Faust. "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: Faust 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 enclosed in him, and he was his master.

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 unparalleled dialogue, one had to become a poet, and then already create confidently, authoritatively, with dignity. A person who is equal with the world, with being, is in poetry not just a poet, but a creator, and therefore rather a man of deeds, not words, and, in any case, not book man. Goethe treated the word on paper with disdain. Yes, and poetry should have reflected the general idea of ​​the world. “After all, I don’t put the word so highly, / To think that it is the basis for everything,” says Faust in Goethe; So Goethe himself judged - about the poetic, literary word.

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

The word “thought” here means the philosophical, scientific content, and for Goethe, first of all, the content of the natural sciences, the world as nature, and in all its manifestations (from the structure of the universe and geology to plants and to man4a, to his history, to the history of his spirit , culture) and in a variety of ways to comprehend 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: the enlighteners were able to refute the existence of evil in the world - or by their explanations circumvent evil. Goethe's "Faust" is much broader than such enlightenment with its heroic good-heartedness. Goethe defined the genre of the work - tragedy. Faust should be read as a tragedy. True, this tragedy is special. In it, a positive result of the whole is brought out in advance: the Lord God, having condescended to a patient conversation with the devil, whom he allows to cruelly test the scientist Faust, argues in Lessing’s way: “He who seeks is forced to wander,” but in his dark aspiration he recognizes the right path: “In a sense , of his own free will // He will break the deadlock. Faust fearlessly makes a bet with the devil: he knows that his aspiration will never be quenched - after all, this is not his personal, but a universal trait - the infinity of striving for the unknown: all people by nature crave knowledge. Strictly speaking, 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 most profound and acute problems discussed by German thought. This is how it turns out for Goethe: world history and modernity, the origin of the Earth, German literary life, the human being - all this is contained in his extraordinary work, and a special unique literary genre with its symbolic-mythological language has been developed to discuss all this.

And as a German theme of the 18th century, Faust is the embodiment of an insatiable craving for knowledge. She, this theme, was experienced by Goethe himself - as no one else. Creating Faust, he relied on his immense dreams and claims. One cannot only think that Faust is Goethe. Not at all: this is his “inner image” rejected from himself, criticized - 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 ... the fact that I will be endlessly mistaken, said to me: “Choose!”, I would humbly cling to his left hand, saying: “Father, give! Pure truth - it's for you alone! Many German writers the second half of the 18th century, starting with Lessing, they worked on works about Faust. Goethe shows what happened later - after a person chose not the truth, but the desire for it and the path of delusion.

The problem of knowledge and cognition.

Goethe's "Faust" opens with a monologue of the 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 the study of these sciences, and in spite of this vast knowledge, he feels like a miserable 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 on knowledge. Let us listen further to Faust, and we will pass before us the whole path of doubt experienced by European society in the transitional era. “I,” says Faust, “turned to magic: perhaps, by the power and mouth 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 building forces and the rudiments of being.”

These words contain new curious features of the Faustian worldview. We will find out what Faust expected from science, and we will find out what he began to look for an answer in when science did not satisfy him. The next important idea that follows from the above words is the new way of knowing nature, which Faust chooses. Faust indulges in magic; tries to combine in one means of knowing 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 away from his mouth the goblet of poison already 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 recollection of the years of childhood, of the grateful feeling that this ringing evoked in his soul at that time, keeps him from committing suicide. In the next scene, outside the city gates, walking with Wagner, he stops at a stone and recalls: “Here I often sat, alone in thought, tormented myself with prayer and fasting, rich in hope, firm in faith.” This path on which Faust stands, this hesitation between faith and knowledge, is the third, main feature of his worldview. The fourth feature is the inner consciousness that this middle way is unstable, that metaphysics does not give it any firm foothold. When the Spirit of the Earth, called by Faust, personifying the life of nature in all its great whole, appears before him, Faust is overwhelmed by this phenomenon: the gaze of a mortal is unable to endure absolute contemplation, Faust steps back with 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 for the world, everything is held in a healthy expectation of love; the other in the mountain of high ancestors rises powerfully from decay. This dualism of human nature, as we shall see, was the cause of torment for another representative of the "world sorrow" - Manfred. Why is man instilled with striving for the absolute, the eternal, when his miserable earthly shell keeps him on earth, in the chains of the temporal, the relative? Faust constantly oscillates between a lofty idea of ​​himself as the bearer of these upward impulses and the consciousness of his own nothingness. "I am the image of a deity!" he exclaims; and after a while he says: "I am like a worm that digs in the dust." Thus, the reasons for Faust's torment can be traced to the following: 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 content with formal, dry knowledge; he is not interested in nature, he knows no doubts and hesitations; he is the 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, set diction and develop a good style.

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

When something seriously owns you,

Don't chase words

And reasoning, full of embellishment,

The revolutions are brighter and more colorful,

Boring…

The main idea of ​​Faust: "The key of wisdom is not on the pages of books."

Going from one book to another, from page to page, is Wagner's supreme bliss. Wagner is the type of limited pedant without lofty aspirations and lofty goals to warm his pursuits. This is the type of a useless scientist who accumulates knowledge, but does not expand his horizons with them, does not introduce new ideas into the world. If Faust depicts the torments of an 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.

Inexhaustible in beauty and depth, the creation of the German poet-thinker, Faust contains not a ready-made truth, but an indicative lesson in achieving it. Eternal Creation; it contains communion 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 must not identify with him. "Faust" is one of those works that are given not to sympathy, but to thought, to incessant reflection on what is happening here and how. Decisively at odds with the concrete humanity of the Russian classical literature, Goethe's "Faust" offers the task of reflection to the Russian reader. Enlightenment ideas of Freedom, Equality, ... brings J. V. Goethe to tragedy "Faust", evaluating a new historical type... . Insolvency rationalism XX century. Realism and Modernism: reflection Exodus options...

1.17. Faust's thoughts on the meaning of life

Goethe's Faust is one of those greatest creations in which some of the fundamental contradictions of life are embodied with great artistic power.

In Faust, Goethe expressed his understanding of life in a figurative poetic form. The hero of the work is not just separate person, but a symbolic figure that embodies all of humanity. Faust is undoubtedly a living person with passions and feelings inherent in other people. But first of all, he is an extraordinary, titanic personality, and this alone elevates him above all the others. Such a defiant person is worthy to represent all of humanity. But being a bright and unusual personality, Faust is by no means the embodiment of perfection. That is the veracity of this image, its true reality, that nothing human is alien to it - neither weakness, nor the ability to err, nor mistakes. Faust himself is clearly aware of his imperfection, and self-satisfaction is the least characteristic of him. On the contrary, its most beautiful feature is the eternal dissatisfaction with oneself and the world around, the desire to become better and make the world a more perfect place for people to live and develop.

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 with his strength. But he loses his senses 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 is replaced by despair, but then Faust revives the thirst to achieve the goal, even with the consciousness of the limitations of his forces.

We must immediately mention one more feature of Goethe's great work. Faust confronts the reader with significant life questions. But Goethe does not pretend to give simple and easy answers to them. Whoever searches in the work for formulas that fit Goethe's thought will be mistaken. Such attempts took place during the life of the great writer, and he pointed out the futility of the desire to shine the meaning of Faust to simple and convenient conclusions. One day, talking with his secretary I.-P. Eckermann, Goethe said: “The Germans are a wonderful people! They overburden their lives with profundity and ideas, which they seek everywhere and shove everywhere. And it would be necessary, having gathered courage, to rely more on impressions: let life delight you, touch you to the depths of your soul, lift you up; and may, teaching you greatness and inflaming you for exploits, she will give you strength and courage; just don't think that vanity vanishes everything that does not contain an abstract thought or idea!

But they approach me with questions about what idea I was trying to embody in my Faust. Yes, how do I know? And how can I put it into words? "Descend from heaven through the earth to hell" - that's how, at worst, I could answer, but this is not an idea, but a sequence of actions. That the devil loses the wager, and that a man who constantly strives for good, extricates himself from his painful delusions and must be saved, is, of course, a real thought that explains something, but it is not an idea that underlies both the whole and each separate scene. And what would it be, if I tried all the richest, most colorful and varied life, embodied by me in Faust, to string a through idea on a thin cord!

In general, Goethe continued, it is not in my habit to strive for the embodiment of an abstract concept in poetry. I have always perceived the sensual, sweet, colorful and varied impressions of life, and my vivid imagination absorbed them greedily. As a poet, I had only to artistically shape and complete those, trying with the vivacity of recreation to ensure that they had the same effect on others.

It would be wrong to understand Goethe in the sense that he denies the existence of ideas in his work. He is only opposed to shining a rich and varied content into dry abstract thought, which not only would not exhaust, but would generally remain far from the vital content of Faust.

Nor should Goethe be understood in the sense that there is no center or organizing principle in his work. The core is the personality of the hero. All action is built around him, his fate is the main thread of the whole dramatic poem. But the content of the work is not concentrated in Faust alone. He himself thinks a lot about life, events confront him with people and circumstances, he finds himself in different situations in life. Through everything, the poet reveals the richness of life, which is not exhausted by the personality of the hero, although it is associated with him.

Surrendering to the will of the author, following him is the best way to understand the work, not limiting your perception to an abstract idea worked out in advance or borrowed from somewhere. The Question of Meaning and Purpose human life constitutes the main theme of the work, but the disclosure of the theme is not applicable to every person and not to any individual fate. Faust was chosen by Goethe for this purpose because, by virtue of his extraordinary character, he gives the poet the opportunity to say a lot about life.

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

The first feature of the hero, with which we get acquainted, is complete dissatisfaction with all existing knowledge, because they do not give the main thing - an understanding of the essence of life. And Faust is a man who cannot live contentedly with what religion and speculative bookish knowledge offer him.

Faust's father was a doctor, he instilled in him a love of science and instilled in him the desire to serve people. But the father's healing proved powerless against the diseases that affected people. During a plague epidemic, young Faust, seeing that his father's means could not stop the flow of death, turned to heaven with an ardent prayer. But help did not come from there either. Then Faust decided once and for all that it was useless to turn to God for help. Disillusioned with religion, Faust devoted himself to science, hoping to find answers to his troubling questions in it.

Faust spent many years in the world of science, having studied all the wisdom of that time, but this did not give him knowledge of the truth. Science, which did not satisfy his needs, was speculative, metaphysical, divorced from life and nature.

This backstory of Faust we learn in the course of action. We meet the hero already when he has passed a big life path and came to the sad conclusion that his efforts were fruitless. Faust's despair is so deep that he wants to commit suicide. But at that moment, the chant of the worshipers reaches him from the temple, and the goblet with poison falls out of Faust's hands.

It is not a reminder of God and not a consciousness of the sinfulness of suicide that prompts Faust to abandon the intention to commit suicide. In the prayer of believers, he hears the call of humanity for help, recalls that people who do not know how to find a way out of difficulties turn to religion, looking for support in it, as it was in their youth with Faust himself. He stays alive to seek solutions to the fundamental questions of being. His determination is strengthened by the knowledge that the people love him, trust him and expect good from him.

Revealing Faust's attitude to science, Goethe opposes to him another scientist, Wagner, for whom there is only bookish knowledge. He is convinced that after reading everything written by smart people, he will comprehend the essence of life and hidden secrets nature. Wagner is an armchair scientist. He is devoted to science, but book knowledge imposes on him the stamp of limitations.

In contrast, Faust seeks to comprehend the meaning of life through active participation in it:

I put an end to knowledge

Just remember books - anger eats.

From now on I will dive headlong

In passions bubbling crucible,

With all the unbridled ardor

Into their abyss, to the depths!

Headlong into the heat of time!

In the midst of accidents with a running start!

In living pain, in living bliss.

In a whirlwind of grief and forgetting!

Let them alternate the whole century

Happy rock and bad rock.

In tireless all the time

Man finds himself.

And as we know from psychology, while a person lives, he is constantly acting, doing something, busy with something. In a word, he shows activity - external and internal. Activity is the activity of a person aimed at achieving consciously set goals related to satisfying his needs and interests, to fulfill the requirements for him from society and the state. In the process of activity, a person learns the world around him.

Faust's rejection of science does not mean that he wants to renounce the task of knowledge. The meaning of Faust's hot speech is not in the denial of knowledge in general, but in the rejection of non-life knowledge, immersing a person in abstractions that are far from reality in the mindset of Faust, who rebelled against science. The knowledge that Faust seeks is inseparable from the immediate being of man. He wants to comprehend life not from the outside, but in the thick of it.

At a critical moment on the path of Faust, Mephistopheles meets. Here we need to return to one of the scenes that precede the beginning of the action - to the Prologue in the sky. In it, the Lord, surrounded by angels, meets with Mephistopheles. If the idea of ​​good is symbolically expressed in the heavenly forces, then the inhabitant of hell Mephistopheles embodies evil. The whole scene as a whole symbolizes the struggle between good and evil taking place in the world.

What is the place of man in the collision of positive and negative sides life? Mephistopheles completely denies any dignity for a person. The Lord recognizes that a person is far from perfect, but nevertheless, in the final analysis, having gone through delusions and mistakes, he is able to get out of darkness. And the Lord considers Faust to be such a person. Mephistopheles asks permission to prove that Faust can easily be led astray from the search for truth. The dispute between the Lord and Mephistopheles thus turns out to be a dispute about the nature and value of man.

The appearance of Mephistopheles before Faust, therefore, is not accidental. As in the old legend, the devil appeared to “seduce” a person. But Mephistopheles is not at all like a devil from naive folk legends. The image created by Goethe is full of deep philosophical meaning. He is the perfect embodiment of the spirit of denial. A critical attitude towards the world is also characteristic of Faust, but this is only one side of his nature, and, moreover, not the main one. Mephistopheles is a living expression of the complete denial of all the values ​​of life. Goethe, however, does not depict Mephistopheles solely as the embodiment of evil. Firstly, he is really “devilishly” smart and insightful. His criticism is not unfounded. Take, for example, a conversation between Mephistopheles and a student. The criticism of false science that sounds in his mouth is fair and, as it were, continues what Faust said about it. Mephistopheles is a master of noticing human weaknesses and vices, and the validity of many of his caustic remarks cannot be denied. Bitter truths often sound in his mouth. He calls Faust to actions and deeds that should prove the insignificance of man, but the evil speeches and bad intentions of Mephistopheles ultimately turn out to be beaten. The truly human, embodied in Faust, is higher and more significant than the mephisto- phic negation.

Mephistopheles cannot be defined as the carrier of only bad principles. He himself says about himself that he "does good, desiring evil to everything." We understand the meaning remembering these words better what the Lord says about Mephistopheles, allowing him to try to lead Faust astray from the search for the meaning of life:

Like you, I'm never an enemy.

Of the spirits of denial you are all of me

He used to be a burden to me, a rogue and a merry fellow.

And laziness man falls into hibernation.

Go, stir up his stagnation,

Come back before him, tomi, and worry,

And irritate him with your fever.

Mephistopheles does not allow Faust to calm down. Causing irritation, the desire to counteract it. Mephistopheles turns out to be one of the reasons for Faust's activity. Pushing Faust to evil, he himself, without expecting it, awakens the best sides the nature of the hero. That is why Mephistopheles is a necessary companion for Faust. Completely opposite in their aspirations, they are inseparable from each other in Goethe's work. If Mephistopheles would have remained himself without Faust, then Faust without Mephistopheles would have been different.

In an anonymous book about Faust and in a tragedy by Marlo, Faust and Mephistopheles enter into an agreement for a certain period: the devil obliges him to serve twenty-four years and fulfill all his wishes. Goethe's pact with the devil has a different character. The former, pre-Getean Fausts strove chiefly to experience all the pleasures of life; wealth and power especially attracted them. Goethe's Faust is driven by other aspirations; The task of knowledge cannot be solved in one time or another. Therefore, Faust, demanding from Mephistopheles the unconditional fulfillment of his desires, sets the condition: the devil will receive Faust's soul only when Faust calms down and finds that highest state of life that will give him complete satisfaction. Faust tells Mephistopheles:

As soon as I raise a separate moment,

Screaming: "A moment, wait!" -

It's over and I'm your prey

And I have no escape from the trap.

The translation faithfully reproduces the meaning of Faust's speech. It can, however, be supplemented with a literal text, which in the original sounds like this: “Stop, a moment, you are beautiful!” Faust cannot foresee how long it will take him to attain this beautiful moment; he doesn't even know if it's even possible. It is important for him to provide himself with the possibility of seeking, and he does not seek pleasure at all.

Mephistopheles, however, does not believe in the loftiness of Faust's aspirations and is convinced that he can easily prove his insignificance. The first thing he suggests to him is to visit a tavern where students feast. He hopes that Faust, to put it simply, will indulge in drunkenness along with these revelers and forget about his searches. But Faust is disgusted with the company of bastards and Mephistopheles suffers the first, albeit relatively small, defeat. Then he prepares a second test for Faust. Bringing Faust to the witch's kitchen, he uses magical means to help Faust regain his youth. Mephistopheles expects the rejuvenated scientist to indulge in sensual pleasures and forget about lofty thoughts.

In this episode, Goethe uses his fantasy. “... fantasy has its own laws, which reason cannot and should not be guided by. If fantasy did not create something incomprehensible to the mind, it would be worthless…”

Eckerman I.P. "Conversations with Goethe in the last years of his life". M. "Art. literature, 1981, 30s

Indeed, the first beautiful girl seen by Faust excites his desire, and he demands from the devil that he immediately provide him with a beauty. Faust's first impulse is to satisfy sensual desire.

We know from psychology that pleasure, joy, love... are all forms of a person's experience of his relationship to various objects; they are called feelings or emotions. At one time, V.I. Lenin said that "without human emotions there never was and cannot be a human search for truth."

Mephistopheles helps him get to know Margarita, hoping that in her arms Faust will feel that wonderful moment that he wants to extend indefinitely. But here, too, the devil fails.

If at first Faust's attitude to Marguerite was only roughly sensual, then soon it is replaced by an ever-growing true love. And once in the girl's room, Faust begins to understand that she is not only beautiful in appearance, but beautiful in soul, and he is more and more convinced of this. His feeling for her becomes all-encompassing - not only physical, but also spiritual.

The second half of the first part of "Faust" is mainly devoted to the love story of Faust and Gretchen. In the legends of Faust, this theme was not developed! She grew out of the life experience of Goethe himself, who was fond of more than once in his youth, but did not then meet a woman with whom he would like to forever unite in marriage. Personal experiences served as the basis for Goethe's serious reflections on the relationship between a man and a woman in the conditions of that time.

As an artist of the bourgeois era, Goethe could not apply the personal and the public in the soul of his hero. On this basis, the tragedy of Gretchen arises, the image of which occupies such a significant place in the first part of Faust.

If Faust is the embodiment male half human race, then Gretchen is the embodiment of its female half. It goes without saying that not all men are Fausts and not all women are like Gretchen. Goethe chose for his work a case that was not a particular one, but especially striking, which allowed him to pose with great acuteness a problem that worried him, and not only his problem.

Gretchen is a lovely, pure, young being. Before meeting Faust, her life flowed peacefully and evenly. Love for Faust turned her whole life upside down. She was seized by a feeling as powerful and unrestrained as that of Faust. Their love is mutual, but as people, they are completely different, and this is partly the reason for the tragic outcome of their love. Faust is a man of unusually developed mentality, big way spiritual growth, very knowledgeable and very free-thinking. He is characterized by a critical attitude to generally accepted concepts. His thought is distinguished by independence, he does not take anything for granted, he subjects everything to critical analysis and only after that does he draw certain conclusions.

A simple girl from the people of Gretchen has all the treasures of a loving female soul. External beauty is combined in it with spiritual beauty, and the ability for boundless love and self-sacrifice is combined with modesty and a deep sense of duty.

Unlike Faust with his critical spirit, Gretchen accepts life as it is. Brought up in strict religious rules, she considers the natural inclinations of her nature to be sinful.

In general, seven virtues are distinguished, consecrated by the authority of the church. Plato, ancient Greek philosopher, who lived in the V-IV centuries BC, considered four virtues to be such - wisdom, moderation, courage and justice. Christian ethics adds three more to them - faith, hope, love (meaning faith in God, hope for him and love for him). To them should also be added humility, humility, meekness, which have always been valued not only by Christianity, but also by other religions. For example, even the very name of such a world religion as Islam means “submission” in translation. In Christian ethics, the doctrine of the "seven deadly sins", the most dangerous and unacceptable vices, is also taking shape. This is pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, laziness. Without hesitation, succumbing first to passion, then she deeply experiences her “fall”. Depicting his heroine in this way, Goethe endowed her with features typical of women of his time. At that time, the socio-economic prerequisites for equal rights for women had not yet arisen. To understand the fate of Gretchen, one must clearly imagine the era when such tragedies really took place.

The circle of life concepts Gretchen is limited to personal and family interests. Beyond these limits, life is inaccessible and incomprehensible to her. The difference between her and Faust's mental concepts is most clearly manifested in relation to religion. Faust, as we know, long ago abandoned faith in church doctrine. In contrast, Gretchen is deeply religious. Her religiosity is expressively shown by Goethe: Faust meets her when she leaves the temple; in the critical days of her life, when she found out that she would have a child, Gretchen turns to heaven for help.

Gretchen turns out to be a sinner both in her own eyes and in the opinion of the environment with its 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 philistine 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 could not understand as a proper consequence of her love, who considered the birth of an illegitimate child a shame. Finally, at a critical moment, Faust was not near Gretchen, who could have prevented the murder of a child committed by Gretchen.

For all that Gretchen absorbed the future religiosity and prejudices of her philistine environment, one cannot see in her a narrow-minded being unworthy of Faust. She has a deep nature and, following her feelings, she is able to rise above the narrow circle of concepts brought up in her from childhood. Love helps Gretchen to rise above her environment for a while and find the strength in herself to become Faust's girlfriend. For the sake of love for Faust, she goes to "sin", to crime. But this shattered her mental strength, and she lost her mind.

Just as Faust, in order to satisfy his spiritual aspirations, concludes an agreement with the devil, in other words, falls from a social point of view into “sin” and commits a crime, so Gretchen, in the name of love, turns out to be a violator of moral standards accepted in society. The tragedy of Gretchen is not that she violated the laws, the sanctity of which she was taught to respect, but that she could not break with the world of those ideas that the bourgeois environment imposes with its unnatural morality. Goethe expresses his attitude towards the heroine in the finale. When in the dungeon Mephistopheles urges Faust to escape, he says that Gretchen is condemned anyway. But at this time a voice is heard from above: “Saved!”. If Gretchen is condemned by society and its harsh formal laws, then from the point of view of the highest morality embodied here in the decision of heaven, she is justified. In everything Gretchen did, she was driven by great love. Her last words we hear: “Heinrich! Henry!". Until the last moment, even in the stupefaction of her mind, she is full of love for Faust, although this love led her to death.

Yes, Faust's fault, no doubt. He genuinely loved Gretchen, but his love for her was as undivided as her love for him. Besides her, he had other interests. But more specifically and immediately fatal for Gretchen was the fact that at the moment when she most needed his help and support, he was not with her. Faust's absence was due to the fact that after the murder of Margarita's brother, he had to flee, fearing persecution, and Mephistopheles took advantage of this in order to try to drag Faust into a pool of gross sensual pleasures. This is symbolically depicted in the fantastic scene of the witches' sabbath - vampurgis night. Faust, however, did not let himself be carried away to the end and escaped from there to return to Gretchen, but it was too late: the worst thing had happened.

As with many great tragedies, the causes of what happened are manifold and complex. It is no coincidence that the tragic denouement of the love of Faust and Margaret was partly natural both because of the difference in their natures and because of the external conditions surrounding their secret love.

But the accidental circumstances of Margarita's brother, Lashentin, are often added to the tragic patterns. A brave warrior, he seemed to have the least relation to morality. Drunken revelry was the most innocent thing in the life of this man, whose profession was murder. And it was he who, probably, who had trampled on her maiden honor more than once, found it necessary to stand up for his sister, and this ultimately led to Gretchen's fatal loneliness at the most critical moment for her.

The death of Gretchen is a tragedy of pure and beautiful woman because of his great love caught in the cycle terrible events leading to her becoming a murderer own child went mad and was sentenced to death.

Her only fault is love, but can this be considered guilt?

The death of Gretchen is a tragedy not only for her, but also for Faust. He loved her with all the strength of his soul; there was no woman more beautiful than she for him. The death of Gretchen for Faust is also tragic because he himself was partly to blame for it. It is also tragic for him that, having lost his beloved, he will never experience such wonderful feelings as this seemingly simple girl evoked in him.

One may ask the question: why did Goethe choose such a sad subject? Was it not in his will to please readers with an image happy love? Why would the heroes, having experienced certain difficulties, not overcome the obstacles in their way and achieve, in the end, prosperity? After all, not every great love is unhappy.

Goethe chose the tragic story because he wanted to put his readers in the face of difficult life conflicts. He saw his task in arousing attention to the unresolved and difficult questions of life. There is an opinion that writers should give a consoling and happy solution to life's conflicts. So in many cases the great English figure Dickens acted in the novels he wrote. And Goethe had a poem "Hermann and Dorothea", ending idellically. But this work was an exception in the work of Goethe, who always sought to reveal the tragic contradictions of being, not in order to confuse readers, but in order to teach him to face the most bitter truth.

But doesn't tragedy give rise to pessimism and disbelief in life? Goethe decidedly did not believe in this. He was convinced of the opposite, and this was taught by the entire experience of world tragic art from the great Greek tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides to the English playwright Shakespeare, surrendering to the most beautiful tragedy.

An important feature of the tragedy is that depicting sad events, evocative grief, they at the same time reveal how beautiful people can be even in misfortune. After all, Gretchen arouses in readers not only sympathy, pity - feelings in themselves are good, but also admiration. This unfortunate girl turns out to be so beautiful in our eyes that we do not see any guilt behind her, although we know what she did serious crimes, because for readers it is more important those best spiritual qualities that manifested themselves in the heroine during tragic circumstances that led her to her death.

tragic heroes reveal their high humanity, despite mistakes and weaknesses, and sometimes criminal acts. We can say the same about Faust. He is by no means a flawed hero. We know the fatal role that he played in the fate of Margarita. But how much greatness, fortitude, passion is in him, although he could not build his happiness and his beloved woman.

Goethe's tragedy excites precisely because it shows us the life of people who have not achieved happiness. It excites the thoughts of readers: how to avoid the woeful consequences of passions? What is necessary to ensure that misfortunes like those that happened to the heroes would not happen in life? Art, of course, has the right to offer its own solutions to life's problems, but the task of tragedy in the first place is to reveal the contradictions of reality that interfere with human happiness. The artist seeks to excite the thought of readers, to push them to a real solution to what hinders human well-being in the real world. It is precisely this noble role that the tragic plays in Goethe.

The first part of "Faust" is an artistically completed work. This is the tragedy of a scientist who became disillusioned with contemporary science, and the tragedy of a man who did not find happiness in love, in a sad end, which he himself unwittingly turned out to be to blame. But the fate of the hero does not end there, Goethe continued to depict her in the second part of Faust.

There is a significant difference between the two parts art form. The first part, despite the presence of science fiction in it, is generally quite plausible. Both Faust's spiritual turmoil and his tragic love deeply hurt the feelings of readers. The second part is written in a different manner. There are almost no psychological motives here, there is no depiction of passions. Its content is more general. There is not that romantic element here that excites so much in tragic history love Faust and Gretchen. The characters here are not so much vital characters as generalized figures (the Emperor, the Chancellor, Philemon and Baucis and others). The images of the second part do not claim to be completely life-like, they are poetic symbols certain ideas and concepts.

The second part of Faust is one of the examples of the literature of ideas. In symbolic form, Goethe depicts here the crisis of the feudal monarchy, the inhumanity of wars, the search for spiritual beauty, labor for the good of society.

Having touched upon the main forms of life activity in the second part, Goethe at the same time goes beyond the limits of the direct life experience of people and, continuing in this respect the line of the first part, poses more philosophical problems.

Goethe considers the relationship of the individual to society as an artist, reflecting the bourgeois stage of social development. The world outlined by him consists of individual atoms. Everyone lives by himself in a circle of personal relationships. Goethe's hero seeks to overcome this isolation by devoting himself to work for the benefit of others. The spirit of sociality awakens in him, but even Faust realizes his humane idea as a feat of a separate outstanding personality acting, essentially, alone.

In the second part, Faust is less active than in the first. At times, he completely disappears from the reader's field of vision, and Mephistopheles and other characters are in the first place. Goethe deliberately shifts attention from the personality of the hero to the world around him. The nature of Faust is no longer a mystery to the reader.

In the second part, Goethe is more interested in the task of highlighting some of the world's problems.

Such is the question of the main law of the development of life. In the second act, among other things, the dispute between the philosophers Thales and Anaxagoras is presented. The first claims that the source of life is water, the second defends the idea of ​​"volcanism", development through jumps and catastrophes. In this part of the dispute, which concerned the natural science problem of the structure and development of the earth's surface. Goethe agreed to admit that the "volcanists" were partly right. But as a law of world development, he rejected the principle of catastrophes and abrupt upheavals.

The idea of ​​development runs through the whole work. In the second part, Goethe puts forward the idea of ​​gradual evolution scenic views, the top of which is a person. The principle of development is also introduced by the poet-thinker into the characterization of spiritual life. Goethe believes in the idea of ​​progress, the development of human history does not appear to them as a smooth and calm path. Struggle and complex contradictions are inevitable in the process of human development.

Deeply convinced of the materiality of the world, Goethe, at the same time, believed that the movement of life is determined by spiritual forces. It is impossible, he believed, to explain life, including nature, by physical causes alone. Various embodiments of spirituality are abundantly represented in the symbolic images of the second part.

Touching upon the most diverse issues, Goethe, however, did not strive for unity in the development of the plot. If in the first part there are two main themes: Faust and science, Faust's love, then in the second part there are much more topics, and, accordingly, the action is more diverse. Goethe divided it into five acts, but they have little to do with each other. Each is a closed part with its own theme.

Having deeply suffered the tragic death of Gretchen, Faust is reborn to a new life and continues to search for the truth. First we see him in the public arena. Goethe depicts a feudal empire in a state of complete collapse. The country's chancellor paints a gloomy picture of this state in his report. All people are obsessed with selfish aspirations: "In the fever of self-will, the sick kingdom rushes about in delirium." He draws the attention of the emperor to the fact that the whole order of life is perverted.

The emperor, however, is indifferent to what is happening with the country and how the people live. He only cares about one thing - how to fill the empty treasury in order to indulge in new spending, without burdening himself with anxiety about the troubles in the state. With the help of Mephistopheles, the problem is solved - the devil proposes to issue paper money (then it was an innovation). The image of the tops of the feudal monarchy is given to Goethe in a sharply satirical way.

Disillusioned with state activities, Faust is looking for new ways. The image of Elena the Beautiful, evoked by means of magic, arouses in him the desire to see her with his own eyes. This is not, however, a repetition of the hero's love story. The ancient beauty died long ago, and the desire to call her back to life has by no means a real, but a symbolic meaning, and this is what it is.

Faust's attitude towards the feudal monarchy reflected the personal experience of Goethe, who, having become close to the Duke of Weimar, tried to reform this small state, but was convinced that private improvements did not change anything. The trouble, however, was that the German people, due to their disunity and depression, were not able to do anything in defense of their human rights.

Then Goethe and the great poet Friedrich Schiller came to the conclusion that it was necessary to spiritually educate the people, and they would ripen to fight for better life. The aesthetic ideal for Goethe and Schiller was the art and poetry of Ancient Greece. According to the 18th century thinkers Winckelmann and Lessing, the ancient Greeks were able to create human and beautiful art because the creators were in freedom. Goethe and Schiller hoped that they would be able to do the opposite: to cultivate a sense of beauty, and it would arouse in people the desire for freedom.

Helena the Beautiful serves Goethe as a symbol of his artistic ideal. But the ideal did not arise immediately, and the poet creates a whole act of tragedies to show how the concept of beauty was gradually born in the myths and legends of Ancient Greece. In Goethe's mind, this part, the classical Walpurgis Night, has an important ideological significance. The gloomy fantasy of Walpurgis Night of the first part, imbued with the spirit of the Middle Ages with its monsters and freaks, is contrasted here with the birth of the bright and cheerful beauty of antiquity.

In parallel, there is new topic. Book student Wagner, familiar to readers from the first part, creates an artificial human Homunculus in the laboratory. He accompanies Faust in his search for the path to the beautiful, but crashes and dies, while Faust reaches his goal - he finds Elena the Beautiful revived to life.

The third act of the second part depicts their union, which should not be understood as a new "romance" of the hero. Faust and Elena embody two principles: she is a symbol of ideal ancient beauty, he is the embodiment of a restless "romantic" spirit. From the symbolic image of Faust and Helen, a beautiful young man Euphorion is born, combining the features of his parents: harmonious beauty and a restless spirit. But such a creature is not allowed to live in this world. He is too perfect for him and shatters to death in his impulse. With his death, Elena also disappears. Faust is left with only clothes. The meaning of this is that the ancient ideal of beauty cannot be revived, because the spirit of the past cannot be restored, and only the external forms of ancient beauty remain for humanity.

In other words, all this experience of Faust ends with a new disappointment, and the hero's experiences reflect the real symbolic experience of Goethe and those who, together with him, hoped that by creating a work that follows the best examples of beauty, one can find a solution to the contradictions of reality. Goethe by no means denies the significance of art, but not in it, but in life, it is necessary to achieve the realization of the ideal, and the hero returns to the real world. And realistic passions are raging in the world, there is a struggle for power not for life, but for death. Faust assists the emperor against his enemies and is rewarded with a vast but uninhabitable territory, for it is constantly threatened by warrior raids. Faust is eager to turn this piece of land into a beautiful and safe area where the people would work quietly.

Mephistopheles, pretending to help Faust, is actually trying to distort his order. In this sense, the episode of the death of the old people Philemon and Baucis is very important. They are the victims of Mephistopheles, who perverts the plan of Faust, making him guilty of their unfortunate fate. Faust, wishing people well, becomes, as it were, the culprit in the death of these harmless people. The sum of Faust's tragic experiences also includes this misfortune.

The implementation of Faust's plan drags on for a long time, he grows old, goes blind, and the end of the work is not visible. But this is not important for Faust, but the conviction that has arisen in him that he has finally found what he was looking for and is close to his goal, and then he utters the long-awaited words:

Here is the thought to which I am devoted,

The sum of everything that the mind has accumulated.

Only the one who has experienced the battle for life,

You deserve life and freedom.

That's right, every day, every year,

Working, fighting, joking with danger,

Let the husband, the old man and the child live.

A free people in a free land

I would like to see on such days.

Then I could exclaim:

“Instant!

Oh, how beautiful you are, wait!

The traces of my struggles are embodied,

And they will never be erased"

And, anticipating this triumph,

I am experiencing the highest moment now.

Faust found the meaning of life in searching, in struggle, in work. Such was his life. She brought him brief periods of happiness and long years of overcoming hardship. To his 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 incomplete, he believes in its final realization. It is tragic that Faust acquires 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 fantasy creatures lemurs, subject to Mephistopheles, dig a grave for Faust.

After the death of Faust, Mephistopheles wants to take his soul to hell, but divine forces intervene and take her to heaven, where she will meet with the soul of Gretchen.

Thus, if at the end of the first part there is a symbolic justification of Faust, and it is significant not only that his soul is overshadowed by “divine grace”, which in Goethe has not a religious, but a moral meaning, but also that there is a final reconciliation of Faust and Gretchen. Her love remains the highest justification for Faust.

To what extent is the concept of "tragedy" applicable to the second part of "Faust"? after all, the ending is optimistic, if only because the hero has found the meaning of life for himself. But let's not forget at the same time that each of the steps along which Faust climbed to his goal not only did not bring him satisfaction, but caused him disappointment, and if he had happy moments, then they did not bring him complete happiness. . Faust found the purpose of life only when he lost the strength to continue his activity, and only consciousness still lived in his decrepit body.

If the whole path of the hero is tragic, this does not mean that his life was empty or fruitless. Goethe was profoundly alien to the petty-bourgeois idea of ​​happiness as personal well-being. material goods and comfort, bought at the price of rejection of noble ideals. Faust did not wish himself such happiness. He suffered, suffered, but his life was full, because it demanded from him the exertion of all spiritual strength, and he generously gave them to science, love, service to beauty, work for the good of others.

In everyday life, the tragic is understood as a terrible and irreparable disaster. In art, it means something else. Tragedy depicts significant events, containing deep meaning for all people, it brings out characters that are real and at the same time sublime, depicts the difficulties and contradictions of life.

With Mephistopheles - and invariably the first wins. The combination of Helena and Faust in the second part is a combination of two different ideals - the ancient classical and the medieval romantic. Connecting Helena and Faust, Goethe connects the classics with romance, establishes, to some extent, the connection of times, a direct connection of the first with the second. Elena - one more step, one more rung of the ladder...

He treated with contempt the dogmatic pedantry of that kind of scientists who at all times, clinging to authorities and "axioms", hindered the development of sciences. He contrasts two types of scientists - Faust and Wagner. Restless creative dissatisfaction with what has been achieved is a hallmark of the former. Scholarship, knowing no doubts, vulgar, stupid complacency, isolation from the people and real life - ...

... ; the same dreams dominated the consciousness of the entire generation of Sturm und Drang, with whom Goethe entered the literary field. Analysis of Goethe's tragedy "Faust" as a reflection of the enlightenment artistic thought and the heights of world literature showed that, of course, it is hardly possible to place "Faust" within the framework of any one literary movement or trend. The tragedy is immeasurably wider, more voluminous, ...

There is a plastic material in the world, in which glitter plays - straight from the sky, to which the hand reaches - straight from the land. The love of Goethe and Pushkin for the sea is sharp-sighted, demanding, architectural, even engineering at its core. Perhaps creative work on the seashore, the construction of an artificial barrier - this is the most classical of all themes, the quintessence of the classicism of the New Age. Greek classics...

"Faust" - greatest creation Goethe. The search for truth and the meaning of life. "Eternal images" in the work.

TARGET: reveal the author's understanding of the recognition of the greatness of man; develop the mental activity of students; learn to draw conclusions.

EQUIPMENT: a portrait of Goethe, the text of Faust, a reference table, a reproduction of Malevich's painting The Black Square, music from the opera by Charles Gounod, written on the plot of the first part of the tragedy Faust, performed by students of the Partenit music school.

DURING THE CLASSES

1. Music sounds. The teacher reads the passage "In the beginning was the word ..." in German, and the student reads in Russian.

2. STATEMENT OF GOALS AND TASKS OF THE LESSON. MOTIVATION OF LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Johann Wolfgang Goethe is called the king of poetry. Over the work "Faust", which brought the author world fame, Goethe worked for 57 years. After completing work on the tragedy, Goethe wrote in his diary: "I have finished work on the work of my life."

The purpose of our lesson is to reveal the author's understanding of the recognition of the greatness of man. The hero of Goethe is looking for the truth that will help to understand the meaning of life.

If today's lesson brings you closer to understanding the "eternal images" and the ideological concept of tragedy, you can proudly say that you have read the work of the great Goethe.

At the end of the lesson, each of you will find your own definition of "truth".

Working with a pivot table

TRUTH IS MIND, MOVEMENT? (“Act is the beginning of being”)

THE TRUTH LEADS INTO THE VOID, INTO SELF-DESTRUCTION...

TRUE-...

3. WORK ON THE LESSON TOPIC

1. The work was created during the Enlightenment.

What are the basic principles of the Enlightenment? (Cult of reason, critical attitude to reality).

Goethe in his work poses a philosophical question: “What place does a person take in a new era, the meaning of his life?”, solves the problempassive and activemind. (Working with a reference table).

2. To understand how Goethe answers the questions posed, let us turn to the composition of the work. It is peculiar, consists of external and internal.

External : two prologues and two parts (A prologue is possible in an epic work, not a dramatic one, but was used in ancient Greek tragedy).

Internal : based on the sharp contrast of "tops" and "bottoms".

The first part is not divided into actions, but there are only scenes, the second part - 5 actions makes the work cumbersome, that is, Goethe wrote a non-stage play (only the first part was staged in the theater).

With all that said, let's define the genre of the work. (Student's message).

On the board - TRAGEDY

DRAMATIC POEM

PHILOSOPHICAL TRAGEDY

One of the researchers of Goethe's work Anikst wrote: "Faust" combines elements of the three main types of literature - lyrics, drama, epic.

3. Dramatic work resolves the conflict.

What is the conflict in tragedy? (The conflict is not at the everyday level, but the conflict of worldviews)

Work with the table (quotes).

4. Analysis of the prologue in heaven.

5. Image of Faust (Messages from students)

What causes Faust's displeasure?

How does he intend to live, having finished the bet with Mephistopheles? (Monologues)

Being powerless to know the secret of the universe and the place of man in it with the help of science, Faust decides to die. Hearing the Easter bell, he lowers the cup: neither religion nor faith stops him, but memories of childhood. “I have no faith”, “can I believe”. The sciences that Faust studied did not bring him closer to knowing the truth.

“ACT IS THE BASIS OF BEING” is one of the main thoughts of the work, and Mephistopheles plays an important role in the development of this main idea.

THE IMAGE OF MEPHISTOPHILE (student's messages)

What role did God assign to Mephistopheles, what role did he volunteer to play himself, and what was his true role in the fate of Faust?

Mephistopheles seeks to lead Faust astray, to instill doubt in him (the kitchen of the witches, the wine cellar, arranges a meeting with Margarita so that the excitement of passion makes the scientist forget about his duty to the truth).

BET. Mephistopheles to drown the high aspirations of Faust in a stream of base pleasures, so that, finally, he wants to stop the moment. This will be the victory of Mephistopheles - he will thereby prove that he is insignificant.

"A moment, you're fine, stop!" These words would mean that Faust does not need anything.

Mephistopheles is not a negative hero, but a complex and meaningful one. Goethe once remarked that Faust and Mephistopheles embody different facets of his own Self (soul and doubt).

With his doubts, ridicule, rude, cynical attitude to life, Mephistopheles makes Faust argue, fight, defend his views and thereby move forward. By his denial, Mephistopheles destroys everything and thus makes Faust's mind strive for creation, to seek positive truth.

What is stronger than evil? (stronger than evil is good, destruction is creation, death is life)

DRY, MY FRIEND, THEORY,

AND THE TREE OF LIFE IS GREAT GREEN.

That. Goethe through the mouth of Mephistopheles once again expresses the eternity of life. He opposes two actively smart people. Faust seeks truth, creating, and seeks to bring good to people. Mephistopheles is evil and destruction.

6. The story of Faust and Margarita.

In his tragedy, Goethe devotes much space to the theme of love as a source of moral re-education of his hero. It is through love that the author completes the image of Faust.

(Student reading Goethe's poem about love)

The seduction of the girl is thought out by the devil.

What is Margarita like on the first impression?

(Faust calls her an angel, beautiful. He says that he appreciates her innocence, simplicity, humility, modesty. Faust tells Margarita about his love, but at that moment he is mistaken, does not find happiness in love

Dying, Valentine tells Margo about her tragic fate, the sinner is waiting for universal contempt. First she says, “Oh my God! My brother, brother!" According to medieval belief: the righteous turn to the powers of heaven for help, and the sinners to the powers of hell. So Margot admitted her sin before people.

Is Faust responsible for the tragedy of Margot?

(Guilty, because, loving Margarita, he wanted to be happy, first of all, himself, thinking only of himself)

How do you understand the feeling of responsibility, duty for those you love?

What does the expression "love does not give wings" mean? (Comparison with Turgenev's Asya "My wings have grown, but there is nowhere to fly")

Which of the writers and in what works explored the theme of love, not sanctified by the bonds of marriage? (Shevchenko "Katerina")

The episode with Margot was important for Goethe because he was able to show that love for a woman did not help Faust find meaning in life, and he did not say his "prophetic words."

7. PART 2 OF THE TRAGEDY. TEACHER'S MESSAGE.

In the second part, written in the last decade of his life, there is no domestic scenes, and symbolic images predominate.

Faust, aged, blind, but inwardly enlightened, exclaims: "Only he is worthy of the life of freedom who every day goes to fight for them."

Faust carries out a bold project of transforming nature. A part of the sea is drained, and a city is built on the reclaimed part (quotes).

Faust dies without saying the words that Mephistopheles was waiting for. He lost the bet. Mephistopheles failed to prove the insignificance of man.

Making mistakes, suffering and tormenting, Faust reached his goal, understood what the meaning of human life on earth is. God is the creator, man creates by working.

8. SUMMARY

In 1913, or in 1914, or in 1915, on which date it is not known, the Russian artist of Polish origin Kazimir Malevich took a small canvas: 79.5 by 79.5 cm, painted over it with white paint around the edges, and thickly painted the middle in black.

By doing this simple operation,

Malevich became the author of the most famous, most mysterious, most frightening painting in the world - "Black Square". With a simple movement of the brush, he once and for all drew an impenetrable line. Marked the abyss between new and old art, between man and shadow, between life and death. Between God and the Devil. In his own words, he "brought everything to zero." Zero somehow turned out to be square, and this simple discovery is one of the strangest events in art in the entire history of its existence.

At the end of 1915, at the exhibition of the Futurists, Malevich hung his paintings in the usual way. But he assigned a special place to the "Black Square" in the corner, under the ceiling, where it is customary to hang an icon. Malevich called his painting "an icon of our time." Instead of a window eternal life a window into darkness.

(The definition of what is truth, the guys determine by raising black or white squares-cards, referring to the table, or give their definition of TRUTH)

HOMEWORK

Answer the question "If I am Faust, then what will I look for the meaning of my life?"

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)

FAUST

"Faust" by Goethe is one of the outstanding works of art which, delivering high aesthetic pleasure, at the same time reveal a lot of important things about life.

Such works are superior in their value to books that are read out of curiosity, for recreation and entertainment.

In works of this kind, the special depth of comprehension of life and the incomparable beauty with which the world is embodied in living images are striking. Each of their pages conceals for us extraordinary beauties, insights into the meaning of certain life phenomena, and we turn from readers into accomplices in the great process of the spiritual development of mankind.

Works distinguished by such a power of generalization become the highest embodiment of the spirit of the people and time. Moreover, the power of artistic thought overcomes geographical and national boundaries, and other nations also find in the poet's creation thoughts and feelings that are close to them. The book takes on worldwide significance.

A work that arose under certain conditions and at a certain time, bearing the indelible stamp of its era, retains interest for subsequent generations, because human problems: love and hate, fear and hope, despair and joy, success and defeat, growth and decline - all this and much more is not tied to one time. In someone else's grief and in someone else's joy, people of other generations recognize their own. The book acquires universal value.

The creator of "Faust" Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749 - 1832) lived in the world for eighty-two years, filled with tireless and varied activities Poet, playwright, novelist, Goethe was also a good artist and very serious natural scientist. The breadth of Goethe's mental outlook was extraordinary. There was no such life phenomenon that would not attract his attention.

Goethe worked on Faust for almost his entire creative life. The first idea came to him when he was not much more than twenty years old. He completed the work a few months before his death. Thus, from the beginning of the work to its completion, about sixty years passed.

It took more than thirty years to work on the first part of Faust, which was first published in its entirety in 1808. Goethe did not begin to create the second part for a long time, taking up it closely in the very last years of his life. It appeared in print after his death, in 1833.

"Faust" is a poetic work of a special, extremely rare style. In "Faust" there are real scenes - everyday, like, for example, a feast of students in Auerbach's cellar, lyrical, like the hero's meeting with Margarita, tragic, like the finale of the first part - Gretchen in a dungeon.

Faust makes extensive use of legendary and fabulous motifs, myths and legends, and next to them, whimsically intertwining with fantasy, we see real human images and completely life situations.

Goethe is first and foremost a poet. In German poetry there is no work equal to Faust in the all-encompassing character of its poetic structure. Intimate lyrics, civic pathos, philosophical reflections, sharp satire, description of nature, folk humor - all this fills the poetic lines of Goethe's universal creation.

The plot is based on the legend of the medieval magician and warlock John Faust. He was a real person, but already during his lifetime, legends began to be added about him. In 1587, the book "History of Dr. Faust, the famous magician and warlock" was published in Germany, the author of which is unknown. He wrote his essay condemning Faust as an atheist. However, with all the hostility of the author, the true image of wonderful person, who broke with medieval scholastic science and theology in order to comprehend the laws of nature and subordinate it to man. The churchmen accused him of having sold his soul to the devil.

Faust's impulse to know reflects the mental movement whole era spiritual development of European society, called the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. In the eighteenth century, in the struggle against church prejudices and obscurantism, a broad movement developed to study nature, comprehend its laws and use scientific discoveries for the benefit of mankind. It was on the basis of this liberation movement that a work similar to Goethe's Faust could have arisen. These ideas were of a pan-European character, but were especially characteristic of Germany. While England experienced its bourgeois revolution in the seventeenth century, and France went through a revolutionary storm at the end of the eighteenth century, and in Germany historical conditions It turned out that because of the fragmentation of the country, the advanced social forces could not unite to fight against obsolete social institutions. The striving of the best people for a new life, therefore, manifested itself not in real political struggle, not even in practical activity, but in mental activity.

In Faust, Goethe expressed his understanding of life in a figurative poetic form. Faust is undoubtedly a living person with passions and feelings inherent in other people. But being a bright and outstanding personality, Faust is by no means the embodiment of perfection. Faust's path is difficult. First, he proudly challenges the cosmic forces, summoning the spirit of the earth and hoping to measure his strength with him. The life of Faust, which Goethe unfolds before the reader, is the path of tireless quest.

Faust's father was a doctor, he instilled in him a love of science and instilled in him the desire to serve people. But the father's healing proved powerless against the diseases that affected people. During a plague epidemic, young Faust, seeing that his father's means could not stop the flow of death, turned to heaven with an ardent prayer. But help did not come from there either. Then Faust once and for all decided that it was useless to turn to God for help. After that, Faust devoted himself to science.

This backstory of Faust we learn in the course of action. We will meet the hero already when he has come a long way in life and came to the conclusion that his efforts were in vain. Faust's despair is so deep that he wants to commit suicide. But at this moment he hears the pleas of people and decides to stay alive.

At a critical moment on the path of Faust, Mephistopheles meets. Here we need to return to one of the scenes that precede the beginning of the action - to the Prologue in the sky. In it, the Lord, surrounded by angels, meets with Mephistopheles. The inhabitant of hell Mephistopheles embodies evil. The whole scene symbolizes the struggle between good and evil taking place in the world.

Mephistopheles completely denies any dignity for a person. The Lord recognizes that a person is far from perfect, but still, in the final analysis, there is a way to get out of "gloom". The Lord names Faust as such a person. Mephistopheles asks permission to prove that Faust can easily be led astray from the true path. The dispute between Mephistopheles and God is a dispute about the nature and value of man.

The appearance of Mephistopheles before Faust is not accidental. Mephistopheles is not at all like the devil from naive folk legends. The image created by Goethe is full of deep philosophical meaning. Goethe, however, does not depict Mephistopheles solely as the embodiment of evil. He's actually "diabolically" smart.

Mephistopheles does not allow Faust to calm down. Pushing Faust to the bad, he, without expecting it himself, awakens the best sides of the hero's nature.

Faust, demanding from Mephistopheles the fulfillment of all his desires, sets the condition:

As soon as I glorify a separate moment,

Screaming: "A moment, wait!" -

It's over and I'm your prey

And I have no escape from the trap.

The first thing he suggests to him is to visit a tavern where students feast. He hopes that Faust, simply put, will indulge in drunkenness and forget about his quest. But Faust is disgusted with the company of bastards, and Mephistopheles suffers his first defeat. Then he prepares a second test for him. With the help of witchcraft charms, he returns his youth.

Mephistopheles hopes that the young Faust will indulge in feelings.

Indeed, the first beautiful girl seen by Faust excites his desire, and he demands from the devil that he immediately provide him with a beauty. Mephistopheles helps him get to know Marguerite, hoping that Faust will find in her arms that wonderful moment that he wants to extend indefinitely. But even here the devil turns out to be beaten.

If at first Faust's attitude to Margarita was only roughly sensual, then very soon it is replaced by more and more true love.

Gretchen is a beautiful, pure young being. Before meeting Faust, her life flowed peacefully and evenly. Love for Faust turned her whole life upside down. She was seized by a feeling as powerful as that which seized Faust. Their love is mutual, but, as people, they are completely different, and this is partly the reason for the tragic outcome of their love.

A simple girl from the people, Gretchen has all the qualities of a loving female soul. Unlike Faust, Gretchen accepts life as it is. Brought up in strict religious rules, she considers the natural inclinations of her nature to be sinful. Later, she experiences her "fall" deeply. By portraying the heroine in this way, Goethe endowed her with features typical of a woman in his time. To understand the fate of Gretchen, one must clearly imagine the era when such tragedies really took place.

Gretchen turns out to be a sinner both in her own eyes and in the eyes of the environment with her bourgeois and sanctimonious prejudices. Gretchen is a victim doomed to death.

Those around her could not take for granted the consequences of her love, who considered the birth of an illegitimate child a shame. Finally, at a critical moment, Faust was not near Gretchen, who could have prevented the murder of a child committed by Gretchen.

For the sake of love for Faust, she goes to "sin", to a crime. But this tore her mental strength, and she lost her mind.

Goethe expresses his attitude to the heroine in the finale. When in the dungeon Mephistopheles urges Faust to escape, he says that Gretchen is condemned anyway. But at this time a voice is heard from above: "Saved!". If Gretchen is condemned by society, then from the point of view of heaven, she is justified. Until the last moment, even in the stupefaction of her mind, she is full of love for Faust, although this love led her to death.

Doom Gretchen is a tragedy a pure and beautiful woman who, because of her great love, was involved in a circle of terrible events.

The death of Gretchen is a tragedy not only for her, but also for Faust. He loved her with all the strength of his soul; There was no woman more beautiful than she for him. Faust himself was partly to blame for Gretchen's death.

Goethe chose the tragic story because he wanted to confront his readers with the most difficult facts of life. He saw his task in arousing attention to the unresolved and difficult issues of life.

The second part of Faust is one of the examples of the literature of ideas. In symbolic form, Goethe depicts here the crisis of the feudal monarchy, the inhumanity of wars, the search for spiritual beauty, labor for the good of society.

In the second part, Goethe is more interested in the task of highlighting some of the world's problems.

Such is the question of the main law of the development of life.

Deeply convinced of the materiality of the world, Goethe at the same time believed that the movement of life is determined by spiritual forces.

Having deeply suffered the death of Gretchen, Faust is reborn to a new life and continues to search for the truth. First we see him in the public arena.

Disillusioned with state activities, Faust is looking for new ways. The image of Elena the Beautiful, evoked by means of magic, arouses in him the desire to see her with his own eyes.

Helena the Beautiful serves Goethe as a symbol of his artistic ideal. But the ideal did not arise immediately, and the poet creates a whole act of tragedy to show how the concept of beauty was born in the myths and legends of ancient Greece.

At the same time, a theme emerges. Book scientist Wagner creates an artificial human Homunculus in the laboratory. He accompanies Faust in his search for the path to the beautiful, but crashes and dies, while Faust reaches the goal.

Faust and Elena embody two principles: she is a symbol of ideal ancient beauty, he is the incarnation restless "romantic" spirit. From the symbolic marriage of Faust and Helena, a beautiful young man Euphorion is born, combining the features of his parents. But such a creature is not allowed to live in our world. It's too perfect for him and shatters to death.

It is important for Faust to believe that he has found what he was looking for.

Here is the thought to which I am devoted,

The sum of everything that the mind has accumulated.

Only the one with whom the battle for life has been experienced,

You deserve life and freedom.

It is tragic that Faust acquires 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 lemurs, subject to Mephistopheles, are digging a grave for Faust.

After the death of Faust, Mephistopheles wants to drag his soul to hell, but divine forces intervene and take her to heaven, where she will meet with the soul of Gretchen.

If the whole path of the hero is tragic, this does not mean that his life was empty and fruitless.

He suffered, suffered, but his life was full, for it demanded from him the exertion of all spiritual strength.

It is impossible to exhaust all the wealth of ideas in Goethe's Faust.

The general meaning of "Faust" as a beautiful dramatic poem can hardly be in doubt.

A.Anikst.

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Composition "The role of the evil inclination in the fate of man (According to the tragedy" Faust "by I. V. Goethe)"

Johann Wolfgang Goethe is the founder of German literature new era. This multifaceted, gifted man left behind a noticeable mark both in literature and in science. Goethe's work is an accurate reflection of the most important trends and contradictions of the present of that era. The tragedy "Faust" became a work of Goethe, in which the author shares his thoughts about universal values, about the meaning of life, which are based on tireless activity for the sake of man, even if this activity carries tragic mistakes.

The tragedy "Faust" begins with the "Prologue in Heaven", where a conversation between God and Mephistopheles took place, more reminiscent of a philosophical discussion. In the conversation, for the first time, the name Faust is heard, whom God cites as an example as his faithful servant. Mephistopheles manages to convince God to conduct an experiment, promising to make Faust crawl and "eat ... dust from a shoe." God in this dispute is the bearer of an optimistic view of man, and Mephistopheles behaves like an inveterate skeptic who does not believe in human decency and sanity. Mephistopheles goes to earth. And a grand struggle of good and evil, great and insignificant, begins.

Dr. Faust is an encyclopedic scientist, revered by the people, but he became disillusioned with science and the possibility of discovering the truth. Emotional emptiness pushes Faust to turn to magic, but the spirit he summoned terribly frightened him. Soon Mephistopheles appears in Faust's room. The guest laughs caustically at the weaknesses of man, the worthlessness of existence, as if penetrating into the depths of Faust's torment. Mephistopheles promises to reveal to Faust all the joys of life, but with one condition: if Faust asks the beautiful moment to stop, then his soul will become the property of Mephistopheles. And they go on a journey.

Mephistopheles is the embodiment of evil wisdom. He thoroughly knows human nature, and like no one knows how to take advantage of its weaknesses. Faust, on the other hand, is concerned about the search for the meaning of human life, his own experience and experiences, but he fails to resist the spell of love. But love could not give Faust a feeling of unclouded happiness, and the wanderings continue.

At the end of his life, Faust comes close to understanding the meaning of being. It seems to him that he consists in disinterested service to people. Blind Faust dies, and his immortal soul is taken to heaven. Mephistopheles realizes that he has once again lost in the eternal dispute between the divine and the earthly.

The tragedy "Faust" should be considered not as an everyday drama, but as a philosophical and moral-ethical work, it can also be attributed to our time and to the future of mankind with its hopes and sorrows. The conflict between Faust and Mephistopheles exists forever, because

that this is a struggle between good and evil that lives in everyone. And to this day, the call of Dr. Faust remains relevant not to stop, not to fall into a dream, you need to act, change and enrich yourself along with the outside world:

Only he is worthy of life and freedom,

Who every day goes to fight for them!

Through eternal search and eternal work on oneself, Goethe saw the further development of mankind, the victory of the spirit not only over physical, but also over spiritual death.

Composition " Philosophical meaning image of Faust"

Goethe "Faust"

And I'll be happy with myself

Then - the end!

Composition "The theme of love in Goethe's tragedy "Faust""

Love endures for a long time, is merciful, love does not envy, love does not exalt itself, is not proud. She does not behave violently, does not seek her own, is not irritated, does not think evil. He does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. He covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. Faust, the protagonist of Goethe's tragedy, comes to the knowledge of such love, true love. Having concluded an agreement with the devil, Faust demands from him the unquestioning fulfillment of all his desires.

And the first desire of a man was connected with a woman, immaculate and pure Margarita. Mephistopheles, without much enthusiasm, fulfills this desire of his victim. The devil himself admits: the girl is so pure and immaculate that evil has no power over her. Mephistopheles is sure that no force can be used against Margaret, "here you have to contrive and dissemble." In the end, Mephistopheles helps Faust get to know Marguerite, hoping that in her arms he will be able to find that wonderful moment that he has been looking for all his life and that he wanted to extend to infinity. Faust is first lured into the arms of sensual desires:

Oh heaven, what a beauty

I have never seen anything like it in my life.

How unspoilt-pure

And how sarcastically and without malice!

Once in the girl's room, Faust begins to understand that she is not only beautiful in appearance, but also beautiful in soul, and he is more and more convinced of this. His feeling becomes all-encompassing - not only physical, but also spiritual. The second half of the first part of "Faust" is devoted to the love story of Faust and Gretchen. There is a huge gap between lovers. Faust is a man of unusually developed mentality, who has come a long way of spiritual growth, who knows a lot and is very free-thinking. He is characterized by a critical attitude to generally accepted concepts. His thought is distinguished by independence, he does not take anything for granted, he subjects everything to critical analysis and only after that does he draw certain conclusions. He had long ago given up faith in church doctrine:

Which one of us dares

Answer without embarrassment: "I believe in God"?

And the rebuke of a scholastic and a priest

So genuinely stupid about this.

What seems like a mockery miserable.

Gretchen is a lovely, pure young being. She possesses all the treasures of the female soul. The girl is capable of boundless love and self-sacrifice. She is deeply religious, because her mother, a model of religious virtue, accompanies her all her life. Having found a jewelry box in her room, Gretchen immediately reports the discovery to her beloved mother, who attributes the appearance of jewelry in her poor little room to the machinations of the devil. The box was given to the church. At the same time, Gretchen is tormented by thoughts about an unknown donor. Faust, in love, does not stop, preparing a new test for his beloved with the help of Mephistopheles. The next box, full of untold treasures, seduces Gretchen. This time, she turned away from the path of virtue, deciding to accept the box with countless treasures. But how can we blame the poor girl for liking beautiful things? In her life, she saw nothing but daily exhausting work, and could not even dream that at one fine moment her life would change exactly like Cinderella's. And then there’s Marta’s friend assures that everything is fine, that you can keep a small chest and secretly try on precious trinkets. There is no benefit from this, but once again admire your beauty, framed by beautiful stones and gold, is a holiday for any girl.

The result of this act was fatal for Gretchen. Involuntarily succumbing to temptation, she lost her chastity. Evil begets evil, one dishonest act leads to the next. Mephistopheles triumphs: the acquaintance of Faust and Gretchen brings him some bad dividends. Faust, for the sake of meeting Gretchen, is ready for forgery and signs fake documents. Gretchen understands that she loves, and for the sake of love she is ready to make sacrifices. In a fit of passion, she even forgets about the ubiquitous neighbors, who will certainly pass their sanctimonious sentence on someone else's love and someone else's happiness.

At the moment when Faust overcomes the sensual attraction to the girl and moves to another, spiritual, level of love, Gretchen begins to worry about the correctness of her actions. Mephistopheles, in her view, is "a reckless man" who "is so mocking and cunning and does not put people in anything." Just as Faust, in order to satisfy his spiritual aspirations, enters into an agreement with the devil, in other words, falls from the generally accepted point of view into “sin” and commits a crime, so Gretchen, in the name of love, becomes a violator of moral standards accepted in society. She cannot free herself from the rules imposed on her since childhood, although she involuntarily wonders why the love that gave her such spiritual joy is in conflict with morality, in the truth of which she always believed.

The tragedy of Faust and Gretchen's love can be explained both by the differences in their natures and by the aggressiveness of the external environment. After all, the trial of Gretchen is taken not by a stranger, but by her own brother Valentine. The court of relatives is sometimes more unfair and cruel than the court of strangers. For example, in countries professing Islam, it is not uncommon for angry fathers and brothers to kill their daughters and sisters, who, in their opinion, have embarked on the path of depravity and vice.

The brave warrior Valentine, it would seem, had nothing to do with morality. Drunken revelry was the most innocent sin in the life of this man, whose profession was murder. And it was he, who himself, probably, who had trampled on her maiden honor more than once, found it necessary to stand up for his sister, and this, in the end, led to Gretchen's fatal loneliness at the most critical moment for her. Faust killed Valentine and is forced into hiding. At this time, Gretchen goes crazy and kills her child. The verdict of society on child murderers is always cruel, despite the fact that sometimes society itself pushes women to this madness. Gretchen is imprisoned, she does not even understand that she killed her own child. She takes the talk that she is the murderer of her innocent child as bad joke. The appearance of her lover at first seems to her a salvation, but why is she so full of distrust for the one who filled her thoughts and heart with the trembling fire of love?

Even though everything looks the same

I have no luck with you

And your cold is frightening ...

In him, Gretchen feels the forces of evil, with him she sees no future. And what kind of future is this: to be exiled and tormented, tormented, unable to forget his crime? Gretchen hopes only for a fair judgment of God, her last words are addressed to the Lord:

Save me, my Father on high!

You, angels, are around me, forgotten,

Protect me with a holy wall!

You, Heinrich, inspire fear in me.

Condemned by people, she resists evil until the last moment of her life. Like a hymn to a pure, immaculate soul, a voice from above sounds: “Saved!” Such a seemingly tragic ending, but it does not inspire pessimism and disbelief in life. After all, Gretchen excites in readers not only sympathy and pity, but also admiration. She did not know the search for truth inherent in Faust, but she did not have to look for that wonderful moment: she was happy in love. Yes, she committed serious crimes, but the best spiritual qualities that manifested in the heroine during tragic circumstances cause only sincere admiration. Love endures for a long time, is merciful, love does not envy, love does not exalt itself, is not proud. She does not behave violently, does not seek her own, is not irritated, does not think evil. He does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. He covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything.

Composition "Images of the main characters of the tragedy" Faust ""

Who is the main character of the tragedy of Goethe, whose name is the famous tragedy? What is he? Goethe himself spoke of him this way: the main thing in him is "relentless activity until the end of his life, which is becoming higher and purer."

Faust is a man of high aspirations. He devoted his whole life to science. He studied philosophy, law, medicine, theology, and achieved degrees. Years passed, and with despair he realized that he had not come a step closer to the truth, that all these years he had only moved away from the knowledge of real life, that he had exchanged “lush color of wildlife” for “death and rubbish”.

Faust's reflections contained the experiences of Goethe himself and his generation about the meaning of life. Goethe created his Faust as a man who hears the call of life, the call of a new era, but cannot yet break free from the clutches of the past. After all, this was precisely what worried the poet's contemporaries - the German enlighteners. In accordance with the ideas of the Enlighteners, Faust is a man of action. Even when translating the Bible into German, he does not agree with the famous phrase: “In the beginning was the Word,” he clarifies: “In the beginning was the Deed.”

Mephistopheles is not just a tempter and antipode of Faust. He is a skeptical philosopher with a brilliant critical mind. Mephistopheles is witty and caustic and compares favorably with a sketchy religious character. Goethe put a lot of his thoughts into the mouth of Mephistopheles, and he, like Faust, became the spokesman for the ideas of the Enlightenment. So, dressed in the clothes of a university professor, Mephistopheles ridicules the admiration that prevailed in scientific circles for a verbal formula, insane cramming, behind which there is no place for living thought: “You must trust words: you cannot change an iota in words ...”

Faust concludes an agreement with Mephistopheles not for the sake of empty entertainment, but for the sake of higher knowledge. He would like to experience everything, to know | and happiness, and grief, to know the highest meaning of life. And Mephistopheles gives Faust the opportunity to taste all earthly blessings so that he can forget about his high impulses for knowledge. Mephistopheles is sure that he will make Faust "crawl in the litter". He puts him before the most important temptation - love for a woman.

The temptation that the lame-legged devil came up with for Faust has a name - Margarita, Gretchen. She is fifteen years old, she is a simple, pure and innocent girl. Seeing her on the street, Faust flares up with an insane passion for her. He is attracted to this young commoner, perhaps because with her he acquires a sense of beauty and goodness, which he had previously aspired to. Love gives them bliss, but it also becomes the cause of misfortune. A poor girl became a criminal: fearing people's rumors, she drowned the born child.

Upon learning of what had happened, Faust tries to help Margarita and, together with Mephistopheles, enters the prison. But Margarita refuses to follow him. “I submit to God's judgment,” the girl declares. Leaving, Mephistopheles says that Margarita is condemned to torment. But a voice from above says: "Saved!" By choosing death over running away with the devil, Gretchen saved her soul.

The hero of Goethe lives to be a hundred years old. He goes blind and finds himself in total darkness. But even blind and weak, he is trying to fulfill his dream: to build a dam for people.

Composition

The philosophical meaning of the image of Faust

... Not like everyone else; he serves differently;

He does not want to eat or drink in an earthly way;

Like crazy, he is mentally weak,

What he himself feels in the midst of doubts;

Always immersed in my dreams

Then from the sky he wishes the best stars,

Then on earth - all the highest pleasures,

And there is nothing in it - neither close nor far -

Can't quench the gnawing sadness.

Goethe "Faust"

The turbulent Age of Enlightenment gave birth to its rebel heroes who challenged ignorance, passivity, medieval barbarism and prejudice. Progressive writers and the images they created became such heroes. They fought for the freedom and independence of the human person, unleashing their justified anger on the old order. Among these writers was the German poet J. W. Goethe. He sincerely and firmly believed in the triumph of reason on earth, and he put this faith into the image of his hero. greatest work the tragedy Faust.

The legend of Faust attracted Goethe's attention from an early age. It reflected faith in man, in the strength and greatness of his thought. The poet was close to the image of a person who overcomes any difficulties and temptations and confidently moving forward to achieve his lofty goal. Faust was a type of thinker, striving at all costs to comprehend the secrets of nature and life. All these features were taken by the writer as a basis for creating the image of his hero.

The character of Faust is very complex and contradictory, his soul is tormented all the time by doubts, inspiration is replaced in his heart by sadness and dissatisfaction. Even peering into the atmosphere of his office, which he himself compares with a "deaf stone hole", we see a reflection of that close, stuffy circle from which the hero seeks to break out "to freedom, into wide world". He wants to know the truth, to study the laws of nature, but instead he is forced to be surrounded by "decay and rubbish." The sciences of that time were dead, they did not give answers to the questions that agitated the inquisitive mind of Faust. He does not find a solution to his problems in magic either.

Faust is aware that the path to the knowledge of truth will not be easy, but nevertheless sets out on this path, driven by a thirst for knowledge.

We see how full of life, joy, and vivid perception of nature the scene of the appearance of the hero at the spring festival is filled with. He feels the resurrection of the people themselves, who strive to escape "from the stuffy city into the field, into the light." Such moods and atmosphere are very close to the state of mind of Faust himself. After all, he wants not only to know the world, but also to convey a ray of knowledge to other people. This is the reason for his desire to translate into his native language the Gospel - one of the most popular and important books. But here he is seized by doubts. “In the beginning was the Word, and the word was God,” says the great book. But the hero objects: "I cannot value the word so highly." He confidently replaces the text: "Act is the beginning of being." And this phrase contains the main meaning of his image. Goethe affirms the idea of ​​continuous movement forward, constant action, creative work. Since only in this case a person can know himself and the world around him. Faust, according to N. G. Chernyshevsky, "... needs a deeper truth, a fuller life, that's why he must enter into an alliance with Mephistopheles, that is, negation." It is in a collision with Mephistopheles, in a dispute with him, in an attempt to prove him wrong, that the character of the hero develops. He understands that he cannot stand still, will not find peace and will not want to stop the moment. Faust, seized with a thirst for search and knowledge, will forever strive forward.

What will you give, miserable demon, what pleasures?

The human spirit and proud aspirations

Like you, is it possible to understand?

The hero answers his tempter, who wants to drown his aspirations in a whirlpool of base pleasures. Faust takes an oath never to succumb to the temptation of peace and contentment:

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

I'll fall, then my time has come!

When you flatter me falsely

And I'll be happy with myself

With sensual delight when you deceive me,

Then - the end!

Yes, the way of Faust is difficult, he is constantly seized by new illusions, which then collapse; he is haunted by failure and disappointment. But, having gone through all the trials, having resisted all the temptations, the hero does not lose faith in a bright future, in the power of the human mind, in the strength of the human spirit. He understands that high aspirations and dreams are not enough to achieve progress. You have to fight for the golden age, because

... only he is worthy of life and freedom,

Who goes to battle for them every day.

People should believe in themselves and rely only on their own strength, on their "free labor" - such is the conclusion of Faust.

The image created by Goethe entered the world culture as one of the "eternal images". With his work, the author hoped to awaken in people the desire for excellence, to help form a generation full of courage, dignity, fortitude and a thirst for activity. Until the end of his days, he did not lose faith in man, in his high destiny.

Composition

I am a spirit, always accustomed to deny (according to Goethe's tragedy "Faust")

I deny everything - and this is my essence ...

In short, everything that your brother calls evil -

The desire to destroy, evil deeds and thoughts,

That's all - my element.

Goethe "Faust"

The path to creation passes through destruction - this is how N. G. Chernyshevsky understood the outcome of Goethe's drama Faust. And indeed, the hero of the work goes through doubts, disappointments, contradictions in his struggle for a person, on the way to knowing the truth. But, oddly enough, Mephistopheles helps him achieve this truth - the villain, the seducer, pushing Faust to bad deeds.

However, the image of Mephistopheles is a complex and ambiguous image. On the one hand, he is the embodiment of evil forces, doubt, destruction. He affirms the insignificance, helplessness and uselessness of any person; says that a person uses his mind only to "become cattle from cattle." Mephistopheles seeks by any means to prove the moral weakness of people, their inability to resist temptations. Becoming a companion of Faust, he tries in every possible way to deceive him, to lead him "by the wrong way," to instill doubt in his soul. Trying to lead the hero astray, to distract him from high aspirations, he intoxicates him with a potion, arranges meetings with Margarita, hoping that, succumbing to passion, Faust will forget about his duty to the truth. The task of Mephistopheles is to seduce the hero, make him plunge into the sea of ​​base pleasures, leave his ideals. If he had succeeded, he would have won the main dispute - about the greatness or insignificance of man. By taking Faust into the world of low passions, he would prove that people are not much different from animals. However, here he fails - "The human spirit and proud aspirations" are above any pleasures.

Goethe puts a very deep meaning into the image of Mephistopheles, assigning him perhaps the main role in the development of the plot, in the knowledge of the world by the hero and the achievement of great truth. Along with Faust, he is the driving force behind the tragedy.

I am part of eternal power,

Always desiring evil, doing only good.

... I deny everything, and this is my essence ...

This characteristic accurately reflects the essence of the process of cognition itself, with its contradictions and struggle of opposites. The same idea is supported by another phrase:

Worthy of death is everything that exists.

In the course of the further development of the plot, we are even more convinced of how important and difficult role plays Mephistopheles in the development of the main theme of the work - the struggle for truth. With his doubts and ridicule, he arouses in the hero a desire to fight, argue, defend his views. Trying to knock Faust off the right way, in fact, Mephistopheles, on the contrary, encourages him to move forward. Indeed, as N. G. Chernyshevsky wrote: “With denial, skepticism, the mind is not hostile: on the contrary, skepticism serves its goals, leading a person through hesitation to pure and clear convictions.”

We see that Mephistopheles, like Faust, is endowed with a rather progressive way of thinking. He criticizes the science of those times, in which wildlife was seen as unchanging, not developing. He mockingly notes people's adherence to dead dogmas and empty phrases:

Disputes are conducted with words,

From the words of the system are created ...

He, denying everything, questioning the development and movement of man forward, at the same time, affirms the joy and triumph of life:

Dry, my friend, theory is everywhere,

And the tree of life is lush green!

Mephistopheles constantly appears before us as a direct participant in the struggle of life.

Drawing the image of the devil, the tempter, Goethe, meanwhile, endows him with the features of a progressive, witty thinker. And the fact that he eventually loses the argument in the best way emphasizes and strengthens the author's idea that human life has a higher meaning. A person is great, he is able to defend his position, overcome any obstacles, resist any temptations in order to achieve his goal, in the name of asserting his high destiny.

Composition

"Faust" - The Tragedy of Knowledge

… What does it mean to know? That's where all the trouble lies!

Who will name the baby by the right name?

Where are the few who knew their age,

They did not hide their feelings or thoughts,

With insane courage to meet the crowd?

They were crucified, beaten, burned...

Goethe "Faust"

F. Engels called "The Greatest German" outstanding writer of the Enlightenment I. V. Goethe. His work not only opened a new page in the history of national literature but also became a reflection of the views and aspirations of a whole generation. “I willingly delve into the life and culture of foreign peoples,” wrote Goethe, realizing that in order to influence the world around you, you need to know how it works, to see and distinguish all its facets.

Goethe's works became the embodiment of an advanced way of thinking, a rebellion against medieval backwardness, prejudice, and ignorance. The poet bravely challenged the world of violence and injustice. I. Franko wrote that "Faust" was a manifestation of the revolution, the same one that broke out in Paris with a formidable fire, destroyed the autocratic kingdom of nobles and priests and proclaimed the "Declaration of the Rights of Man." And this is not accidental, because the idea of ​​the tragedy took shape immediately after the famous events in France.

"Faust" - philosophical drama where the basis of the conflict is determined not just by the clash of different human characters and opinions, but by the clash of ideas, the struggle of principles. And the main thing in the work is not even the plot, but the development of the author's thought. The well-known images of the Christian legend in the presentation of Goethe take on a completely different meaning. Everything in nature is in constant motion, in struggle. But what is the place, what role is assigned to man here? What is the meaning of its existence? Is he great or insignificant? These are the questions the poet poses to us, although he himself is firmly convinced that

… a pure soul in his vague search

Consciousness of truth is full!

That is why he believes in the high purpose of human life.

conflict - between genuine science and dead knowledge, the bearer of which is Wagner, who

... Without joyless boredom

Delving into the most boring and empty things ...

Faust, on the contrary, seeks to break free from the shackles of medieval science and to know life in all its beauty and diversity. And this knowledge is impossible without moving forward. “Act is the beginning of being,” the poet develops this idea throughout the entire action of the tragedy, because only by his activity, by his work, a person can pave his way into the future and prove the greatness of the human race.

Another essential fact, in which the author is firmly convinced, is that any knowledge is impossible without a doubt. From here follows the main motive of the drama - the struggle of opposites, the emergence of constant contradictions. That is why there is a clash of faith and doubt, spiritual impulse and cold reason in the hero’s soul, because all this is an integral part of the complex, sometimes tragic process of comprehending the truth. This motif is expressed most clearly in the words of Faust:

Oh, two souls live in my sick chest

Alien to each other - and long for separation!

Indeed, it is doubt that often serves as one of the elements of cognition - when, by closely studying facts and phenomena, checking and rechecking them, taking nothing for granted, a person gradually reaches the truth.

Thus, in "Faust" the poet reflected the complex and contradictory path of the hero to the truth, to living knowledge. For the sake of mastering this knowledge, Faust is ready to overcome any obstacles, temptations: and doubts. Because he has a lofty goal before him - to prove the high destiny of man, to refute the assertion of Mephistopheles that man has his own mind.

... I could only use one thing -

To be cattle from cattle!

With his work, Goethe calls us to a continuous feat in the name of the future, to a continuous striving forward, to a constant struggle against passivity, humility, indifference and calmness.

Composition

Only the one who has experienced the battle for life deserves life and freedom. (based on Goethe's tragedy Faust)

Goethe's work has become one of the most complex phenomena in the history of German and world literature. The contradictions with which his works are filled are not just Goethe's individual contradictions, but the contradictions of the entire epoch, the contradictions of the entire German bourgeoisie. The tragedy "Fust" became the most significant work of the poet and was the highest philosophical and artistic achievement of all German literature of the late XVIII - early XIX century.

The great epic created by Goethe on the basis of folk legend, in figurative and poetic form, asserted the omnipotence of the human mind. Writers of various eras and peoples have repeatedly turned to the image of Faust, but it was Goethe who managed to create an image of such great poetic power and depth. Having rethought the old legend in a new way, the author filled it with deep content and gave it a humanistic sound. His hero is a fearless seeker of truth, never stopping at anything and being satisfied with nothing, a true humanist, a contemporary of Goethe himself in spirit and a like-minded person.

In the tragedy "Faust" we see the whole world history, a great history of scientific, philosophical and historical thought of the past and present. The work begins with "Dedication" - a heartfelt lyrical poem, in which there is both grief for the past youth and departed friends, and reflections on the fate of the future creation, and anxious alertness towards its new readers. Here the past and the present are closely intertwined, personally experienced by the author and the artistic world he created. The "Initiation" is followed by "Theatrical introduction" and "Prologue in the sky", which are even more important for revealing the ideological meaning of the work. The Prologue reflects the dispute between Mephistopheles and God about human dignity, the vocation of man and the meaning of his existence. Mephistopheles - a cynic and a skeptic - refuses to see any meaning in human activities, he confirms his opinion, citing miserable, mired in insignificance and ignorance people as an example. God, however, objects to him, putting forward a zealous seeker of truth, Dr. Faust. But Mephistopheles sees in Faust's tormenting searches and doubts only a guarantee of his future death. He considers him as insignificant and helpless as all people in general. Mephistopheles undertakes to “beat off” this “crazy man” from God. God accepts the challenge, but his consent to the test of Faust is due to a firm belief in man, in the power of his mind, in his unlimited possibilities of knowing the secrets of nature.

The fantastic element that Goethe introduces into his work is already present in the first part ("The Witch's Kitchen", "Walpurgis Night"), and in the second part it sharply intensifies and becomes dominant. The "small world" of earthly human relations is being replaced by the "big world": history and the cosmic scope of nature. There are also science fiction with satirical overtones (the image of the Homunculus), and the problem of connecting different eras (the marriage of Elena, symbolizing ancient art, and Faust, embodying the new time). Goethe’s hatred for stupid self-satisfied learning, for imaginary science, far from the interests of the people (the image of Faust Wagner’s assistant and student), and sincere respect for the inquisitive mind, the incessant search for truth, and the irrepressible thirst for practical activity (the image of Faust) are immediately manifested.

Having concluded an agreement with Mephistopheles, Faust receives all the benefits: returned youth, the love of an innocent and pure Margarita, communication with the shadows of ancient heroes, a brilliant service career at the court of the emperor, power and wealth, love beautiful Elena. However, none of this satisfies the hero.

The path traveled by Faust symbolizes the path of all mankind. In the dying monologue of the hero, who survived and overcame all temptations, Goethe reveals the highest meaning of life, which for Faust lies in serving people, the eternal thirst for knowledge, in the constant struggle for happiness. On the verge of death, he is ready to magnify every moment of this work, meaningful by a great goal. However, this ecstasy is not instantly bought at the price of renunciation of endless improvement. Faust knew the highest goal human development and is satisfied with what has been achieved:

Here is the thought to which I am devoted,

The sum of everything that the mind has accumulated.

Only the one who has experienced the battle for life,

You deserve life and freedom.

The true victory of Faust over Mephistopheles, the guarantee of his final "salvation" - in the infinity of this "stopped" moment, in fact - a moving, conceived business that goes beyond a single human life, continues in the work and struggle of future generations.

Goethe worked on his famous tragedy for more than 60 years, and it became the pinnacle of his artistic creativity. "Faust", according to A.S. Pushkin, "is the greatest creation of the poetic spirit, it serves as a representative the latest poetry just as the Iliad serves as a monument of classical antiquity.