The history of the creation of the tragedy "Faust. The history of creation and artistic originality of the tragedy "Faust" by Goethe Genre originality of Faust

1
Johann Wolfgang Goethe conceived his famous tragedy Faust when he was in his early twenties and completed it a few months before his death. Of course, during this time he wrote a lot of other works, which made up the creative heritage of the writer, but the main work that reflected the whole picture of that critical era was still Faust.
The plot of the tragedy is based on the legend of the medieval warlock and magician Dr. Johann Faust. It was a person who actually existed, but as is the case with outstanding personalities endowed with extraordinary abilities, legends and tales circulated about him already during his lifetime, where truth was intricately intertwined with fiction. Shortly thereafter, a book by an unknown author appeared in Germany under the title: "The Story of Doctor Faust, the famous magician and warlock", condemning this semi-legendary person for apostasy from the church and connection with Satan. However, the book was not without an objective assessment of some of the positive aspects of the activities of Dr. Faust, who decisively broke with medieval scholastic science and church theology and set out to resolve the burning questions of human existence and the structure of the world.
There were also other works on this subject. In particular, Shakespeare's contemporary Christopher Maplo, Goethe's contemporary and friend Friedrich Klinger and many others wrote about Dr. Faust. All this, however, does not in the least detract from the originality of Goethe's own work, the significance and place of his tragedy in world literature. In those days, the use of so-called wandering plots, as well as legends, fairy tales and other things to create your own original works was not considered plagiarism. Then there simply was no such thing as plagiarism. This can be seen in the example of Pushkin's work, who used the plots of many Russian folk tales. The same can be said about the English playwright Shakespeare, almost all of whose plays are based on borrowed plots. By the way, Goethe, at the time when he began work on Faust, did not read many works on this subject by other authors, he only knew puppet comedies on this subject, which at that time were very popular at fair performances in Germany. If we compare The Tragic History of Dr. Faust by Christopher Marlo and Goethe's work, then from Marlo Faust wants to get the entire amount of knowledge about the world in order to achieve power over the world and experience all the pleasures of life, and from Goethe, Faust craves knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself, for the sake of self-improvement. He does not want the benefits for himself personally, not the pleasures and satisfaction of base passions, but the comprehension of the meaning of life. In fact, resorting to the help of the devil, Faust is still looking for a way to God.
2
Goethe's tragedy "Faust" is not an ordinary work in form. Written in verse according to the laws of a dramatic work, at the same time it cannot be staged because of its exorbitant volume. Therefore, "Faust", most likely, is not a drama, but a dramatic poem with elements of an epic, in view of the fact that the action of the work has a large extent in space and time. The speeches of characters and heroes, especially Faust and Margarita, are very reminiscent of lyrical poems. Thus, "Faust" organically bears the features of all three main types of literature: drama, lyrics and epic.
If you look at Goethe's work from the point of view of stylistic features, then it is very multifaceted. It combines both features of realism and romanticism. In "Faust" there are everyday episodes written according to the laws of realism, there are lyrical scenes, such as the meeting of Dr. Faust with Margarita, there are also tragic moments. But the main line that permeates the whole tragedy is mystical. Goethe introduces into the narrative such unreal characters as God, archangels, the devil, witches. All this is generated partly by the author's fantasy, partly by the need to follow the plot conflicts of the old legend, taken as the basis for writing Faust. However, all these unrealistic episodes are not an end in themselves. Rejecting plausibility, Goethe thus wanted to express his complex understanding of life. All this is a technique that allows the author to distance himself from reality and better understand everything that occurs around him. The author thus becomes above reality. Thus, Goethe's fantasy is always connected with reality. Images of real people enter into relationships with unreal ones. Fantastic, mythological characters get into a real environment and, at times, act like real people. For Goethe and his contemporaries, the value of these fantastic characters lay in their traditionality and recognizability.
Goethe's free pen masterfully processed myths that had different sources. He turned to ancient Greek myths, biblical, medieval. Reworked by the flight of his poetic thought, all these legends and myths of different origin were subject to a single philosophical task - the search for the true meaning of the world and man in it.
But the tragedy of Goethe is not just a philosophical treatise, veiled by the techniques of fiction. Goethe, as a poet, created a work of high poetic skill. In German poetry there is no work equal to Faust in the use of all the richness of the poetic palette. In "Faust" there is intimate lyrics, and civil pathos, and deep philosophical reflections, and sharp satire, and lively folk humor. There are a lot of successful images in Goethe's work, the poetic structure of speech is diverse, all the shades of the sound of the verse are expressed. All the wealth of feelings that human speech is capable of expressing was conveyed by Goethe in his tragedy.

3
Now let's move on to characterizing the content of Faust.
The tragedy begins with two prologues. In the first prologue ("Prologue in the Theatre") Goethe expresses his views on art. In the "Prologue in Heaven" the key to understanding the ideological meaning of the tragedy is given, here begins the life story of the protagonist of the work, Dr. Faust.
Mephistopheles, talking with God, mocks a man, considers him insignificant and pitiful. Faust's pursuit of truth seems to him senseless. However, Goethe, through the mouth of the Lord, refutes these views of Mephistopheles. The Lord says about Faust:
He serves me and it's obvious
And break out of the darkness to please me.
When a gardener plants a tree
The fruit is known in advance to the gardener.
Thus, in the Prologue in Heaven, Goethe gives the beginning of the struggle around Faust and predicts that Faust will win.
At first, Faust is very sorry about his helplessness in resolving the fundamental issues of life, since the sciences in which he diligently studied are not able to give an exhaustive answer to these questions. Faust is opposed by Wagner, who is just a self-satisfied layman in science, who set himself the goal of mindlessly “absorbing” learned books, page by page. The image of Wagner embodies a dead theory, divorced from practice and far from real life. Faust, on the other hand, seeks to find the truth and understands that it must not be sought in the dead trash of old books, as Wagner does.
It is not for nothing that Goethe's Faust seeks to acquire new knowledge and to comprehend the truth about the world and the destiny of man in it. By this, the writer means the mental movement of an entire era of the spiritual development of European society, which was later called the Age of Enlightenment. At this time, the progressive minds of Europe fought against church prejudices and all kinds of obscurantism. Scientific knowledge was opposed to church scholasticism. The intellectual movement echoed the struggle of the advanced forces of society against feudalism for individual freedom and democratization.
Goethe in Germany also joined this pan-European process of enlightenment. In the tragedy Faust, he expressed his personal understanding of life, dressing it in a poetic form. The hero of the tragedy is a symbolic figure embodying all of humanity. But in this type of literary hero there are also features of a real person. Being a bright, unusual personality, Dr. Faust does not at all pretend to be an angel in the flesh. First of all, he is a man and nothing human is alien to him. Faust also has flaws. But therein lies the veracity of this image, its true reality. Faust himself also understands his imperfection, he does not deceive himself at the expense of his merits. The hero has a very positive feature - eternal dissatisfaction with himself and the world around him. Faust constantly strives to become better than he was before, and to make the world more perfect for the lives of other people.
Strictly speaking, the hero appears before the reader at the beginning of the tragedy, dissatisfied with all the available knowledge, in view of the fact that they do not give the most important thing that Faust's soul strives for - understanding the essence of life. Faust is not the kind of person who would be satisfied with what religion and speculative bookish knowledge offer. The despair of the hero is so great that he even has the thought of committing suicide, but, having heard the song of those praying coming from the temple, Faust abandons his intention. He understands that the people, not finding a way out of everyday difficulties, turn to God for help, as he once did, and decides to help people find answers to the burning questions of life. However, he immediately refuses the help of religion and science - all this is a passed stage for him. Temporarily, he resorts to the help of otherworldly forces (the devil).
The appearance of Mephistopheles before Faust is not accidental. As in the old legend, the devil comes to seduce Faust with all the pleasures of life and, plunging into the abyss of sin, take possession of his soul. Goethe's Mephistopheles does not look like a caricature of the devil in folk legends, this image is saturated with deep philosophical meaning. Mephistopheles is the embodiment of the spirit of negation as opposed to the image of God. However, in Goethe the devil is not exclusively the embodiment of evil. We must pay tribute, the criticisms of Mephistopheles are largely not unfounded. Mephistopheles is smart, he is a master of noticing human weaknesses and vices. Bitter truths often sound in his mouth.
Characteristic is the opinion of Mephistopheles himself, who, answering the question of Faust, says that he "does good, wishing evil to everything."
Thus, Mephistopheles, with his intrigues, provokes the opposition of Faust and thus is the main reason for his activity. Pushing Faust to commit evil deeds, Mephistopheles, unwittingly, awakens the best sides of his nature. Completely opposite in their desires and aspirations, Mephistopheles and Faust, however, are inseparable from each other.
Faust does not seek sensual pleasures at all, he is driven by other aspirations. But the task of knowing the truth cannot be solved overnight. Therefore, Faust, demanding from Mephistopheles the fulfillment of all his desires, sets the condition that Mephistopheles will receive his soul only if Faust calms down, stops his searches and, enjoying life, shouts: “Stop, a moment, you are beautiful!”
Mephistopheles does not believe in the loftiness of Faust's ideas and expects to easily prove his case about the insignificance of man. At first, he invites Faust to attend a student feast in a tavern, hoping that Faust will also take part in the feast. But Faust is disgusted by this drunken company. Then Mephistopheles in the witch's kitchen returns Faust's youth, and he at first succumbs to the trick of the devil, he asks Mephistopheles to help him get acquainted with Margarita. But Mephistopheles' expectations that Faust would give himself up only to sensual pleasures turn out to be in vain. Very soon, Faust's rough, sensual relationship with Marguerite is replaced by an ever-increasing love. His feeling for the girl becomes not only physical, but also spiritual. Their love became mutual, but, as people, they were completely different and this is the main reason for the tragic outcome of their love.
Unlike Faust with his critical freedom-loving character, Gretchen accepts life as it is at the moment. Brought up in strict religious rules, she considers the natural inclinations of her nature to be the offspring of sin. Having succumbed to her passion for Faust, she then deeply experiences her fall. Gretchen turns out to be a sinner not only in her own eyes, but also in the opinion of the environment with its sanctimonious prejudices. These two factors caused the tragic end of her life.
The death of Gretchen is a tragedy, the tragedy of an honest and beautiful woman who, because of her love, became involved in the cycle of terrible events that brought her to the murder of her own child. As a result of all this, Margarita goes crazy. She is condemned to death. This concludes the first part of Goethe's tragedy.
And although the first part of "Faust" is a completely completed work of art, telling about the tragedy of a scientist who was disillusioned with science, who did not find happiness in love, Goethe continues the story of the fate of Dr. Faust in the second part.

4
The first and second parts are different in their form. The first part, despite many fantastic moments, is generally plausible. Faust's spiritual quest, as well as his undeveloped love, excites the feelings of readers. The second part is almost devoid of psychological motives, there is no depiction of human passions in it. Here the writer is more interested in general ideas. The images of people in the second part are deprived of full life authenticity. These are only poetic symbols of certain ideas and concepts. In a symbolic form, the language of conventional concepts, the crisis of the monarchical system is depicted here, feudal wars are condemned, the search for spiritual beauty and work for the benefit of people are glorified.
In the second part, Faust is less active than in the first. At times, only Mephistopheles and other characters are in the foreground. Here, attention is deliberately shifted from the personality of the hero to the world around him. Faust himself no longer presents a riddle to the reader. In the second part of the tragedy, Goethe tries to highlight some of the world's problems.
One of them is the problem of the main law of the development of life. Characteristic in this regard is the dispute between the Greek philosophers Thales and Anaxagoras. Thales proves that the source of life is water, Anaxagoras holds a different point of view. He claims that everything develops by leaps and catastrophes. Goethe rejected this principle as the law of world development. He was more inclined to think about the gradual evolution of animal species, the peak of which was man.
Goethe introduces the principle of development into the characterization of spiritual life. The poet believes in the idea of ​​progress, but he presents the development of human history as a path full of struggle and inevitable complex contradictions.
Touching upon the most diverse aspects of life, Goethe does not strive for unity in the development of the plot of his work. The second part consists of five acts, very little connected with each other. Each is a complete whole, with its own plot and theme.
After the tragic death of Gretchen, Faust is reborn to a new life and continues his search for the truth. At first, he finds himself in the state field, but, disappointed in this activity, Faust is looking for new ways.
In the end, it seems to him that he finds what he needs: the Spartan queen Helen revived to life. Faust and Helena personify two principles: Helena is a symbol of ideal ancient beauty, and Faust is the embodiment of a restless romantic spirit. As a result of their symbolic marriage, a beautiful young man Euphorion is born, in which the features of his parents are combined. But Euphorion is too ideal for an imperfect world. Euphorion is dying. With his death, Elena also disappears. Faust is left with only her clothes, as if meant to symbolize the impossibility of reviving the ancient ideal of beauty. The spirit of the past, alas, cannot be returned, and humanity, as in the case of Elena's clothes, has only the external forms of ancient beauty left.
Despite new failure and new disappointment, Faust is relentless, he does not give up his idea. For helping the emperor, he receives a vast, but uninhabitable territory. For the rest of his life, despite the secret opposition of Mephistopheles, Faust devotes to the work of turning this piece of land into a beautiful and safe area from the waves of the sea, where people would work quietly.
The implementation of Faust's plan takes a long time, but what matters to him is that he has finally found what he wants and is close to his goal. Faust found the meaning of life in constant trials, in struggle, in work. Life brought him brief moments
happiness, replaced by long years of overcoming difficulties. And although his plan has not yet been finally completed, Faust believes in the final implementation of his idea. Thus, Faust sees clearly and gains an understanding of the truth only at the end of his life.
After the death of Faust, Mephistopheles tries to take his soul to hell, but the divine forces resist this and take Faust's soul to heaven, where she must meet with the soul of Margaret. This is the end of the tragedy as a whole.

5
The significance of Goethe's work in world literature can hardly be overestimated. Many literary books have been written about Faust, in which the characters and events of the tragedy are interpreted from various angles, which do not always coincide with each other. The questions raised by Goethe do not lend themselves to a simple and unambiguous solution. Scientists and writers are still scratching their heads over these questions.
In our country, the freedom-loving thought of Goethe captivated the talented writer Mikhail Bulgakov to create his own work, somewhat echoing Faust. This is the famous novel The Master and Margarita, preceded by an epigraph from Faust. Other works on this subject are less significant, not to mention the contemporary epigones of Goethe and Bulgakov. To repeat such a literary feat is not for everyone. Works like Faust and The Master and Margarita are extremely rare. This is not just a fact of human activity, an effort of the mind, but, I would say, a fact of cosmic interference, the transmission of information from other worlds. Which, in fact, is any creativity.

Story sources:

Goethe traveled a lot in his life. He visited Switzerland three times: this "paradise on earth" by the time of Goethe was repeatedly sung. Goethe also traveled to the cities of Germany, where he encountered an amazing phenomenon - puppet fair performances in which the main characters were a certain Faust - a doctor and a warlock and the devil Mephistopheles. It is with the national tradition that for Goethe the principles formulated by Aristotle lose the meaning of the eternal norm.

As noted earlier, Goethe's travels in Germany led him to the concept of Faust. The theater presented the story of Dr. Faust and Mephistopheles as a cheerful, ironically satirical comedy. But after all, this is a theater, and it always reflects the thoughts, thoughts, and the very style of life of the people. And Goethe turned to written sources - chronicles and legends. Little was learned from the chronicles, but the legend told that once a boy was born to quite prosperous parents, but from an early age he showed a daring disposition. When he grew up, his parents and uncle advised him to study at the theological faculty. But the young Faust "left this charitable occupation" and studied medicine, and along the way, "the interpretation of the Chaldean ... and Greek signs and letters." He soon became a doctor, and a very good one at that. But his interest in magic led him to summon a spirit and make a pact with it... It was a purely religious assessment of the situation; here Faust and Mephistopheles were finally and irrevocably condemned, and all those who heeded were warned and taught - instructed in a God-fearing life. Mephistopheles deceives Faust throughout the legend, and the island conflict could be formulated as follows: “the conflict between good and evil”, without further litigation, what is good and what is evil ... Mephistopheles, here represents the side of evil, offered knowledge and with him power, and all that was required of Faust was the renunciation of Christianity. Mephistopheles was just one of the demons, but the take away was not special.

Goethe translated this legend into contemporary soil. In Faust, a variety of elements turned out to be organically merged - the beginning of drama, lyrics and epic. That is why many researchers call this work a dramatic poem. "Faust" includes elements that are different in their artistic nature. It contains real-life scenes, for example, a description of a spring festivities on a day off; lyrical dates of Faust and Marguerite; tragic - Gretchen in prison or the moment when Faust almost ended his life by suicide; fantastic. But Goethe's fantasy is ultimately always connected with reality, and real images often have a symbolic character.

The idea of ​​a tragedy about Faust came to Goethe quite early. Initially, he got two tragedies - "the tragedy of knowledge" and "the tragedy of love." However, both of them remained unresolved. The general tone of this "great-Faust" is gloomy, which is actually not surprising, since Goethe managed to completely preserve the flavor of the medieval legend, at least in the first part. In "great-Faust" scenes written in verse are interspersed with prose. Here, in the personality of Faust, titanism, the spirit of protest, the impulse to the infinite were combined.

On April 13, 1806, Goethe wrote in his diary: "I have finished the first part of Faust." It is in the first part that Goethe outlines the characters of his two main characters - Faust and Mephistopheles; in the second part, Goethe pays more attention to the surrounding world and social structure, as well as the relationship between the ideal and reality.

Genre features:

Goethe called "Faust" a tragedy, thereby emphasizing that it depicts an exceptionally acute life conflict that led to the death of the character. Since the tragedy in question is aimed at a deep philosophical understanding of the world, the meaning of human life, it is commonly called philosophical.

But, analyzing the genre nature of "Faust", modern scientists note that this work has features of various genres. In many respects, it is close to a dramatic poem - a poetic work that combines dramatic, epic and lyrical beginnings. In Goethe's work of this type, the conflict is vividly embodied in the confrontation between the two main characters. At the same time, Faust has a strong lyrical beginning. For example, the scene of Faust's appearance in Marguerite's room is written as a kind of lyrical sketch.

The figure of Johann Georg Faust, who really lived in the 16th century. in Germany, a doctor, has been of interest to many poets and writers for many centuries. Numerous folk legends and traditions are known that describe the life and deeds of this warlock, as well as dozens of novels, poems, plays and scripts.

The idea of ​​writing "Faust" came to the twenty-year-old Goethe at the very beginning of the 70s. 18th century. But it took the poet more than 50 years to complete the masterpiece. Truly, the author worked on this tragedy for almost his entire life, which in itself makes this work significant, both for the poet himself and for all literature in general.

Between 1774 and 1775 Goethe writes the work Prafaust, where the hero is represented as a rebel who wants to comprehend the secrets of nature. In 1790, Faust was published in the form of an "excerpt", and in 1806 Goethe completed work on the 1st part, which was published in 1808.

The first part is inherent in fragmentation, clarity, it is divided into completely self-sufficient scenes, while the second will itself be a compositional whole.

After 17 years, the poet is taken for the second part of the tragedy. Here Goethe reflects on philosophy, politics, aesthetics, natural sciences, which makes this part rather difficult for an unprepared reader to understand. In this part, a peculiar picture of the life of the society contemporary to the poet is given, the connection between the present and the past is shown.

In 1826, Goethe finished work on the episode "Helen", begun back in 1799. And in 1830 he wrote "Classical Walpurgis Night". In mid-July 1831, a year before his death, the poet completed writing this work, significant for world literature.

Then the great German poet sealed the manuscript in an envelope and bequeathed to open it and publish the tragedy only after his death, which was done soon: in 1832, the second part was published in the 41st volume of the Collected Works.

An interesting fact is that in Goethe's tragedy, Dr. Faust bears the name Heinrich, and not Johann, as his real prototype.

Since Goethe worked on his main masterpiece for almost 60 years, it becomes clear that in Faust various milestones of the entire diverse and controversial creative path of the author can be traced: from the period of Sturm und Drang to Romanticism.

In addition to the history of the creation of Faust, there are other works on GoldLit:

The creative history of Goethe's Faust is unprecedented, if only because no writer has worked on any work for so long. There seems to be something mystical about this story. The plot of Faust, acquired by the poet in his early youth, did not let him go until the end of his days: it is known that before his death, Goethe held the proofs of the completed Faust in his hands and made some corrections to it, and then put it in a large envelope with the inscription : "Open after my death." And so it was done, and the complete Faust came to the reader only after the death of the poet. There is a feeling that Goethe did not consider his destiny in the earthly world fulfilled until he finished Faust. Only after its completion was he able to calmly leave for another world, knowing that his earthly lesson had been completed.

The figure of Faust, the hero of the famous folk legend, who became the victim of his daring desires and searches, disturbed the imagination of Goethe already at the very early stage of his work during his studies at the University of Leipzig in 1765-1769. Now Goethe's scholars have no doubt that the future "Faust" "sprouted", as from grains, from scenes born under the direct impression of life in Leipzig, the city of students and professors, from the stage in Auerbach's cellar, from the ironic teachings of Mephistopheles, dressed in the professorial robe of Faust, a student who came to seek scholarly wisdom. These teachings reflect Goethe's own mockery of scholasticism, stupid cramming and pseudoscience:

Make good use of your time.

You have to learn from the system.

First I want to owe you

Go to logic courses.

Your mind, untouched to this day,

They teach discipline

So that he takes the direction of the axis,

Not wandering off at random.

What do you like to do at home

In one fell swoop, at random,

You will be divided into three doses

Both subject and predicate.

Still not fed up with all this,

Take up metaphysics.

Give depth to the seal

For what cannot be understood.

Beautiful symbols

You will be taken out of trouble.

But most of all the regime

Adjusted is needed.

Serving hours of training

Get good reviews.

good student

You can't be late for the call.

Learn at home

Lecture text on leadership.

The teacher, keeping the similarity,

The entire course reads on it.

And yet with greedy swiftness

Write down links of thoughts,

As if these revelations

The Holy Spirit dictated to you.

The more Goethe joined the Sturm und Drang movement after the meeting with Herder in Strasbourg, the more firmly he occupied the position of one of its leaders, the more attracted his inner vision was Faust, who he already saw as a rebellious seeker of truth, as a titan of the spirit, as "stormy genius" In 1772, the tragedy Faust was completed, written in impulsive Sturmer prose, combining high pathos and vernacular. As it became clear later, this was the first edition of the first part of the final Faust, but at that time Goethe did not yet know about this and probably considered his work basically finished. However, he was in no hurry to publish it - perhaps foreseeing that the plot still had to be worked on, or perhaps because of the great demands on himself (it is known that he never rushed to give his masterpieces to print and often destroyed manuscripts). , which seemed weak to him, as well as all the drafts when the work was completed).

After moving to Weimar in 1775, the poet tested the effect of his Faust on friends and acquaintances by reading it to those who gathered at his house for poetry evenings. This is about them, as well as about friends in the Sturmer circle, he will later write in the "Dedication", anticipating the final edition of Faust:

To whom I read the previous ones.

And the former connoisseurs and judges

Among those who, with bated breath, listened to the young Goethe, was a passionate admirer of his work, the maid of honor of the Weimar court, Louise von Hechhausen. She asked the poet for permission to rewrite for herself some of his unpublished works, including the tragedy Faust. Goethe allowed and forgot about it. Many decades later, while preparing the first part of Faust for publication, Goethe destroyed all previous material. However, the list, made by an unremarkable maid of honor of the Weimar court, was waiting in the wings. And at the end of the XIX century. there was a sensational discovery: one of the German high school students brought his teacher an old notebook from his grandmother's chest. The teacher forwarded this manuscript to the famous Goethe scholar E. Schmidt, and he gasped, realizing that before him was Goethe's unknown independent work about Faust. Attributing the manuscript was not very difficult, although it was not written by Goethe's hand: Louise von Hechhausen with reverence retained absolutely all the features of the author's spelling of the great poet. The discovered text has been tentatively labeled "Urfaust" ("Prafaust" or "Proto-Faust"), and is an invaluable tool for studying the intention of "Faust" and its eventual implementation. In addition, "Prafaust" is of artistic value in itself. This is a drama (tragedy) intended for the stage and striking in its spontaneity and strength of feelings. The main storyline, as in the first part, is the love of Faust and Gretchen, ending with the death of the heroine. The final scene in prison is distinguished by a special tragic force. In Gretchen's depiction of madness, Goethe deliberately invokes allusions to Ophelia in Hamlet and successfully competes with Shakespeare himself. Nevertheless, Goethe put the completed tragedy in a drawer of his desk for a long time.

At a new stage, the poet turned to the story of Faust during his stay in Italy in 1786-1788. There, in Italy, the aesthetic base of “Weimar classicism” is taking shape, the ecstatic “inner” form of the Sturmner finally gives way to a harmonious form, which is an expression of no less harmonious content, subject to the search for “free humanity”, “beautiful man”. From here comes the idea of ​​recreating the old "Faust" in verse, while the poetic form itself is comprehended as the most appropriate to the new harmonious ideal and the expression of eternal ideas. Now, according to Goethe, even suffering should acquire, according to Winckelmann's formula, "noble simplicity and calm grandeur", should "shine through" through a transparent-crystalline perfect form, like the sun shines through clouds. In addition, an idea is born - entirely in line with "Weimar classicism" - to give the work a more generalized, universal meaning. That is why Prafaust, which in its main episodes did not differ much from the final version, takes on a poetic form. However, some famous scenes of the first part of the final edition of Faust were written right in Italy (for example, "The Witch's Kitchen", "Forest Cave") .

Returning from Italy, Goethe finalizes many scenes, expanding them, writing new ones. In 1790 he publishes Faust. Fragment ”(“ Faust. Ein Fragment ”), where individual episodes of the first part of Faust are presented in a revised form (primarily in poetic form) (there are fewer of these episodes than in Prafaust).

After a break, the poet returns to work on Faust in 1797. Not the last role in this was played by F. Schiller, who perfectly understood all the greatness of Goethe's grandiose plan and constantly pushed him to work on this plot, which he himself jokingly called "barbaric" (Schiler had in mind a large share of convention and fantasy in it, as well as a combination of the sublime and the base, the tragic and the comic). Perhaps it was Schiller's untimely death in 1805 that prompted Goethe - for the sake of his friend's memory - to complete the processing of the first part and conceive the second. In the meantime, in the late 1790s - early 1800s, he wrote "Dedication" (June 24, 1797), fixing the return on a new round to work on "Faust", "Theatrical Introduction" (late 1790s gg.), “Prologue in Heaven” (1797–1800), completes the scene “At the Gates” (1801), begun in early youth, writes the famous beginning of the scene “Faust’s Working Room” (1800–1801), which deals with the contract between Faust and Mephistopheles, creates the interlude "The Dream on Walpurgis Night, or the Golden Wedding of Oberon and Titania" (1796–1797). All this gives a special depth and universality to the first part of Faust, gives it a new breath. The first part in its complete form was written in 1806, but Goethe publishes it only in 1808, in the 8th volume of his collected works.

Between 1797–1801 Goethe developed a plan for the second part of Faust, but its final implementation dragged on for almost thirty years. Work on the text did not proceed easily, with numerous pauses and breaks. Separate sketches of the episodes of the second part were created even before the final plan of the work matured. Then, after 1806, there was a long break when Goethe did not write anything concerning Faust, but when, of course, deep inner work was going on, ideas gradually matured. Intensive work on the second part begins in 1825, and Eckermann did a lot for this. The young man, with his great interest in the fate of Goethe's creation, in the secrets of the plot, with his reverence and curiosity, with his questions, with the subtlety of perception of what was written, encouraged the poet to write further. In 1827 Goethe published the fragment “Helen. Classical romantic phantasmagoria. Interlude to Faust, which later formed the third act of the second movement. In 1828, in the 12th volume, scenes at the imperial court were printed, which were then included in the first act. On June 1, 1831, Goethe informed his friend Zelter that Faust had finally been completed. However, he is in no hurry to publish it, polishes the text, makes corrections, prepares the manuscript in two parts for publication. Goethe never saw the complete "Faust" printed: it was published in 1832 after the death of the poet in the 1st volume of the "Posthumous Edition of Works". Thus, the history of the creation of "Faust" bears the memory of all the main stages of Goethe's creative evolution, reflects his great creative path, like a dewdrop - a huge world.

The direct source of the plot for Goethe was the “Folk Book of Faust” (1587), in which the folk legend about the sorcerer and warlock who sold his soul to the devil was processed by Johann Spies in the spirit of edification and in a genre close to a picaresque novel. The legend itself was based on real facts: indeed, in the 16th century. in Germany there lived a certain scientist named Faust, who signed with the Latinized pseudonym Faustus (an important fact for Goethe was that in Latin Faustus means "happy"), and his name was either Johann, or George. According to conflicting reports, he taught at various universities. He is most proud of his “Faust Tower”, which allegedly housed his study, the ancient Heidelberg University. Apparently, Faust really was an extraordinary person, a scientist who was looking for new ways to comprehend the world. Probably, he was engaged in then fashionable alchemy and occult sciences, as a result of which the legend arose about his contract with the devil. Spies's book, like other adaptations and editions of a popular folk book in Germany in the 16th-17th centuries, had a frank religious and moralizing character in the spirit of severe Lutheranism and condemned Faust.

Surprisingly, the outstanding dramatic and philosophical possibilities of the German plot were first discovered not by a German, but by an English writer - the famous English playwright, a contemporary of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), who wrote a tragedy with a very revealing title: "The Tragic History of Doctor Faust". It testifies that Marlo saw in the story a warlock who made a deal with the devil, tragedy: it was he who first made Faust a tragic hero and a seeker of truth, and not just power over the world and pleasures, as in a folk book. However, in accordance with the folk story, the dubious search for the hero is condemned, and he himself ends up in hell in the finale. When conceiving his Faust, Goethe was not familiar with Marlo's tragedy, but he was well aware of its "indirect" "consequences" in the German folk theater: the English playwright's play was so popular that puppet shows were staged based on it, which - most often in an anonymous form returned to Germany. From these puppet plays, the tragedy and philosophical spirit of Marlowe's work have almost completely disappeared and mostly farcical episodes remain. Goethe saw similar folk fair scenes about Faust as a child and, perhaps, played them in his own puppet theater, presented to him by his grandmother.

Truly German literature discovered the story of Faust in the Age of Enlightenment. G. E. Lessing was the first to do this, proclaiming the need to search for an original path for German literature. In "Letters on Recent Literature" (1759), he proposed to abandon the imitation of the French classicists, which Gottsched and his school called for: "... in our tragedies we would like to see and think more than the timid French tragedy allows ..." As an example, it is true German plot, which could serve as the basis of a tragedy that would be akin to Shakespeare's, Lessing pointed precisely to the plot of Faust, emphasizing that it "many scenes that could only be under the power of Shakespeare's genius." Lessing wanted to write the tragedy about Faust himself, but managed to make only a few sketches and left a master plan in which he significantly changed the finale: Faust should not be punished, but justified as a tireless seeker of truth. Undoubtedly, Lessing's interpretation had an influence on Goethe's final design. In general, it was under the influence of Lessing and partly already under the influence of Goethe's Prafaust that the eyes of many representatives of Sturmer literature were riveted to the figure of Faust. Thus, works of various genres about Faust were created by J. Lenz (a satirical farce about Faust), F. Müller (Müller the painter; "Scenes from the Life of Faust", 1776; a dramatic fragment "The Life and Death of Dr. Faust", 1778), M Klinger (novel "Faust, his life, deeds and overthrow into hell", 1790). Completing his work when almost none of them were alive, Goethe probably felt a special responsibility to all German literature to make his Faust the most multidimensional and exhaustive interpretation of the famous plot. However, the paradox is that it was thanks to Goethe that he became world famous.

"Faust" is one of the most amazing and at the same time strange, bizarre creations of the human genius. It is unusually complex and multifaceted both in terms of the problems contained in it, and in terms of the presentation of these problems from the side of form (genre, composition, language, style, rhythmic structures). It seems to combine all shades of poetic language in it: the style of a philosophical treatise - and lively folk speech, up to vernacular; lofty, tragic - and the basest, even vulgar; the transparently poignant sincerity of intonation in Gretchen's songs, which are unpretentious in appearance, but behind this deceptive appearance hide the extremely difficult artistically "unheard of simplicity" (B. Pasternak), and the poisonously ironic, sarcastic element of everyday maxims of Mephistopheles. In Faust, as in a textbook on versification, all melodies and rhythms, all poetic meters worked out by European literature converged - from the ancient iambic trimeter and tetrameter (the meters of Greek tragedy and comedy) to the blank verse of Shakespearean tragedies, from the common German knittelfers and song dolnik - to the Alexandrian verse and the Italian octave. All this heterogeneous block, cemented together by Goethe's poetic genius, requires special sensitivity and special talent from a translator who undertakes to translate Faust into another language.

One of the most remarkable features of the style of "Faust" is the combination of seemingly incompatible: the concreteness of the image, life-like plausibility and at the same time conventionality, allegorism, deep and complex symbolism. As you know, such a combination of incompatible (discordia concors) is one of the hallmarks of baroque art. In "Faust" there are indeed bright baroque features, but not only them. In his artistic nature, baroque, rocaille, classicist, sentimentalist, pre-romantic or even romantic features melted into a rather motley and yet unified whole ... Perhaps this list is not at all complete, because in "Faust" Goethe's artistic universalism, polyphony and versatility of his work. Nevertheless, two peculiar stylistic dominants are characteristic of two parts of the work: in the first, the “medieval-gothic” dominant, which reaches its greatest completeness in the gloomy and at the same time reduced bodily fantasy of Walpurgis Night, in the second, “classical”, reaching its apogee in the third act. , where the image of Elena the Beautiful appears and where the crystal-transparent form itself embodies ideal beauty. At the same time, Goethe skillfully uses and rethinks a wide variety of mythological plots and motifs - from medieval European to ancient and biblical.

The genre nature of Faust is just as complex and defies unambiguous definition. Traditionally, Goethe's work is called a tragedy, which is recorded as a subtitle in numerous publications. However, the author himself did not agree with this definition and proposed a more accurate one - a dramatic poem. Indeed, Faust most obviously bears the features of a drama and an epic poem. If Goethe's "Prafaust" was definitely intended for the stage, then the final "Faust" is unlikely. For a play (tragedy as a kind of drama), Faust is too large in volume. In addition, the author did not really care about the possibility of the stage embodiment of his creation. There is no doubt that such concern was well known to Goethe, for he wrote dramatic works in their purest form and staged them himself on the stage of the Weimar theater. And although after his death "Faust" was shown in the same Weimar theater, his theatrical performances are still rare (most often the first, most scenic part is staged) and they are associated with special difficulties: there is too much symbolism, conditional characters, which are difficult to imagine on scene, such as, for example, the Homunculus or the will-o'-the-wisp, rosebuds or any small evil spirits greeting their patron - Mephistopheles, etc. (difficulties relate primarily to the second part of the work). Undoubtedly, Goethe followed his own free inspiration and imagination, not focusing strictly on any of the known genres or even genres of literature. Faust merges a huge space and the wide breath of the epic, intense drama and heightened tragedy, the most penetrating lyricism (up to the inclusion of independent lyrical works in the text, such as, for example, Dedication or Gretchen's songs). Here, the complex synthetic nature of the genre is obvious, the organic fusion of all three generic principles of poetry - epic, lyricism, drama. In "Faust" there are features of a mystery and a miracle, a farcical farcical theater, there are poisonous epigrams and sublime philosophical hymns in it, the features of a comedy coexist with the heroism of an epic poem. In addition, Goethe, who was keenly interested in the art of music, was attracted by such musical dramatic forms as opera and opera buff (comic opera). R. M. Samarin and S. V. Turaev note the special musicality of the second part of Faust: “Musical in its entirety, the second part of Goethe's tragedy ... approaches an enchanting opera. Recitatives, choirs, arias, numerous trios (for example, Three Parks, Need, Hope and Wisdom, Trio of Furies, Three Holy Fathers) form the compositional basis of many scenes of the second part. Some researchers (in particular, A. A. Anikst) liken the complex polystylistic poetry of Faust to a symphony. One thing is clear: the most complex tasks and problems raised by Goethe in his work also brought to life an extremely complex genre form.

Faust is also striking in its composition, which at first glance seems chaotic and even illogical. So, the first part is divided - in the spirit of Sturmer aesthetics - into separate scenes that do not have to be connected with each other, however, it is in the first part that a rather harmonious plot can be traced, giving it unity: the meeting of Faust with Mephistopheles, the conclusion of an agreement between them, the test love, ending with the death of Gretchen. The second part consists of five canonical acts of classic tragedy, inexorably entailing the idea of ​​the unity of time, place, action. However, the reader will not discover any of this: the connection between the acts is deep, at the level of cardinal problems, the action takes place at different times and in different localities; in fact, each of the acts is an independent play, they are connected only by the figure of Faust, his search. The heterogeneity of the general structure of Faust is slightly smoothed out by the fact that each of the five acts also consists of separate scenes, which, like in the first part, have their own names. In addition, in the first part there are scenes that at first glance are self-sufficient, not very connected with the rest (for example, "Walpurgis Night" and even more so "The Dream on Walpurgis Night"). All these difficulties and oddities are artistically justified in one way or another and serve the super-task that Goethe set in the text: to reveal as fully as possible the picture of a person’s spiritual and social existence, to build their own cosmos, which in a concentrated form carries the laws of the universe.

One of the striking "oddities" of "Faust" is the presence of three prologues in it. Questions naturally arise: why so many? Isn't that too much for one piece? Isn't there something extremely artificial in this? Of course, on the one hand, it is artificial, but on the other, everything that the artist creates is an artificial world and at the same time the world of art, thanks to which (and especially in line with the concept of “Weimar classicism”) we better comprehend the world of reality and our own spiritual world. And if the poet considered it necessary that the reader enter the majestic "building" of his "Faust" along the "steps" of the three prologues, then this is entirely justified. Indeed, the three prologues form a kind of "gateway" into the complex world of Goethe's creation, and each of the prologues gradually brings us closer to understanding the essence of the whole, the entire artistic conception, and even the key issues raised in the text.

Goethe opens Faust with a marvelous lyric poem, written in octaves, "Dedication" ("Zueignung"). This is a dedication of one's own youth to friends who once understood the poet in this way, this is an oath of allegiance to strange images that powerfully took possession of his soul at the dawn of his creative path. Written when the contours of the first part were already clearly highlighted and the outlines of the second were completely unclear, “Dedication” carries a complex set of feelings of the poet, and above all a natural feeling of anxiety: will there be enough strength of mind and creative inspiration to complete what was conceived in his youth? This anxiety is interrupted by the hope for spiritual and creative renewal in connection with the return to youthful ideas:

Here you are again, shifting shadows

that have been worrying me for a long time,

Is there, finally, an incarnation for you,

Or has my young enthusiasm cooled down?

But you, like smoke, moved in, visions,

Covering my horizons with fog.

I catch your breath with all my chest

And near you I am young in soul.

Goethe probably needed the transparent, hard-crystalline form of the octave to introduce the reader into the laboratory of the new Faust - Faust, renewed at the stage of "Weimar classicism" in a fundamentally different form. This is a reminder of a stay in Italy, where old ideas took on new contours and new ones arose, a reminder of its “classical soil”. The octave is a kind of poetic sign of the Italian Renaissance, because in this solid Romanesque form the most famous works of this period were written - the grandiose epics of L. Ariosto and T. Tasso.

In Dedication, Goethe, with the greatest gratitude and at the same time aching sadness, recalls the atmosphere of a friendly circle, those with whom he shared his plans, to whom he once entrusted the original Faust, and regrets those who are not around, who are gone forever:

You have resurrected the past pictures,

Old days, old evenings.

In the distance pops up like an old fairy tale

Love and friendship the first time.

Penetrated to the very core

The longing of those years and the thirst for good,

I am everyone who lived that radiant noon,

Again, thank you.

They won't hear the next songs

To whom I read the previous ones.

The circle that was so tight broke up

The noise of the first approvals resounded.

And, I confess, I'm afraid of their praises,

And the former connoisseurs and judges

Scattered, who where, among the desert.

The great creator is at the same time just a man, and so one more anxiety of Goethe is understandable in a human way: how will the young people of today understand him, how will his distant descendants understand him? The poet is consoled by one thing: he hopes that in this creation of his - whether he will be understood or not - he will convey to people the most important truth in the name of which he lived. The last octave with great poetic power speaks of the inextricable connection between the poet and the world he created, for this world is born in his soul, he nourishes these images with the blood of his own heart:

And I'm chained by an unprecedented force

To those images surging from outside,

Aeolian harp sobbed

The beginning of stanzas born in black.

I am in awe, the languor is over,

I shed tears, and the ice melts in me.

The vital moves away, and prescription,

Approaching, it becomes clear.

Thus, Goethe begins his "Faust" with a penetratingly sincere personal intonation, probably wishing the reader to understand: before him, first of all, poetry, poured out from the depths of the poet's soul, before him is his most cherished creation, combining in itself all beginnings and ends, destined fate.

From the inner and personal, expressed in the "Dedication", the poet goes to the most general and generalized - to reflections on who the work is intended for, in what form it will appear before the public. These questions are answered by the “Theatrical Introduction”, or “Prologue in the Theatre”, the analogue for which was the prologue to the drama of the classic of ancient Indian literature Kalidasa (IV-V centuries) “Shakuntala” (“Sakuntala”): before the start of the performance, the director of the theater argues, poet and actor. Usually, the "Theatrical Introduction" is interpreted as Goethe's aesthetic manifesto, as an expression of various points of view on art. All this, of course, is in the second prologue, but it should be remembered that we have before us not just an aesthetic treatise, but a text that is directly related to Faust, explains something in it. Each of the characters in the "Theatrical Introduction" has its own reason, expresses its own truth, and it turns out to be the truth about "Faust" - that special "play" that will unfold before our eyes as soon as the curtain rises.

Thus, the poet believes that he does not create for the needs of the crowd that fills the theater and often does not understand art at all, but in the name of the highest truth, in the name of eternity. He creates according to the laws of truth and beauty: "External brilliance is designed for moments, / And the truth passes into generations." This position is extremely close to Goethe, especially the era of the classics: the authentic, real, truthful is inseparable from the beautiful (it is worth remembering Goethe's words “das Edle, das Gute, das Sch "one" - “noble, kind, beautiful”, sounding like a motto and goal " Weimar classicism"). A poet can create only when he has a refuge, a holy abode on the mountain peaks: "No, take me to those peaks // Where concentration calls, // There, where God's hand created // The abode of dreams , a sanctuary of peace". The author of "Mountain Peaks" knew perfectly well what concentration and high inspiration mean, how necessary they are for creativity, how much a poet needs salvation from the vulgar vanity of earthly life.

The comic actor, on the contrary, believes that real art should be addressed to contemporaries, should talk about the pressing problems that primarily concern the younger generation:

Enough about the offspring I was hollowed.

When I would give strength to offspring,

Who would entertain our youth?

To be in harmony with the age is not so petty.

The delights of a generation are not trifles,

You won't find them on the street.

This is said by Goethe himself, who knew what it meant to be "in harmony with the age", who expressed the "delight of a generation" in his "Werther". The actor believes that in order to achieve the goal - the creation of art both eternal and topical - it is necessary to combine "in every role // Imagination, feeling, intelligence and passion // And a sufficient share of humor." The viewer (reader) will see this connection in full in Faust. The comic actor is sure that art should capture the audience precisely with its vitality, draw from the thick of life, demonstrate its different sides, so that everyone can find in it something of their own, corresponding to their mood:

Present us such a precise drama.

Rake right out of the thick of life.

Not everyone is aware of how he lives.

Whoever grabs it will carry us away.

Into fermented fiction

Throw a grain of truth

And it will be cheap and angry

Your drink will seduce everyone.

Then the color of selected youth

Will come to see your revelation

And will scoop with grateful trembling,

What suits his mood.

The comic actor quite accurately and aphoristically notes the dichotomous nature of Faust, in which there are so many conventions and even “fictions” and at the same time contain great truths (as the poet modestly says through the mouth of an actor, here you can find “a grain of truth”). The director of the theater emphasizes the same property of the text:

Stuff all sorts of things into the feeding:

A little life, a little fiction,

You manage this kind of stew.

The crowd will turn everything into okroshka,

I can't give you better advice.

At first glance, it seems that the director of the theater, with his prosaically coarse speech, is the furthest away from Goethe’s position, that he is only concerned about the occupancy of the hall with the public, that is, external success, utilitarian benefits, income from the theater, that he does not care about high ideals, the interests of the younger generation or the ministry of eternity. However, one should not forget that Goethe himself was the director of the Weimar theater and, perhaps, understood better than others the concerns of a person occupying such a position. That is probably why, despite the outward frivolity of his speeches, he trusts his director of the theater in the "Theatrical Introduction" with important thoughts regarding the unique artistic nature of "Faust", its composition, and the general course of action. Thus, he gives the following advice to the poet and actor:

And most importantly, drive the action move

Live, episode by episode.

More details in their development,

To capture the attention of onlookers,

And you defeated them, you reign

You are the most needed person, you are a magician.

The "race" of episodes - the swiftness of events and at the same time a certain "disconnection", fragmentation of the action, we will see in Faust, as we will feel the special taste of "stew" (in the German original this word, borrowed from French, was used), in which very different - both thematically and stylistically - and in which everyone can find something corresponding to his taste, reason, feeling, Goethe makes it clear, synthesizing all three points of view, that in his "Faust" eternal and at the same time burning modern problems, it will combine the high and the low, the sublime-serious and the reduced-comic, it will contain everything that can be found in life itself. In addition, in the final lines of the "Theatrical Introduction" the general course of action is set, and the poet entrusts these important words to the director of the theater:

In this boardwalk

You can, as in the universe,

Having passed all the tiers in a row,

Descend from heaven through earth to hell.

In his translation, B. L. Pasternak managed to preserve the lightness and brilliant aphorism of the sound of this finale, fitting, like Goethe, in the last line, three spheres - heaven, earth (the earthly world) and hell. Goethe says: “... Und wandelt mit bed "acht'ger Schnelle // Vom Himmel durch die Welt zur H "olle" ("... And you space with unthinkable speed // From heaven through the [earthly] world to hell"). This is a surprisingly capacious and energetic formulation of the sequence of events unfolding further: literally in the next prologue, the reader (spectator) finds himself in heaven, then descends to the earthly world, where the action, demonstrating the “circle of creation” exhaustively, moves to hell through the efforts of Mephistopheles. But will Faust get there? This question remains open until the very end of the work.

The third of the prologues - "Prologue in Heaven" - certainly brings the reader close to the main philosophical and ethical issues of the work, moreover, he directly introduces this issue. One gets the feeling that Goethe, making sure that we do not lose the "philosophical grain" in the majestic cosmos of his "Faust", decided to give it in the prologue (of course, this is also a kind of "strangeness"). In addition, already here the reader gets the first idea about the main characters - Faust and Mephistopheles, about the main conflict of the work and the general questions posed in it. Quite small in size, "Prologue in the Sky" is extremely informative, carries many allusions. First, it is reminiscent of the prologues to mysteries and miracles in the folk theater, when parting curtain-clouds open the sky, and in the finale it closes (cf. the remark at the end of the scene: "The sky is closing. The archangels part"). As in the Mysteries, the Prologue in Heaven features God and archangels. Secondly, the sublime beginning of the prologue, the monologues of the archangels Raphael, Gabriel and Michael, make us recall the solemn intonations of the majestic poem Paradise Lost by J. Milton (1667), which Goethe re-read many times and which had an undoubted influence not only on the third prologue to Faust ”, but also on the whole work as a whole, especially on the complex dialectic of good and evil, presented in the image of Mephistopheles. Thirdly, in the "Prologue in the sky" biblical allusions are clear.

At the beginning of the prologue, we see the vast expanse of the Universe moving according to the most perfect laws of God. “The angels of the Lord marvel, / Looking over the whole limit, / As on the first day, so today / The glory of God’s works is immeasurable.” It seems that in the world there are not and cannot be any contradictions, any vices. All the more sharp is the contrast with which the witty and poisonously ironic Mephistopheles enters into action, casting doubt on the harmony and expediency of God's creation. Against the background of the well-proportioned syllabotonics of the parties of the archangels, the emphatically everyday prose manner of Mephistopheles, his ironic-bureaucratic style, which perfectly matches the knittelfers (Knittelvers- “oak verse”), reminiscent of chopped rhymed prose (it is slightly smoothed out in the translation of B. L. Pasternak):

I came to You, God, at the reception,

To report our position.

That's why I'm in your company

And everyone who is here in the service.

But if I uttered tirades,

Like angels' pompous face,

I would make you laugh until you drop,

Whenever you don't get used to laughing.

I'm about I'm embarrassed to talk about planets

I will tell you how people fight, toiling.

Mephistopheles is the first to start talking about a person and gives him - the highest creation of the Lord - a mocking and derogatory description:

God of the universe, man is

As it has been since time immemorial.

It would be better if he lived a little, do not light up

His You are God's spark from within.

He calls this spark of reason

And with this spark, cattle live by cattle.

I beg your pardon, but according to your methods

It looks like some kind of insect.

Half flying, half jumping

He whistles like a locust.

Oh, if he were sitting in the mowing grass

And I would not poke my nose into all the squabbles!

Thus, Mephistopheles dares to judge God's creation, expresses a harsh, impartial opinion about man. However, neither the Lord nor Goethe himself can agree with such a point of view. Therefore, the Lord remembers Faust, who must refute the opinion of Mephistopheles, defend the dignity of man and God Himself. Depicting a dispute about a person between the Lord and Mephistopheles, Goethe deliberately relied on the Old Testament Book of Job (in the original - Job; c. 5th century BC), in the exposition of which an unknown Hebrew poet first described such a dispute between God and His opponent - not yet Satan, but simply Satan (Satan translated from Hebrew - “disputer”, “opponent”, “accuser”, “opponent”). This is a kind of skeptical angel who came separately from the rest of the "sons of God", i.e. angels, and, as he himself says about himself, "from going around the earth, from wandering around it" (Job 1:7; hereinafter translated by S. Averintsev). He argues that even the most ideal righteous man, such as Job, is God-fearing and blameless without self-interest: “Is not Job fearing God for a bribe? // Didn't You fence him around, // and his house, // and all that is his? // The work of his hands You blessed, // his flocks scattered over the land. (Job 1:9-10). Satan offers to test Job and his faith: “But - stretch out Your hand, // touch everything that he has; // won't he blaspheme you // in your face? (Job 1:10–11). God gives permission to test Job, and misfortunes - one worse than the other - fall on the hero: the death of herds and servants, then children, then his own severe physical and moral suffering. However, Job, despite all these troubles and bitter doubts about the justice of God's Providence, still retains his faith and ability to enjoy life in spite of suffering, to appreciate the amazing beauty of the world created by God that is not in everything subject to man. Satan, offering more and more tests, is defeated. Job, on a new round of comprehension of the world and God - through the prism of his own suffering and a clearer vision of evil, the suffering of other people - comes to a "pure" religion, based not on the fear of punishment, not on the expectation of a reward, but only on the greatest love for Tom, Who moves and warms the world. Job demonstrates that faith is an essential feature of a real person, proves the ability of a person to the most disinterested faith. The focus of the famous biblical book is the most complex and painful problem for religious consciousness - the problem of theodicy, the problem of the meaningfulness of the world and the justification of God in the face of the most terrible evil - the suffering of the innocent.

Turning to the Bible, Goethe immediately elevates the problems of his work to the level of eternity, emphasizing the global nature of the issues that will be raised in Faust. The most important of them are the following: what is a man? what is its purpose? Was he worthy of creation and God's election? In a word, as the famous Psalm 8 says, “What is a man, that You remember him, and a son of man, that You visit him?” (Ps 8:5; New Version). Compare in the Book of Job:

What is a man, that you distinguished him,

you occupy them with your thoughts,

Every morning you remember him

experience it every moment?

When you take your eyes off me,

will you let me swallow my saliva?

(Job 7:17-19)

Thus, introducing the biblical context, Goethe makes it clear that the central question of his "Faust" is the question of man and humanity, and on the example of Faust's fate and the trials through which he will go, it will be decided who is right in the dispute - the Lord or Mephistopheles.

Receiving permission to test Faust, Mephistopheles sincerely rejoices that such an outstanding example of human nature has been chosen for the experiment:

Not addicted to corpses,

I must say thank you.

Life juices are closer to me,

Blush, rosy cheeks.

Cats need a live mouse

You can't tempt them with the dead.

If a man like Faust is led astray and seduced by Mephistopheles, the latter's victory will be complete and final. Anticipating it, he dares to offer the Lord a bet:

Let's bet. Here is my hand

And soon we will be in the calculation.

You will understand my triumph

When he, crawling in the litter,

Will eat the dust from the shoe,

How the century crawls

Snake, my dear aunt.

In the last line (more precisely, in Goethe - “the famous snake, my nanny [mother]”) Mephistopheles hints at his close relationship with the notorious snake that seduced the first people and was punished by the Lord to crawl on its belly (crouch) and eat dust. As you know, in the Christian tradition, this snake (more precisely - a snake; in the original - nahash) identified with Satan. Thus, Goethe makes it clear that his Mephistopheles is from a cohort of crafty enemies of man and God, but this is something special, not identical to Satan in the traditional sense.

So, Mephistopheles challenges God Himself, offering Him to test His highest creation - man. The Lord initially cannot agree with the point of view of His opponent, because, creating this world and man, giving the latter the highest (and dangerous) gift - free will, He knew in advance about the results: “He serves Me, and this is obvious, / And he will break out from the darkness to please me. // When a gardener plants a tree, // The fruit is known in advance to the gardener. The Lord is sure that no matter what abysses a person falls into, he will, by an effort of the spirit, come out of them and improve himself: “He is given under your care! // And, if you can, bring down // Into such an abyss of a man, // So that he trudges behind. // You lost for sure. // By instinct, by his own desire // He will break out of the impasse. And already in the Prologue in Heaven, as a comprehensive formula of human life found, the famous Goethe aphorism sounds from the lips of the Lord: “Es irrt der Mensch, solang er strebt” (“Man destined to err as long as he strives"). In the translation of B. L. Pasternak, this sounds quite accurate, and most importantly - aphoristic, like in Goethe, making up a sentence within a single line: "He who seeks is forced to wander."

Thus, the "Prologue in the Sky" is a kind of philosophical key to "Faust", without it the general idea of ​​​​the work is not entirely clear. In addition, it is in the third prologue that we get to know the main characters, get an idea of ​​their characters and purpose. Already here, Faust is characterized by Mephistopheles himself as an outstanding personality, as a person endowed with lofty aspirations and eternal restlessness of spirit:

He is eager to fight, and loves to take on obstacles,

And sees the goal beckoning in the distance,

And demands stars from the sky as a reward

And the best pleasures of the earth,

And his life will not be sweet with his soul,

Whatever the search leads to.

Faust is not just a German scientist of the Reformation, but a person in general, the embodiment of all mankind, an image that is typical in its exclusivity.

"Prologue in Heaven" is very important for understanding the philosophical fullness of the image of Mephistopheles. The name of this hero, recorded in German legends, consists of two Hebrew roots: mephis("destruction") and tofel("madness", "stupidity"). Probably, this name of Satan was fixed in the German tradition due to consonance with the German Teufel(“damn”), although it is also possible that the latter is related in origin to the Hebrew tofel. In addition, in Hebrew it is consonant with the word tophet- one of the designations of hell (more precisely, it is a ritual oven in which the pagans performed human sacrifices, which was severely condemned by the prophets of Israel, and the word itself acquired a sharply negative meaning). According to Goethe's intention, Mephistopheles is not identical with the devil from folk tradition or Satan in his canonical Christian understanding. He is not conceived as the absolute embodiment of evil. It is not for nothing that in the Prologue in Heaven the Lord Himself says: “Then come to Me without hesitation. // Like you, I'm never an enemy. // Of the spirits of denial, you are all of me // You were a burden to me, a rogue and a merry fellow. Goethe makes it clear that Mephistopheles is only one of the spirits of denial and, perhaps, the most constructive. It is no coincidence that, introducing himself to Faust, he will say: "I - a spirit always accustomed to deny!” And again: "Part of the power of that which is without number / Creates good, wishing evil to everything." Thus, Mephistopheles embodies the dialectical unity of good and evil (of course, this interpretation arose not without the influence of the image of Satan from J. Milton's Paradise Lost, although in the latter Satan is written in completely different colors, corresponding to the high order of the heroic epic). This is the evil, without which the comprehension of good is impossible, then the denial, without which affirmation is impossible, then the destruction of the old, without which the striving for the new is impossible. Mephistopheles is the embodiment of skepticism, doubt and philosophical negation, without which there is no search for truth. At the same time, a certain Mephistopheles principle lives in the soul of Faust. In this sense, it can be argued that Mephistopheles is a kind of double of Faust, that Faust and Mephistopheles are the embodiment of two sides of a single life, two halves of the human soul. No wonder Goethe once mentioned that Faust and Mephistopheles are equally creations of his soul. In a conversation with Eckermann (May 3, 1827), he said that not only "the unsatisfied aspirations of the protagonist, but also the mockery and bitter irony of Mephistopheles" form part of his "own being". In the unity and constant intense struggle of Faust and Mephistopheles, their impossibility without each other, Goethe by artistic means - and long before Hegel - formulates the law of unity and struggle of opposites, the source of any movement.

... The sky closes, according to Goethe's remark, and the reader finds himself on a sinful earth to go on a journey with the main characters.