.

Goethe expressively depicts the forces that fall upon the unfortunate victim and destroy him.

Gretchen turns out to be a sinner both in her own eyes and in the opinion environment with its petty-bourgeois and sanctimonious prejudices. In a society where natural inclinations are condemned by harsh morality, Gretchen becomes a victim doomed to death.

The tragic end of her life is thus due to the internal contradiction and hostility of the bourgeois environment. Gretchen's sincere religiosity made her a sinner in her own eyes. She could not understand why love, which gave her such spiritual joy, came into conflict with morality, in the truth of which she always believed. Those around her, who considered the birth of an illegitimate child a disgrace, could not understand as a proper consequence of her love. Finally, at a critical moment, Faust was not near Gretchen, who could prevent the murder of the child committed by Gretchen.

In vain does Mephistopheles gloat in the finale. Even though Margarita is guilty, she appears before us as a person, and above all because her feeling for Faust was sincere, deep, selfless.

Faust's path is difficult. First, he proudly challenges the cosmic forces, summoning the spirit of the earth and hoping to make peace with them by force. But he faints from the spectacle of the immensity that appears before him and then a feeling of his complete insignificance is born in him. A bold impulse gives way to despair, but then the thirst to achieve the goal is reborn in Faust, even with the awareness of the limitations of his strength.

The life of Faust, which Goethe unfolds before the reader, is a path of tireless quest.

At a critical moment on Faust's path, Mephistopheles meets.

The appearance of Mephistopheles before Faust, therefore, is not accidental. As in the old legend, the devil came to “seduce” a person. But Mephistopheles is not at all like the devil from the naive folk legends. The image created by Goethe is full of deep philosophical meaning. He is the perfect embodiment of the spirit of denial. Mephistopheles cannot be defined as a bearer of only bad principles. He himself says about himself that he “does good, desiring evil for everyone.”

The death of Gretchen is the tragedy of a pure and beautiful woman, because of her great love she found herself involved in a cycle of terrible events that led to her becoming the killer of her own child, going crazy and being sentenced to execution.

Faust found the meaning of life in quest, in struggle, in work. This was his life. She brought him short periods of happiness and long years of overcoming difficulties. Towards your achievements and victories, tormented by doubts and constant dissatisfaction. He sees now that all this was not in vain. Even though his plan is still unfinished, he believes in its final implementation. The tragic thing is that Faust gains the highest wisdom only at the end of his life. He hears the sound of shovels and thinks that the work he has planned is being carried out. In fact, the fantastic creatures lemurs, subject to Mephistopheles, dig