"Faust" of Goethe. Analysis of the work

The work of the great German thinker, scientist and poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe falls on the period of the end of the era of the European Enlightenment. Contemporaries of the young poet spoke of his brilliant manifestation as a person, and in his old age he was called an "Olympian". It's about Goethe's most famous work, Faust, which we'll analyze in this article.

Like the stories of Voltaire, the leading party here is philosophical ideas and reflections. Only, unlike Voltaire, the poet's ideas are embodied in the living, full-blooded images of the first part of the work. "Faust" Goethe is attributed to the genre of the philosophical tragedy. General philosophical problems and questions, to which the author addresses, acquire an educational coloring characteristic for the creativity of that time.

The very story of Faust was repeatedly played out in modern Goethe literature. As a five-year-old boy, he first met her at the play of the national puppet theater, which showed a dramatization of the old German legend. However, this legend has a historical background.

Dr. Faustus was an itinerant physician, forecaster, alchemist, astrologer and warlock. His contemporaries-scientists, such as Paracelsus, spoke of him as an impostor and charlatan. And his students (Faust once taught as a professor at the university), on the contrary, characterized his teacher as a fearless seeker of knowledge and uncharted ways. Supporters of Martin Luther considered Faust to be an impious person who, with the help of the devil, created imaginary and dangerous things. After his sudden death in 1540, the life of this mysterious person was overgrown with many legends, the plot of which was picked up by the author's literature.

"Faust" Goethe by volume can be compared with the epic Homer "Odyssey." The work, which was conducted over sixty years, absorbed the entire life experience of the author, the ingenious comprehension of all the historical epochs of mankind. The tragedy "Faust" Goethe is based on artistic devices and ways of thinking, which were far from the then prevalent in the literature. Therefore, the best way to imbue the ideas embedded in the work is a slow, commented reading.

"Faust" Goethe is a philosophical tragedy, in the center of which the main issues of human existence, which determine the plot, the artistic and imaginative system. According to the author's intention, the main character passes through different countries and epochs. Faust is a collective image of all mankind, so the scene of his actions is the whole depth of history and the space of the world. Therefore, the peculiarities of life and social life are described rather arbitrarily.

The tragedy "Faust" Goethe, quotations from which have long been phraseological, had a huge impact not only on the writer's contemporaries, but also on followers. It was reflected in multiple variations of the continuation of the first part, independent works of such authors as J. Byron, A.S. Pushkin, H.D. Grabbe, etc.