Faust and Mephistopheles comparative characteristics. T. A. Comparative analysis of the images of Faust, Mephistopheles and the personality of Carl Gustav Jung. To a young man contemplating his life - an excerpt from Goethe J., "Faust"

Faust is a symbol of the titanism of the human spirit. And in this he shares the fate of all the heroes of Goethe's Sturm und Drang. The feeling of the creator connects him with Prometheus, and the rejection of the world makes him related to Goetz and Werther. Yet Faustian titanism is broader, it has deeper, stronger motives. This is insatiability with life, the desire to embrace the fullness of life, being. striving to affirm oneself and the power of one's life. The form and sign of this experience, this lack of powerful vital forces, is the feeling of dissatisfaction arising from the struggle between our life forms, which are limited by time3. The world of space and time is narrow for Faust, it is the breakthrough beyond this world that is important for him. And the tragedy of Faust is primarily in his desire to expand himself to the universe. This is already a new side in the titanic expansion of the Goethean generation. "Prafaust" was not completed for the reason that the Sturmer heroes lacked the scale and inclusiveness of passions, the world of Sturmer heroes was narrow for such a hero as Faust. Therefore, Goethe put aside Faust, and its continuation followed only during the Italian trip4.

Some parts of Faust were already written in 1800, Goethe quite calmly stepped over into the 19th century, accepting his problems.

The tragedy of Faust is the specific tragedy of man, it is the tragedy of the creator of form. Goethe expresses it with an exclamation that escaped from the lips of his hero when he speaks with the Spirit of the Earth: "Ich Ebenbild der Gottheit und nicht einmal dir" - "I am the image of God, and I do not look like you," and the Spirit of the Earth ironically calls him the word , which came into use much later in the 19th and 20th centuries, is "Übermensch", the superman. At the time of the Reformation, Catholics called Lutherans that way, and in the era of Goethe, the word meant heroism, heroic.

The Spirit of the Earth leaves Faust, and Wagner enters his room. This is a pedantic scientist, a man who diligently collects treasures of knowledge in his head, painstakingly summing up and recording the data of human experience. Goethe does not create here a satirical image of a mediocre and wingless scientist. Systematizer Wagner is the embodiment of rigorous scientific knowledge. He yearns for genuine knowledge just as much as Faust. For Wagner, analysis and synthesis, classifications and systems are the path to true knowledge. He is primarily a theoretician, and more than that, an enthusiast of science.

But there is a consolation for people

To plunge into the spirit of the past;

And it's nice to finally get there.

As the ancient wise man thought

And how our age has risen above it!

Wagner treats Faust with great reverence, he appreciates the spiritual wealth of Faust. But the Faustian student is already independent and in disputes with the teacher he always uncompromisingly defends his position. Wagner came into Faust's office at an odd hour not by chance, it seemed to him that his teacher was reciting a Greek tragedy. This small detail testifies to the great culture of Wagner, to his admiration for antiquity. Goethe's Wagner is a man of fine taste, here we see the orientation of the Faustian student and adept. The remarkable Germanist Erich Trunz defines Wagner as a humanist. Wagner is a Renaissance humanist in the narrow sense of the word, that is, a scientist focused on the study of ancient monuments. And, of course, rhetoric and grammar are of the greatest interest to him. Of course, he is to some extent a caricature of Faust, who once believed in the omnipotence of science, in the superiority of scientific reason over nature. The dispute between Faust and Wagner is fundamental. Faust turns to the direct study of nature. We know that Faust went through all the university faculties, and of course, he knows antiquity and rhetoric very well. From the conversation between Faust and Wagner, one can understand that it seems important to Wagner to master all the formal laws of rhetoric, he is an encyclopedic scientist. Faust does not recognize rhetoric, he does not recognize the artificial formulation of speech, language:

Is parchment the holy key,

Does it quench your thirst forever?

Looking for consolation is an empty labor,

When it doesn't expire

From the well of your soul.

Here, on the dispute between the two directions, which have as their source two vectors of the Renaissance thought, the contradictions inherent in the era of Goethe are superimposed. On the one hand, culturally, it can be understood as a controversy between philologically oriented humanists AND natural philosophers of the Renaissance; on the other hand, it is a reflection of the struggle of the figures of "Storm and Onslaught" with rational enlightenment, with the classical dogmas of the Gottsched school.

Faust and Wagner also diverge in their attitude to the legacy of the past. Wagner is attracted by the past most of all, and Faust considers the study of the past to be absolutely fruitless. Faust calls to distinguish between the true work of the past, living and immortal work - and the picture of the past, which is created in the minds of pundits:

The past for us is a secret scroll

With seven seals, but what is the spirit of the age

You name - that is, the spirit is random.

That is the spirit of that other person.

And in this spirit - century reflection.

It is a raven - a terrible vision.

You will run away as soon as you cast your eyes.

Sometimes - a vessel where all rubbish is collected.

Sometimes - a cell stuffed with rags.

The spirit of a scientist, directed only to the past, is devoid of aspiration to the future. Wagner is convinced that human development is at the stage when a person can answer all questions, his knowledge becomes public domain. Faust argues with Wagner in a Cartesian spirit, adhering to the opinion of Descartes that one person rather than a whole nation will stumble upon the truth. And this knowledge and insight will never be met with joy, every great scientist is destined for the role of a martyr of knowledge.

After a conversation with Wagner, Faust begins a deep spiritual depression. In despair at the thought that the son of the earth is limited by the finiteness of his existence, Faust makes a last attempt to escape from the form of life imposed on him, he needs to break the forms of space and time at all costs. In other words, to go beyond the a priori, subjective forms of sensibility, space and time, to use the language of Kant. To do this, Faust must throw off the limitation of his own corporeality, he needs a free death, he must soar to new spheres of pure activity, escape from the world of space and time with which he is physically connected. Only when freed from the body shell, his spirit will acquire spontaneity, will be unstoppable. In anticipation of such pure activity, Faust wants to leave the existence of a worm, swarming in one of the furrows of the universe. He wants to be free from the fear of death, from the fear of life. He wants to prove that man is worthy to ascend to divine heights. Faust decides to take the poison, but when he brings the bowl of poison to his lips, he hears temple singing. He leaves the bowl, the suicide did not take place. Not the fear of divine punishment for ignoring Christian commandments, not the fear of a religion that forbids suicide, but the very spirit of life prevents him from throwing off his earthly shell. Temple singing is heard, and the world holds Faust, does not allow him to be transported to another dimension, slows down his impulse to the sphere of pure spirituality. Here begins that line in the tragedy that determines the appearance of Mephistopheles.

Mephistopheles is the second most important hero of the tragedy, the shadow of Faust. Under this name, the devil appears for the first time in a medieval book about Faust. Probably, the name goes back to two Hebrew words: “mephis” (destroyer) and “tofol- (liar). There is a rather dubious version of the origin of this word from the Greek words "me fodo files" (THE WHO does not love the light) or "me Fauslto files" (THE WHO does not love Faust). If the first etymology could be accepted, the second looks too artificial.

In the Prologue in Heaven, the Lord admitted that of all the spirits of denial, he favors Mephistopheles the most. The merit of Mephistopheles is that he does not allow people to calm down. In general, Mephistopheles initially recognizes his complete dependence on God, because the negative principle paradoxically always turns into good. Mephistopheles describes himself as follows:

I am the spirit that forever denies.

And the truth demands

All creation, without a doubt,

Worthy of destruction.

And it's better if it

It didn't show up at all.

Everything that you didn't name

Or destruction, OR evil,

Here are all the phenomena -

My natural element.

Thus, the spirit of denial appears in the tragedy, the spirit of the consciousness that Carl Gustav Jung defined as the negative consciousness. And it is not surprising that criticism prevails in Mephistopheles over demonic power. The mind of a person who has a negative consciousness is directed to the destruction of what is a value for another; he questions not the substance of the case, but the circumstances.

Why does Goethe introduce the spirit of negation into tragedy? The point is that the spirit of denial, the spirit of criticism, is characteristic XVIII century since the 70s. The spirit of criticism was directed against rational dogmatism, against everything dilapidated, regulated, retrograde; against what was deprived of inner freedom, which fettered the freedom of the individual. It sometimes took on nihilistic forms of complete denial of the meaning of life.

There are two representatives of this century present in the tragedy. Faust is inspiration and enthusiasm. The enthusiasm of Faust is the enthusiasm of an already developed consciousness. Consciousness that calmly turns both to the outside world and to itself - what can be called reflection or reflexive consciousness. This consciousness has a critical attitude. But the most important thing is precisely the reflective side of Faustian consciousness, capable of making itself an object of thought, seeing itself from the outside, being able to think about one's feelings, giving thought to thought. And the critical spirit is an instrument of reflection, primarily self-reflection. Naturally, this spirit also acts as an ironic spirit.

Mephistopheles is the spirit of irony that runs through the whole tragedy. The most important feature of this irony is that it is fruitful, productive in the sense that it awakens dissatisfaction in Faust, forces Faust's reflective consciousness to be in constant tension. Both heroes, Faust and Mephistopheles, are both demonic and diabolical. And Goethe himself was also no stranger to demonia. But the divine in Faust still prevails. Mephistopheles takes the diabolical in its purest form. It's more of an ironic diabolical thing. Need to say. Thomas Mann remarked very well that the diabolical in Mephistopheles is not in such a bad relationship with the divine. The Lord says about Mephistopheles:

I don't despise people like you.

Of the spirits of all living in denial,

A rogue is not at all a burden to me.

Goethe brings Mephistopheles into play very subtly in the second scene. Prior to this, Faust tried to get out of his "I" with the help of the sign of the macrocosm and then with the help of suicide. We can perceive the scene outside the city gates as a further realization of Faust's aspirations. Faust leaves the city, joins the townspeople who are celebrating Easter, his conversation with the people at the city gates takes place against the backdrop of a colorful crowd of festivities. People celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord, spiritual rebirth, renewal of the world. The main thing, however, in this scene is the appearance of a black poodle, which relentlessly follows Faust and Wagner to the very dwelling, and in Faust's office already appears before him in the form of the devil himself. Mephistopheles appears before him at the moment when Faust's striving reaches its climax, when he again strives to step over the narrow boundaries of his world.

The fact that the meeting of Faust and Mephistopheles takes place on Easter, obviously, should give a sacred, sacral character to the whole event. This means that the adventure that began on the holy day carries a positive meaning. The meeting place of Faust and the devil is at the city gates, which here symbolize the exit of a person into a wider space of being. And although all the adventures of Faust will consist in following Mephistopheles, the chain of wandering through the stages of being will nevertheless pass under the sign of the Resurrection of the Lord. Therefore, Mephistopheles is not a completely infernal image and not a carrier of absolute evil.

According to Goethe's plan, the real Satan was supposed to appear in Faust as the bearer of all dark forces. The scene of Walpurgis Night was to end with a terrifying, grotesque coven, and the top of this coven was to be the appearance of Satan surrounded by witches, harlots, goats - all the characters inherent in the devil's paraphernalia. Two principles were supposed to triumph here - unspiritual human lust and gold. Mephistopheles was supposed to be present in this scene, as it were, as the deputy chief director - Satan. For the 18th century, this scene is written at the limit of propriety, but surprisingly strong and powerful. But Goethe does not include it in the final version of Faust for the reason that the scene would have a grotesque character and to some extent it would be funny, in this case the depth of philosophical demonia would be reduced by the grotesqueness of the images. Mephistopheles appeared before Faust in the form of a poodle, and Goethe puts the words about the poodle into Wagner's mouth:

Isn't it clear that this is about a ghost

Out of the question?

You see yourself

He lies on his belly, wags his tail.

Wagner speaks of its harmlessness and harmlessness. The poodle is known to be the most human-dependent dog breed, it is surprisingly sociable and kind. It is believed that of the entire canine world, this breed has the least aggressiveness; this is a dog that has completely lost its hunting instinct. The appearance of a poodle in Faust is an allusion to the seductiveness of the spirit of denial - Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles in his first appearance is not a symbol of evil, but a symbol of sociability. Faust notices the strange behavior of the poodle, he feels that this is not an ordinary dog. Mephistopheles subsequently has conversations with Faust that he would not dare to have with God. The meaning of Mephistopheles' speeches is that the world and order created by God is not perfect, moreover, it is worthless, everything that exists in it deserves to be destroyed. But all the misfortunes that Mephistopheles sends to earth cannot destroy the world in any way. The cosmic order remains unshakable, despite all the stupidity and imperfection of this world.

Who is Mephistopheles? This is either Satan himself, or one of the devils subject to Satan. In Goethe's Faust, he appears as the main representative of Hell, the messenger of Hell. And at the same time, he is a devil of the second rank. Here, Goethe is not interested in absolute accuracy, something else is important for him. Goethe creates his own model of the universe, his own picture of the world, and in her demonic forces, the spirit of denial is given an important place. Mephistopheles believes that the original element of the world was darkness, it is hidden at the basis of all things. And light is just a product of darkness, it is not connected with the essence of things, it is only able to illuminate the surface. And when the end of this world comes and everything is destroyed, then darkness will reign everywhere again.

Through the mouth of Mephistopheles, Goethe tells us his myth about the creation of the world. What is this myth? Goethe created his own cosmogonic model, which differs sharply from the Christian one. According to Goethe, the creation of the divine Trinity - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit - led to the fact that the circle was closed, and the deities could no longer create their own kind. But the divine beginning can only be a creative beginning. The Trinity has lost the need to reproduce, it is in a state of complacency8. And that is why a fourth deity was also created. Here Goethe treats the Holy Trinity quite freely, he does what St. Augustine forbade doing - he transfers the Trinity to the rank of pagan gods. There is already some contradiction in the fourth deity. This deity is Lucifer, and in Goethe he is endowed with creative power. Having received creative powers, Lucifer created being, but it so happened that after that pride took possession of him, he rebelled, some of the angels followed him, while others went after God and ascended to heaven. Lucifer creates matter. But the one-sidedness of Lucifer became the cause of all the evil that is happening in the world. Lucifer's being lacked a better half, the Trinity was separated from the world created by Lucifer. Lucifer's world looked rather strange. There was concentration, cohesion in it, it was a path to the center, a path to the depths, but nothing had the character of distribution, expansion. This is a universe that goes into itself. Such concentrated matter, according to Goethe, would have destroyed being and Lucifer himself, if not for divine intervention. The Trinity observed the concentration of matter and, having waited for a certain moment, began its creation, as if correcting the creation of Lucifer, eliminating the flaw in the universe. And by force of will, as Goethe writes, the Trinity instantly destroys evil and with it the prosperity of Lucifer. The Trinity endowed infinite being with the ability to expand and ascend to the source. According to Goethe, the necessary pulse of life has been restored.

The image of Mephistopheles in Faust is quite complicated - along with the fact that this is the spirit of denial, a negative spirit, he is at the same time a spirit that is a persistent creator. And in this era, as Goethe says, what we call light and are accustomed to consider Creation appeared. The universe is not some kind of closed unity, where the parts are well applicable to each other, the universe is initially imbued with the principle of development, the principle of creation, creativity. The one-sided world of Lucifer was corrected by the introduction of the luminiferous principle into it, the presence of light corrected the world of matter and the world of nature created by Lucifer. The case of Lucifer would have ended in a fiasco if the Trinity had not illuminated his activity, had not given it meaning. This activity within matter, within life, is, as it were, illuminated by the light of the three hypostases, and thus Lucifer and his origin, his messenger on earth, Mephistopheles, all the time give movement to the action. At the same time, they want to create, create a kind of destruction, going into matter, going into darkness - and at the same time create an opportunity for the deity to illuminate human activity and give it meaning. 9 This is the philosophical construction, the mythological conception that Goethe puts into Faust. He breaks creative activity into two principles - on the one hand, there is Faust, on the other, Mephistopheles, who actually moves the action, he becomes the driving principle of Goethe's tragedy.

Let's look at the text again. Returning from a walk, Faust is going to start his studies again. Entering his office, he says that he left the fields and mountains shrouded in night darkness - reports that he has overcome the darkness, and enters a kind of state of light, spiritual glow:

High impulses in the soul

Will be born secretly at this moment.

In Faust's soul, the noise of the outside world gradually subsides, and under the influence of love, the best feelings awaken:

And in the depths of my soul again

The fire of reverence burns

And love for humanity!

Communication with other people during a walk gives rise to this love for humanity. It must be said that the peculiarity of the story of Faust is that the process of spiritual creativity in it is inseparable from demonia. In other words, the impulse of the soul towards the light is united here with demonia, with the Mephistopheles principle. On Easter evening, Faust returns from the holiday, feeling his higher self in himself, he is in a state of contact with God, but he does not return alone, he is followed by a harmless and intelligent-looking poodle. The black color of the poodle shows us its true essence. His appearance means that some kind of dark force begins to act in Faust's psyche, and this force deprives him of his mood in a high way: "With the strength of all desire, calmness no longer flows from the heart."

Faust tries to preserve his spiritual height with the help of the book. But now he is looking for inspiration not in the book of Nostradamus, but in the New Testament. Faust is even going to translate the beginning of the New Testament, thinks about the first line and comes to the conclusion that in the Gospel of John it would be more correct to translate "In the beginning was the Thought" rather than "In the beginning was the Word." Here we are talking about the translation of the Greek word "logos". However, the meaning of the German "das Wort" is much narrower than that of the Greek "logos". The word is only a sign, and it can be an obliterated concept. The word is something ready-made, pre-given. When translated in this way, the creation loses its meaning, turns into semiosis, acquires a symbolic form. Ultimately, the word substitution of things is a distortion of the world, and if you replace the "logos" with the "word", then the world loses its energy, loses its productivity. Goethe said: "I am disgusted with any knowledge that does not awaken me to action, to creativity." The translation "In the beginning was the Word", according to Faust, will limit the world to the schemes of a lifeless science.

This is followed by another translation - "Im Anfang war der Sinn". Now we are talking about a broader concept, we are talking about meaning, about reflection. This translation is already more in line with the biblical divine wisdom. Actually, the myth of divine wisdom, of the wisdom of God, is the only myth in the Bible. This is the wisdom of the Lord, and it was wisdom (der Sinn) that the Lord had before the creation of the world. Wisdom accompanies the entire process of creation of the world. But Faust is inclined to another conclusion: Ist es der Sinn, der alles wirkt und schafft? Es sollte stehen: "Im Anfang war die Kraft". “Der Sinn” is rejected by Faust: “Think ahead: well, does thought give the beginnings to everything and create everything so powerfully?” He argues that there should be another word here: "There was in the beginning the Force." But Faust also refuses the word "die Kraft" and comes to the final decision: -Im Anfang war die Tat" - "There was Action from the very beginning."

And here arises a problem that preoccupied many translators in the eighteenth century. Herder translated the word "logos" in several words at once: Gedanke, Wort, Wille. Tat, Liebe. When translating this word, several concepts were used at once. This scene has two meanings. Goethe speaks here of the productive nature of the creation of the world, that the world is eternal creativity. And at the same time, he expresses his ironic attitude towards the new school of Bible translation. The desire to translate the Bible in a new way after Luther arose repeatedly, and in the 18th century there were also numerous such attempts. The whole scene has a double plan, here Goethe is ironic about his friend Herder. who attempted to translate the Bible; the play on words amuses Goethe to some extent. And at the same time, the most important problem of peace for the 18th and 19th centuries is posed here. We see that by rejecting the translation “In the beginning was the Word,” Faust rejects Christ. He prefers the word "Action", he asserts a cosmogony that was close to the pagan faith.

While Faust is translating the Gospel, the poodle is gradually turning into Mephistopheles. Faust is in a state of spiritual exaltation, spiritual delight, and at this moment the dark beginning enters his soul. His soul receives a shadow, and this shadow is Mephistopheles. So Goethe's mythology is complemented by the presence of Lucifer. The appearance of Mephistopheles just gives development to these words "Im Anfang war die Tat". Goethe in this case leads us to the idea that the psyche and the mind did not invent themselves, but the mind acquired its current state only through development. The process of development of the mind does not stop to this day, which means that we are driven by both internal and external stimuli. Inner urges to action, as Goethe shows us, grow from depths that have nothing to do with consciousness. Mephistopheles appears just at the moment when Faust cannot understand the meaning of the action. With the spirit of denial, Faust behaves imperiously and even arrogantly, he is not at all afraid of the messenger of darkness. Yes, and the sight of Mephistopheles is not conducive to fear.

Here we find one of the main features of Goethe's Faustian man - ruthlessness. Faust is looking for truth outside of morality and religion, he is ready to enter into a dialogue with the devil and is not afraid of this. Mephistopheles, who appeared to Faust, immediately defined his metaphysical essence: “I am part of that force that, desiring evil, creates, however, only good.” From the very beginning, he says that destruction is his element. At the same time, destruction becomes creation, and in the process of activity, the luminous beginning of being always appears.

The first thing that the tempter, Mephistopheles, does, he awakens in his ward an interest in the sphere of the body and power. This is the area where the temptation is especially strong. To use a psychoanalytic interpretation, Mephistopheles acts as a skilled psychoanalyst who helps the patient to find repressed desires. Faust, doing science, renounced everything, he forgot about love, about power, about pleasures. Mephistopheles gives Faust the opportunity to admit that he has human desires: a thirst for love and power. But Faust insists on his rejection of the world, anxiety and anxiety reign in his soul all the time, in the scene with Mephistopheles Faust again falls into the mood of religious asceticism and misanthropy11. The root of this misanthropy is desires and hopes ousted from his soul. But Faust renounces everything. He curses dreams of glory, curses everything human - limited human happiness, family, power, work; he curses gold, That is, we see a complete rejection of the world. The world of former values ​​is broken, and this means the absolute spiritual death of the hero.

Faust wants a different world, a different being, and Mephistopheles understands him quite prosaically, he invites Faust to enter the world of earthly joys and desires. Mephistopheles wants to prove to him that the world in which a person lives is not worth a penny, that he is worthy of destruction. Mephistopheles in this case is both the devil, and the guardian angel, and the tempter, and the liberator. Moreover, he understands that the constant longing for the unattainable will lead Faust to disaster. Mephistopheles says to the hero: “Hoer auf mit deinem Gram zu spielen” - “Yes, stop playing with your longing! She, like a kite, will swallow, eat you. Here we see the Promethean image of a kite tormenting the liver. Man cannot exist in isolation from the world. Mephistopheles urges Faust to leave the cell in which he has locked himself and enter into communication with people12. But Goethe's hero does not want to do this, he renounces desires.

The motive of the devil, fulfilling any whim of a person, is very common in folklore, but in this case, you need to switch roles. When worldly life ends, Faust must become a servant of the devil. But Faust is not at all interested in what will happen to him in the afterlife, he is completely disappointed and cannot imagine how Mephistopheles can reward him, what pleasure in earthly life he is not yet familiar with. Mephistopheles demands a blood receipt from Faust, to which Faust replies:

Werd" ich zum Augenblicke sage: Verweile doch.

Dubist so schoen.

Dann magst du mich in Fesseln schlagen,

Dann will ich gern zugrunde gehn!

Dann mag die Totengloeke schallcn,

Dann bisl du deines Dienstes frei,

Die Uhr mag slehn, der Zeigcr fallen

Es sei die Zeil fuer mich vorbei!

Whenever I stop for a moment:

“Slow down the wonderful and don’t fly away!”,

You put shackles on me

I am ready to become yours without delay!

At that hour let the tomb bell sing;

Then the end of your bondage.

Let hour hand will fall:

I don't need more time!

Mephistopheles achieved his goal, Faust's selfish desire turns into a desire to experience everything. In the process of transformation, his original desire eventually turns into a lust for life that knows no bounds. From this moment begins the joint path of Faust and Mephistopheles through life.

The second stage of Faust's coming to life is the remarkable scene in Auerbach's cellar. It shows how low Mephistopheles values ​​the human race. Therefore, the first thing he wants to do is teach Faust to drink. And he leads him to where the fruits of Bacchus are, hoping that the intoxicated Faust will quickly want to stop the moment and declare it beautiful. In Auerbach's cellar, convinced of the impossibility of winning a lightning victory over Faust, the devil performs various tricks with wine in front of the merry students. In the popular book, as well as in the Prafaust, Faust accomplishes this. In the final version, Goethe makes Mephistopheles the magician.

In addition, Mephistopheles acts here as a denouncer of public order, and the whole scene is of a pronounced satirical nature. The objects of satire are the church and the authorities, especially in the famous Song of the Flea. This is indeed one of the most powerful satirical works that the history of world literature knows.

The fact that this song is put into the mouth of Mephistopheles is not accidental. With some exaggeration, one could say that the critical spirit of Mephistopheles, the spirit of pure negativity, is directed against those phenomena of human existence that people tend to transcend, make sacred, inviolable. Apparently, Goethe associated the negative spirit of history with the demonic. Historicity is introduced into the course of the tragedy, of course, in the Mephistophelian sense.

The next scene introduces the reader to the world of demons. This is the famous "Witch's Kitchen". Mephistopheles leads Faust into the world where he is the absolute ruler. The witch must brew a drink for Faust, which the hero will drink to rejuvenate. Having drunk this potion, Faust acquires the ability to love, carnal love, not clarified by the light of spirituality, Mephistopheles ironically:

Soon, soon the type is alive

All women will appear before you.

Such is the drink: by all means

In every woman, Elena will dream.

After this scene in Faust, the tragedy of Gretchen begins. The love line in the drama is connected with one that happened in Frankfurt scary story which shocked the poet. A young servant, Susanna Margareta Brandt, having given birth to a child out of wedlock, drowned him and confessed that she had committed this crime. She was sentenced to death and beheaded. The girl was seduced by a young man who left her. The fate of the seduced and abandoned girl interested the sturmers. Goethe's friend Heinrich Leopold Wagner wrote the petty-bourgeois drama The Baby Killer, which Goethe had a negative attitude towards, apparently leaving only the truly artistic development of this theme behind him. In a sense, Goethe was right, because none of his contemporaries raised this topic to the height of such great art as he did. The tragedy of Gretchen can even be considered as a play within a play, because it retains the features of an independent action, not connected in any way with the previous narrative. Gretchen's line has a little over a thousand lines of poetry. And at the same time it is a concentrated and internally unified work. Moreover, it has a classical dramatic structure, clearly divided into five parts according to the principle of a five-act division of drama. There is a plot, a development of action, a delay and a catastrophe. Goethe, of course, was guided by the type of Shakespearean drama and did not follow the rules of the three unities.

Faust sees Gretchen leaving the cathedral for the first time. The girl has just confessed, and we immediately understand that the most important feature of Goethe's heroine is her piety. She believes in God sincerely and with all her heart. The moral and the religious are one for her, but at the same time, it is impossible to find anything in Gretchen's character that would in any way resemble hypocrisy. And at the same time, it is an absolutely worldly nature. The heroine of Goethe is well aware of her class position, evidence of this is her first brief conversation with Faust. Morality and worship of God go hand in hand with the established order of things in the world. It is unthinkable for a girl to go beyond her class. Although Faust is not a nobleman, Gretchen takes him for one, instantly realizing the difference between them13. This detail serves not only to faithfully convey the historical flavor, it is the essence of the character of Gretchen herself.

Faust is delighted with the beauty of the girl, the physical attractiveness of the heroine is enough for him, and the first thing that captures him is simple lust. An educated hero does not think that Gretchen is a person and that her attention must be earned. Faust wants to possess Gretchen, and Mephistopheles is infinitely glad that lust has finally awakened in Faust, that area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe human psyche, which, in his opinion, is entirely controlled by Mephistopheles himself. But in this situation, the devil finds himself in an unenviable position, because Faust wants to use him as a banal pimp, to force him to engage in one of the most despicable professions in the Middle Ages. Faust is relentless, pandering, he says to Mephistopheles, is a diabolical occupation. The devil, of course, is humiliated, although he perfectly captures the nature of Faust's request. Everything goes according to his scenario, but it turns out that Mephistopheles has no power over the girl, because Margaret, who has just left the temple, is under the shadow of divine blessing. There. where the legislation of God is fully carried out, where creation is under the complete control of the divine mind, there is no room for the activity of demonic forces. And Mephistopheles indignantly states that Gretchen is an absolutely pure and innocent being.

Once again, we note that Faust's first impulse towards Gretchen is crudely sensual. And Mephistopheles, parrying Faustian attacks, rightly calls him a libertine who imagines that female beauty exists only to satisfy his voluptuousness. But Faust is adamant in his desires, he wants the girl to be with him that night, and this demand is categorical. The second way to bewitch a girl also does not achieve success. The idea of ​​Mephistopheles is simple: you need to get a jewelry box, and the girl, seeing them, will go crazy. Here, Faust is already beginning to have doubts - is this an honest way to the heart of Margarita. But the peculiarity of Mephistopheles is that at first he chooses the most elementary way to achieve the goal, and then, when the first attempts fail, he complicates his actions.

The next scene shows us Gretchen in her room, and here the wonderful “Ballad of the Ful King” (translated by Ivanov as “the king of a foreign land”) sounds from her lips, a ballad about fidelity in love until death. It becomes a prospective moment in the tragedy of Gretchen, as well as all the songs of Marguerite. Loyalty in love is the main quality of Goethe's heroine, which she retains until her death. The jewelry box venture will fail. Gretchen tells her mother about her discovery, and she, being a pious Christian, takes the box to the priest. Thus the casket falls into the hands of the church; Let us say in passing that this plot point enables Goethe to develop a critique of church and state. Mephistopheles makes a new attempt: he comes to Gretchen's neighbor Martha with the message that her husband died in Naples from a serious illness.

Martha is a complete contrast to Gretchen, she does not grieve at all about the death of her unlucky husband and, having learned that he did not leave her anything, she quickly forgets him. In addition, Mephistopheles, with his rather gallant behavior, attracts her attention to himself. In order to confirm the death of her husband, according to customs and legal norms, a second witness is needed, and he appears - this is Faust. The whole scene is a kind of quartet, it is played by two couples - Gretchen and Faust, Mephistopheles and Martha. Mephistopheles poses as a red tape trying to hit on Martha, and she is ready to marry him. The whole situation looks like a mixture of scenes - then Martha appears with Mephistopheles, then Gretchen with Faust. Gretchen falls in love with a handsome young beau. In the rendezvous scene, Faust does not yet have complete love, while this is only an erotic feeling, but already in the next scene - in a forest cave - Faust's passion merges with a sense of nature. Nature has an effect that elevates his feelings. Love for Gretchen is combined with openness to nature, and a wonderful monologue follows - a song of thanksgiving to the spirit of the Earth:

High spirit! You are everything, you gave me everything

What did I ask you for? And on fire

You turned your image not in vain

To me. You gave me a wondrous nature

Like a kingdom; gave me the power to feel

Enjoy her and her.

Here, as in the lyrics of the young Goethe, and in his "Werther", the feeling of love is embraced by a sense of nature, openness to it, and as a result of this connection receives a powerful impulse of natural forces. From the initial erotic attraction in the soul of Faust, love is born, acquiring cosmic horizons. And the scale of this feeling seems to the hero to be truly universal. Naturally, Mephistopheles responds to all Faust's tirades with his inherent irony, since he does not believe in man and does not believe in the power of love.

The scene in Gretchen's room is the great lyrical confession of the heroine, the feeling of love is shown through the prism of Gretchen's consciousness. It combines two principles - joy and suffering. Margarita is in awe of her beloved. Her love for him is so strong that she cannot comprehend it. This feeling is incomprehensible to her.

Where are you, where is my rest?

The heart is so heavy...

Never ever

I can't find him.

Where he is not with me.

It blows with death alone.

And that's why the whole world

I'm sick of it without him.

In this song, in the refraction of Gretchen's feelings, the image of Faust is given. Margarita realizes that her love can bring her not only joy, but also suffering and even death:

My chest is gone,

So it rushes to him;

Why do I

Can't hold on?

The development and stages of Gretchen's love for Faust from the beginning to the catastrophe are traced by the poet with a unique accuracy of understanding the very phenomenon of love. We see how this feeling is born in Gretchen, how it pulled her out of the burgher world, led to a conflict with society and with herself. Gretchen's catastrophe is known by the fact that everything in the burgher world opposes her love. This love caused the death of a mother, the death of a brother, the murder of a child, and the cause of the whole tragedy of the heroine is, first of all, social contradictions and the social conditions in which she finds herself. At the same time, these conflicts and the inertia of the burgher world highlight the purity and strength of her selfless love. A simple girl becomes Goethe's heroine of a great tragedy. In the history of world literature, she can only be compared with Antigone and Ophelia. The whole line of Gretchen is an affirmation of the right of free love, one of the most elementary human rights, And the estate society denies the heroine the right to this love, becoming the cause of her death. In this respect, the tragedy of Gretchen acquires universal significance.

The burgher society looks with perfect calmness at the practically legalized debauchery and cannot forgive Gretchen for her break with the foundations, which are based on hypocrisy and hypocritical piety. The heroine becomes a victim of deception, and the events in the drama are complicated by that. that Gretchen, thinking she is giving her mother a sleepy drink, is giving her poison. From that moment on, the whole horror of her act, the whole horror of her love is revealed to her. She begins to realize how low she has fallen. The burgher society, to which her brother also belongs, condemns and despises her. Faust enjoyed and was fed up with love and, it seems, he needs nothing more.

In the 19th century, a concept was formed according to which Faust's departure from Gretchen is explained by the fact that her world is too narrow for Faust, that there is too much difference in the intellectual world of Goethe's heroes, that Faust's irresistible desire cannot be restrained by the love of a simple girl. Researchers tried to pass off this point of view as Goethe's. In reality, this is not so. Nothing in Goethe's text can confirm it. This is the departure of a man jaded with love, this is a real crime and betrayal. The girl is left without any support in her selfless love. Gretchen's dialogue with Lizhen shows us, so to speak, "public opinion". Lizhen tells Margarita about the fate of a girl she knows, who has reached the point where now she “eats and drinks for two,” that is, for herself and her unborn child. When Gretchen begins to feel sorry for the stumble, Lizhen gloatingly objects to her:

And do you feel sorry for her?

How did we live? It used to be during the day

You sit behind the yarn, and nowhere at night

You don't dare to leave the house.

What is she? All with a cute

Either outside the gate, or in a dark nook;

The clock seemed like a minute to them.

And very short long walks...

And now let her go to the temple

In the shirt of a sinner for repentance

And there among the whole assembly

He lays heavy bows!

In these words, Goethe's heroine sees her fate. Deceived, betrayed by Faust, condemned by society, the heroine seeks protection from the Mother of God, turning to her with a prayer, and asks to save her from the pangs of shame.

Gretchen's prayer is a true masterpiece of Goethe's lyrics. With bold rhymes that had never appeared before Goethe, which delighted the outstanding Russian poet A. K. Tolstoy.

Hilf! Rette mich von Schmach und Tod!

Du Schmerzenreich.

Dein Antlitz gnaedig meiner NOT!

Even the most outstanding Russian translators failed to keep this bold rhyme.

From death, save shame, Omnipotent!

In your trouble

I pray, Holy Sufferer!

Further events follow with increasing speed. Faust and Mephistopheles at Gretchen's house. Her brother Valentine appears. From his monologue, we learn that there is a bad rumor about the girl, he hears hints of her sin, and when Mephistopheles sings a grotesque serenade, Valentine becomes furious. The scene ends with Valentine's death. The suffering of the heroine is aggravated by the fact that the dying brother curses her. The behavior of Mephistopheles in this whole situation can be seen as analogous to the attitude of society towards Gretchen. Naturally, love cannot disappear without a trace from Faust's soul. And the more love for Gretchen breaks out of the darkness of sensual lust, becoming more pure and spiritual, the more Faust begins to feel guilty towards the girl, the more he is tormented by the pangs of conscience (Mephistopheles could not have foreseen this), the stronger the devil’s attempts to make Faust forget become. about Gretchen. For he sees that he cannot get the soul of Faust in any way.

In this situation, Mephistopheles makes a last attempt to throw Faust into the element of depravity. He wants to make him a participant in a demonic orgy, in which he himself is the main manager. This is the famous scene of Walpurgis Night on Blocksberg (Brocken). According to popular beliefs, on the day of the holy abbess Walpurgis, witches usually gather for a sabbath, and on this night nature takes on a demonic character; it seems that all beneficial forces disappear from it, it is filled with a deceptive cold light of wandering lights that illuminate the road, and the night side of nature manifests itself with special force. It is here that Faust must forget about Gretchen forever. But just as the wine in Auerbach's cellar is not able to overshadow Faust's mind, so the erotic intoxication of Walpurgis Night cannot erase Gretchen from Faust's consciousness, he continues to love her. And then the hero reveals the whole meaning of what happened. For the murder of a newborn child, which Gretchen committed in complete insanity, she is imprisoned and awaits her death hour. Now Faust understands both his own guilt and the guilt of the whole society. Naturally, all of his gays are turned against Mephistopheles. This is the only prose scene in the final version of the first part, and in it Goethe achieves an enormous power of social denunciation.

The first part of the tragedy ends with a scene in a prison cell. In "Prafaust" it was written in prose and became perhaps the most outstanding achievement of the prose of "Sturm und Drang". In the 1807 edition, this is already a rhymed text. Faust is trying to save his beloved, whom he finds in a state of semi-madness. Two realities collide in Gretchen's mind - her crimes and love for Faust. Her consciousness wanders between these realities. Pangs of conscience demand that the heroine surrender herself to the judgment of God and seek salvation from God. The appearance of her beloved restores hope in her soul for the continuation of life. But when she sees Mephistopheles, she refuses to go with Faust and surrenders himself into the hands of God. To the categorical words of Mephistopheles "Condemned", the voice from above answers "Saved". In "Prafaust" this word was not. According to the original plan, Faust had to share the fate of many heroes of "Storm and Onslaught", that is The final version of the first part and the voice from above in its last scene indicated that there would be a continuation in the tragedy.

The second part differs from the first, first of all, structurally. The five acts of the second part represent a grandiose continuation of the development of the Faustian idea, which was supposed to end with the salvation of Faust's soul. The voice from above in the finale of the first part, as it were, hints at this salvation.

At the beginning of the first act of the second part, Faust, after the shock suffered in Gretchen's prison cell, is transferred to a flowering meadow. He is crushed by the weight of the crimes he committed, exhausted and striving for oblivion. He, according to Goethe, is completely paralyzed, even destroyed. seems to have been abandoned by the last vitality. Oblivion is the only fate of the hero. However, the state close to death is still temporary, and in order to bring Faust out of lethargy, so that new life, the help of powerful good spirits is needed. The criminal hero must evoke compassion, experience the highest form of mercy. The elves put him into a healing sleep and make him forget what happened.

Oblivion is, of course, not just a failure in memory, but a connection with the good forces of nature, Faust's isolation from the forces of evil. Indeed, forgetfulness is indispensable here. G. Adorno very accurately defines this moment in the Faustian drama: “The power of life, in the form of power for later life, is likened to oblivion. The one who has awakened to life and meets a world where “weight breathes inspired life”, and again returns “to the earth”, is only capable of this, because he no longer remembers the horror of what was done earlier”15. Oblivion here is identical to the purification of the soul, it is not a simple forgiveness of Faust for the prescription of his crimes. Goethe needed to restore his hero's ability to act, to revive this ability, and his return to life can be explained by the words of Paul Ricoeur: "You are worth more than your actions"16. The monologue of the awakened Faust is evidence of this. Macrocosm and microcosm are united in a single feeling, and nature is revealed to him in all its diverse beauty, power and grandeur, and this game of the universe captures Faust, he feels the breath of life. The central image of the monologue is the sun.

Researchers of Goethe's work have long established that the philosophical views of the poet are largely associated with the reception of the Neoplatonic tradition, although the latter is transformed in the Goetheian spirit. In Plato's philosophy there is a metaphysical division of the worlds into the true world, the world of ideas, pyramidally aspiring to the highest idea of ​​goodness, goodness and beauty - and the visible world, grasped by our senses: it aspires upwards, to the sun, the highest creation of the natural cosmos, which is a sensual analogue of the idea good. However, the light pouring from the sun in its pure form is unbearable. If a person looks at the sun with open eyes, then the powerful light will blind him, the light will turn into impenetrable darkness.

Man can see the sun only in reflected, refracted light, see it in all things of nature.

No, sun, you stay behind!

I will look at the waterfall, admiring,

How noisily from a cliff he falls to another,

Breaking into thousands of particles in front of us.

Creating as many new streams.

Foam sparkles there, rustling above the foam,

And above, constantly changing,

Sparkles rainbow air semicircle -

Either it is bright, or it looks foggy.

Coolness and fear carrying with them around.

Yes! The waterfall is a reflection of human aspirations.

Look at him, then you will understand the comparison:

Here, in a bright rainbow, life suddenly appeared to us.

This dynamic image of the constant change of the world shows the nature of reality, and it dominates the whole tragedy. All things in the world are in the power of time, and in their essence they are transient, mortal. They fall into the stream of time and disappear into it like the flowing spray of a waterfall. But there is something constant in this incessant fall: above all this movement of things, a colorful rainbow stands in its place. She is evidence of the presence of an infinitely distant light, which, of course, will blind us. The light in the rainbow is refracted, and refracted many times; consequently, it is a weakened light, but paradoxically it makes a stronger impression on us, first of all, by its diversity. Things in the world exist like the colors of a rainbow in a vanishing spray of water. They are reflections, reflections, comparisons, symbols. As symbols, they tell us about the presence of the absolute principle, and something of the absolute is manifested in them.

Reality for Goethe is always present in nature, but it is measured by the scale of the absolute, it never turns into pure nothingness. Nature is not God, but the being of nature is divine, and the spirit that creates is rooted in nature, its supersensible essence is not independent of it. Therefore, the spirit cannot ascend to supersensible heights without embracing nature. And, if we talk about human activity, then in the face of the eternal, the absolute, it is not eternal in vain. A person acts, strives, suffers not in vain. Therefore, also in the inaccessible, unattainable, a person can get something, conquer; and if, in what is accessible to him, a person turns his spirit, his efforts in all directions, and here, in the world, affirms himself, then he is involved in the eternal, the imperishable. The world is not a place of torment and suffering, but a field of self-affirmation. Of course, there are different stages in it; higher and lower. All this has an unambiguous consequence for the nature of reality in Goethe's Faust.

But then the question inevitably arises: in what relation to this world is a person, what place does he occupy in it? After all, everything that a person has, everything in which his abilities are embodied, can disappear: strength, knowledge, happiness, virtue ... Can a person in this world of eternal impermanence, the world of eternal becoming, in the impermanence of everything transient, have something stable, lasting, permanent? The answer is clear. This constant will be only the form of change, change as such. Dauer im Wechsel. The inner essence of man is the eternal transition from one to another.

The constancy of movement is expressed in Goethe by a word that the poet fell in love with from an early age: streben. Man is an aspiration, and it is subject to that which reigns in all nature: impulses. But the path of a striving person, as he finds himself in the world of transient things, is again impermanence, and if we look at human striving through the prism of the absolute, we will understand that in all cases this is a mistake: "A person falls into mistakes, striving for truth, always" - "Es irrt der Mensch, solang er strebt"). Errors are necessarily caused by striving, but striving is the only form to reach the highest, and, of course, this striving is the most noble thing in man.

On February 4, 1829, Goethe said to Eckermann: “Let a person believe in immortality, he has the right to this belief, it is inherent in his nature, and religion supports him in it. But if a philosopher wants to draw proof of the immortality of the soul from religious traditions, his case is bad. For me, the conviction of eternal life follows from the concept of reality. Since I work tirelessly to my very end, nature is obliged to provide me with another form of existence, if the current one cannot be kept further than my spirit.

The noble part was saved.

Rejecting the power of evil:

All my life I rushed forward:

How not to save one?

So say the angels, carrying away the immortal essence of Faust. And only at the end of the tragedy do the outlines of an idea appear, which cannot be reduced to a single thought, for what is said here speaks only of its active character; the idea itself is just the production by our consciousness of the life of the world whole, which is the meaning of human existence.

“The Germans are a wonderful people!” said Goethe to Eckermann. “They burden their lives beyond measure with profundity and ideas that pop up everywhere. And we should, having gained courage, rely more on impressions; let life delight us, touch us to the depths of our souls, lift us up. .. But they approach me with questions about what idea I tried to embody in my Faust. Yes, how do I know? And how can I put it into words?”19. The name of this idea is life, the life of nature and spirit, and in art it must be presented in the stages of its elevation, just as nature acts in its unceasing elevation, in which man is included. Therefore, the most complex relationships that exist in the world require a special artistic thinking, as we would say today, a special discourse. The latter must fix what is fixed with great difficulty. Hence arises the irreducibility of the life of nature to a precisely defined and a priori given idea. The attempt to use it as an artistic discourse seemed to Goethe to be a simplification of world relations. “Nature,” wrote Goethe, “has no system, it is life itself from an unknown center to an unknowable limit. Consideration of nature is therefore infinite, whether within the framework of the division into particulars, or as a whole up and down. If so, then artistic discourse becomes incredibly complex. It must go in different directions at the same time; as Joseph Brodsky would say, to be centrifugal and centripetal, to rush forward, upward, to expand towards an unknowable limit, that is, to be an expansion of horizons and at the same time strengthen one’s connection with the center, which is difficult to define. This circumstance explains all the complexity of Goethe's thinking, which we all the time encounter when reading the second part of Faust. Indeed, for many who think in Hegelian categories, primarily in the categories of the dialectical development of the idea, the structure of the second part seems blurred, loose, in contrast to the structure of the first part. An epic poem, consisting of five independent plays, - this is how it seemed to Theodor Adorno and not only to him; moreover, they found features of an senile style in it, understanding by this amorphousness, lack of concentration, constant distractions from the main theme. Criticism came from prominent figures 19th and 20th century: from R. W. Emerson and T. S. Eliot On the other hand, the second part seemed to be a work designed to unravel any mysteries.

Unlike the first part of "Faust", the meaningful moments here are not determined by cause-and-effect relationships that imitate the mechanistic thinking. The persistent habit of considering these relations in art as universal does not allow a researcher of even the highest rank to understand the compositional principles of the second part. From this point of view, it seems to be loose; there are a lot of the most diverse, disparate, little interconnected motives in it. But it should immediately be said that for the late Goethe, cause-and-effect relationships are not universal, capable of covering the entire variety of material. The poet embarks on an extremely difficult path. The task here is to, while maintaining the temporal orientation of the plot to the future, constantly embrace the integrity of time; eternity must be present in every moment; But the center, paradoxically, remains unknown, and the limit of movement unknowable. This cosmicity of the second part, its unity is created in an unusual way: by creating symbolic points, symbolic motifs and images that are in a state of mutual reflection and create mirror optics. Goethe, already at the very beginning of the second part, uses a series of prospective image-symbols, thereby determining such an orientation of the text that causes the appearance of a similar image, but on a higher level. This is possible only when poetry uses play, or rather, play models, and this imitation of play structures begins already in the first act.

A wonderful masquerade, at first glance, completely independent and redundant for the general plot, it would seem, delays this action. In fact, this is "Faust" in "Faust". The conventionality of the masquerade action allows Goethe to concentrate in it almost all the problems that the second part of the tragedy will solve. Masquerade images play here the role of symbolic projections. This jumping ahead in the development of the plot creates a system of mirrors. A prospective symbolic image corresponds to another image, and the mirroring of relations enhances the impact of the images that appeared as a result of the development of the Faustian plot. The masquerade action leads us first to its two central images: the charioteer boy and Plutus, behind whose mask Faust is hidden. With the advent of the driver boy, the game opens up the world of poetry to us. This character is her symbol, and the whole scene with him is an allegory of poetry, the essence of which, in the words of Nietzsche, is giving virtue, in the context of greed, avarice and greed. Poetry gives the world a variety of forms, the poet's wasteful fantasy creates countless pictures and images, creating a beautiful world of appearance, from the spell of which it is impossible to get rid of. This is the aesthetic principle of the second part of Faust,

Indeed, it is here that Goethe's poetic generosity seems to know no bounds. But this wealth of images is permeated with a symbolic connection, which gradually weaves the picture in the sequence envisaged by the poet. So the driver boy is the prototype of Euphorion, the son of Faust and Helen. Explaining to Eckermann the meaning of the masquerade, Goethe said: “You, of course, guessed that Faust is hiding under the mask of Plutus, and Mephistopheles is hiding under the mask of a miser. But who do you think the driver boy is? I didn't know what to answer. This is Euphorion,” said Goethe. When the surprised Eckermann asked the poet how the son of Faust and Helena could be among the participants in the masquerade, when he was born only in the third act, Goethe answered with the utmost clarity: “Euphorion is not a person, but only an allegorical creature. He is the personification of poetry, and poetry is not associated with time, place, or any person. The very spirit that will choose for itself the guise of Euphorion is now our charioteer boy, because he is similar to the omnipresent ghosts that can appear before us at any moment.

It seems that the entire second part, unlike the first, has a ghostly character, but these ghosts have such powerful symbolic power that we perceive them as the most real reality. The masquerade itself is nothing but "Faust" in Faust, a kind of prospective intertext that defines further development drama. And it develops as a sequence of situations in which the images get more and more prominent, and consequently, more and more symbolic power. The adventure with the magical evocation of Helen and Paris at the request of the emperor almost cost Faust his life, but at the same time made it necessary to turn to the world of the prototypes of all beings, to the Dionysian sphere of becoming. Therefore, the hero needs to see all the stages of this formation in order to meet the imperishable image of earthly beauty, embodied in Elena.

The return of Elena from the underworld means the resurrection of beauty, the return of antiquity in all its splendor, we are talking about the search for the lost historical time, the historical past. This, as Jochen Schmidt points out, is the Renaissance in the fullest sense of the word. Let us add on our own behalf that here is also a demonstration of the return itself, which in Goethe looks like a movement towards ancient beauty, a meeting with ancient art and culture; at the same time it is the path to the forces that organize life and culture. The latter are embodied in symbolic images Mothers.

We can also consider the grandiose "Classic Walpurgis Night" as a kind of universal masquerade, the scenario of which is world formation. However, everything here is subordinated to the main poetic idea - to show everything that happens as a threefold search, in which there are three figures of the drama - Faust, Mephistopheles and Homunculus. The homunculus is Wagner's creation, pure intellect hidden by its creator in a flask. This is a new character in the drama. In the retort, Wagner uses alchemical manipulation to create a man. The scientist-pedant seeks to surpass nature in this matter. But before Mephistopheles enters Wagner's laboratory, the creation of the artificial creature seems to be completed without outside interference.

Oh what a ringing and how it penetrates

Through the walls are black from their soot!

The languor of waiting overcomes me,

But the end is near for her.

There was darkness in the flask, but there, at the bottom, it is getting light,

Like fiery coal or fiery grenade,

He cuts through the darkness with rays,

Like black clouds - a row of brilliant lightning.

Here comes the pure white light;

Oh, if only he shone not in vain to me!

The outburst of Wagnerian enthusiasm is reminiscent of Faust's incantation of the spirit of the Earth; but, of course, such a comparison can only be regarded as an analogy with Faustian quests and a thirst for living activity. Faust's lofty vision, which ended in failure for him, was interrupted by the unexpected appearance of Wagner. Now Wagner is torn from his hopeless experiment by the arrival of Mephistopheles.

But these episodes differ significantly from each other. Mephistopheles becomes assistant to the unsuspecting Wagner.

What, in fact, does Wagner achieve with his alchemical experiments? By creating an artificial man, Wagner seeks to remove the natural principle, for he, a learned pedant and a naive ascetic who never experienced the forces of Eros, considers love an animal relic in man. He sees his task in tearing forever his creation from nature. For him, this means the upliftment of the spirit. Wagner's undertaking is initially absurd, but the alchemical process looks like the action of the fire element:

It rises, sparkles and thickens.

Another moment, and everything will be in time!

Here is a sweet power in this ringing appeared;

The glass is dimmer - and again it is brighter:

It must be so, and there it stirred.

The figurine is cute, I've been waiting for a long time.

But this is the element of hell, the element of Mephistopheles, and it is no coincidence that the devil comes at the most important moment of the Wagner experiment. The natural element used by demonic forces, however, brings not only destruction and death, it also creates warmth, without which life is impossible. Wagner synthesized a person - more precisely, a spirit, an analogue of the mind - from inorganic substances and convinced of the triumph of scientific reason over nature. This artificial man, created with the help of Msphistophile, is a complex image. Without any doubt, he inherits the demonic and ironic beginning from Mephistopheles, whom he calls a relative. But at the same time he is a free intellect, a personified pure spirit that needs incarnation, which needs nature for this. And here, in his striving for beauty and activity, he is close to Faust. As a pure spirit, he predicts the desires and actions of Faust and Mephistopheles. He is their companion in "Classic Walpurgis Night", which is the opposite of the witches' coven on Blocksberg. It is he who will show three layers in the structure of the Classical Walpurgis Night: archaic

As you know, the age of Enlightenment was also called the "age of the mind", it is Goethe's work that is the so-called culminating result of that century. The tragedy "Faust", to put it in lyrical language, is nothing but the "beloved child" of the thinker, in which he seemed to put his whole soul. It is believed that this work is a kind of testament to us, readers of future centuries.

An ancient legend about how a scientist succumbed to temptation and entered into an agreement with the "unclean" lies at the heart of the tragedy's storylines. But Goethe develops events, moving away from the original plan, asking eternal questions: what is a person, why do we live in the world, what are we created for? .. Faust has a mission to resolve the dispute between the Lord and Mephistopheles.

What is the main thing for a person: material or spiritual, moral principles or spiritual impurity? In this confrontation, the author consolidated the idea that a person is potentially capable of many things, that he is initially endowed with a mind, and this opens up many opportunities for him.

Faust faces a temptation - he is promised a lot by Mephistopheles: from petty joys to the most secret in this world. But there is a condition - if even for a fraction of a second Faust concludes the thought that what is happening is true, then his soul will pass to Mephistopheles. We see that the characters have different opinions about the person as a whole, so there are many differences of opinion between them, and despite these disputes, Faust is constantly in a spiritual search, and this becomes the meaning of his being.

The very first temptation for Faust was love, because it is she who gives a person such a feeling as "euphoria". But the devil's plans did not materialize, everything is not going according to his scenario. Margarita and Faust truly fell in love with each other. But despair overcomes their hearts. After all, Faust's life is at stake, the situation is too tragic and difficult.

The fate of his beloved Margarita, abandoned by Faust, is very sad: she commits the murder of her child, thereby trying to avoid human slander, but retribution found her.

The last meeting between Marguerite and Faust cannot leave the reader indifferent. The girl was simply distraught from what was happening, seeing the cruel condemnation of people.

She is sentenced to death penalty, and when she sees Faust in a dungeon, she does not recognize him and sings simple motives, she is horrified by any rustle. She does not realize her happiness that she can avoid death, tells Faust that the most painful punishment is to "measure strength" with her own conscience. Margarita completely refuses indulgence, then Faust expresses a desire to stay with her, but she rejects him. Mephistopheles, watching what is happening, announces that in the other world, the soul of Margarita will bear terrible torment until the end of time. But suddenly a voice is heard from above: "Saved."

Goethe brings us to the main idea - a crime cannot go unpunished, tragedy inevitably happens when a person is "in cahoots with conscience."

And yet the most sparkling of all temptations is a common page from the life of Faust and Marguerite. Despite the fact that Mephistopheles gave Faust the opportunity to enjoy the most beautiful: the company of the most famous women in the entire existence of the world, the incredible beauty of the surrounding nature ...

The emaciated and aged Faust harbors the hope that the people will nevertheless become free. And here comes the denouement - Faust is unable to give up the idea that people will gain freedom. And this picture is so realistic that he could say: “Stop, a moment!” Faust dies, and Mephistopheles "rubs his hands with joy", because from now on Faust's soul passes into his possession. But the jubilation is in vain, the angels do not allow the sinister plan to come true and pick up the soul of the protagonist.

The path to the truth is thorny and difficult, but every person, in the name of saving his soul, regardless of the temptations, must go through it.

Goethe worked on Faust for over sixty years. The image of the great seeker of truth excited him even in his youth and accompanied him until the end of his life.

Goethe's work is written in the form of a tragedy. True, it goes far beyond the limits of the possibilities that the stage has. It is rather a dialogized epic poem, the deepest in its philosophical content, comprehensive in terms of the breadth of the reflection of life.

In Goethe's philosophy, the idea of ​​the dialectical unity of opposites is perhaps one of the main ideas. In the struggle of contradictions, the harmony of the world is created, in the clash of ideas - truth. The poet constantly reminds us of this. (In the time of Goethe, as is known, Hegel's dialectic was created). Two heroes of the work of the German poet - Faust and Mephistopheles - clearly demonstrate this dialectical relationship of positive and negative principles.

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

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

Sometimes I don't have enough strength to fight, -

After all, how many have I already ruined,

And life flows like a wide river ...

In essence, he also creates, but through negation:

... I am a particle of power,

Desiring evil forever, doing only good.

N. G. Chernyshevsky left thoughtful judgments about this character: “Negation, skepticism are necessary for a Man, as an excitation of activity that would otherwise fall asleep, And it is precisely skepticism that true convictions are affirmed.” Therefore, in the dispute between Faust and Mephistopheles, and they constantly argue, one must always see some kind of mutual replenishment of a single idea. Goethe is not always for Faust and against Mephistopheles. More often than not, he wisely recognizes the correctness of both.

Putting lofty philosophical allegories into his images, Goethe by no means forgets about the artistic concreteness of the image. Faust and Mephistopheles are endowed with certain human traits, the poet outlined the originality of their characters. Faust is an unsatisfied, restless, "stormy genius", passionate, ready to love passionately and hate strongly, he is able to err and make tragic mistakes. The nature is hot and energetic, he is very sensitive, his heart is easily hurt, sometimes he is carelessly selfish out of ignorance and is always disinterested, sympathetic, humane. Goethe's Faust is not bored. He's looking for. His mind is in constant doubt and anxiety. Faust is the thirst for comprehension, the volcanic energy of knowledge. Faust and Mephistopheles are antipodes, the first is thirsty, the second is full, the first is greedy, the second is fed up, the first is torn "beyond", the second knows that there is nothing there, there is emptiness, and Mephistopheles plays with Faust, as with an unreasonable boy, looking to all his impulses as to whims, and cheerfully indulges them - after all, he, Mephistopheles, has an agreement with God himself.

Mephistopheles is balanced, passions and doubts do not excite his chest. He looks at the world without hatred and love, he despises it, There is a lot of sad truth in his sharp remarks. This is by no means a type of villain. He mocks the humane Faust, who is destroying Margarita, it is not in his mockery that the truth sounds, bitter even for him - the spirit of darkness and destruction. This is the type of a person who is tired of long contemplation of evil and has lost faith in the good beginnings of the world. He doesn't look like Milton's Satan. He suffers. There is fire in his chest. He regrets the lost Eden and hates God. He craves revenge and is adamant, proud and freedom-loving. Freedom is dearer to him than Eden. Mephistopheles is not similar to Lermontov's Demon, He is tired of eternity. He is cold in the vastness of the universe. He wants simple, human love. He is ready to put at the feet of a mortal girl both eternity and all his might. But it is powerless before the unpretentious heart of a mortal girl. Eternity and infinity are insignificant in comparison with the short, like a moment, happiness of a mortal. And he, Lermontov's demon, is sad.

Goethe's Mephistopheles is sometimes a kind fellow. He does not suffer because he does not believe in good or evil or happiness. He sees the imperfection of the world and knows that it is eternal, that no effort can change it. He laughs at a man who, with all his insignificance, is trying to fix something in the world. He is amused by these attempts of a man, he laughs. This laugh is indulgent. This is how we laugh when a child is angry at a storm. Mephistopheles even pities the man, believing that the source of all his suffering is the very spark of God that draws him, the man, to the ideal and perfection, unattainable, as it is clear to him, Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles is smart. How much irony, mockery of false scholarship, human vanity in his conversation with a student who mistook him for Faust!

Theory, my friend, is dry,

But the tree of life is green.

He exposes false teachings (“they are in a hurry to deprive the soul”), ironically instructs the youth: “Keep your words”, “Vanityless speech is always easy to put into words”, “Saving unfoundedness will save you from all adversity”, “Everyone who is the most involuntarily believes in him. presumptuous,” etc. Along the way, Goethe, through the mouth of Mephistopheles, also condemns the conservatism of the legal foundations of society, when laws are “like a load of hereditary disease.”

These are the main characters of Goethe. The poet chose and reworked the centuries-old legend of Dr. Faust and reworked it in his own way, in his own philosophical and artistic manner. The whole work reveals the aesthetic views of Goethe, which are confirmed by the dialectical images of Faust and Mephistopheles. Already "Prologue in Heaven" revealed the author's philosophy, his views on man, society, nature.

Goethe's poem resembles a gigantic symphony through which it passes, varying, now fading, then. gaining strength, picking up new motives along the way, merging with them, fading and flaring up again and again, a single theme - Man, Society, Nature. In the "Prologue in Heaven" we are talking about the moral stamina of a person, about his ability to resist base instincts. All these problems are solved by Goethe with the help of the dialectical unity of opposites - Faust and Mephistopheles.

In the image of the protagonist of the tragedy "Faust", Goethe sees not only a reflection of himself, but also a man of his time, the Enlightenment period, the heyday of German culture and philosophy.

Goethe and the Enlightenment

Johann Wolfgang Goethe certainly combined all the signs of genius. He was a poet, prose writer, an outstanding thinker, an ardent supporter of romanticism. It is on it that one of the greatest eras in Germany, the Enlightenment, ends. A man of his country, Goethe was instantly accepted into the ranks of the most prominent German philosophers. His sharp style immediately began to be compared with Voltaire's.

Biography

Goethe was born in 1749 into a wealthy patrician family. The basics of all sciences were taught to him at home. Later, the poet entered the university, but this was not enough for him. He also graduated from the University of Strasbourg. After the treatise "The Sufferings of Young Werther" was published, world fame came to him.

Goethe held an administrative position for a long time under the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. There he tried to fulfill himself, to convey the advanced ideas of that century to everyone else and to serve the benefit of society. After becoming prime minister of Weimar, he became disillusioned with politics. His active position did not allow him to engage in creativity.

Italian period

The writer fell into depression and went to recuperate in Italy, the country of the Renaissance, the masterpieces of da Vinci, Raphael, the philosophical search for truth. It was there that his style of writing developed. He again begins to write short stories and philosophical narratives. Upon his return, Goethe retains the post of Minister of Culture and the work of the head of the local theater. The duke is in his friend Schiller and often consults with him in important matters of the country's politics.

Goethe and Schiller

One of the turning points in the life and work of Johann Wolfgang was his acquaintance with Schiller. Two first-class authors not only together begin to develop the Weimar classicism founded by Goethe, but also constantly push each other to new masterpieces. Under the influence of Schiller, Goethe writes several novels and continues to work on Faust, which Friedrich so wanted to see. Nevertheless, "Faust" was published only in 1806, when Schiller was no longer alive. The first part was created under the tireless surveillance of Eckermann, Goethe's personal secretary, who insisted that the tragedy be published. The second part, at the behest of the author himself, was released posthumously.

Tragedy "Faust"

It is no exaggeration to say that Faust is the main work of the poet. The tragedy in two parts was written for sixty years. According to "Faust" one can also judge how the evolution of the writer's work took place. By creating passages at certain periods of his life, Goethe concluded in this tragedy the whole meaning of life.

Doctor Faust

The poet did not invent the main plot line, he took it from folk tales. Later, thanks to the thinker himself, the story of Faust will be retold by many writers, weaving this story into the basis of their books. And Goethe learned about this legend when he was only five years old. As a boy, he saw a puppet theater. It told a terrible story.

The legend is partly based on real events. Once there lived Johann-Georg Faust, a doctor by profession. He was engaged in the fact that he traveled from city to city and offered his services. If traditional medicine did not help, he took up magic, astrology and even alchemy. Doctors more successful and famous in their environment said that Faust was a simple charlatan who could fool any naive person. The healer's students at the university, where he briefly taught, spoke of the doctor with great warmth, considering him a seeker of truth. The Lutherans called him the devil's servant. The image of Faust seemed to them in all the dark corners.

The real Faust died under very mysterious circumstances, quite suddenly, in 1540. At the same time, legends and conjectures began to be made about him.

The image of Faust in Goethe's tragedy

A work on Faust is a long life path a person who is endowed with a special view of the world, the ability to feel, experience, be disappointed and hope. Main character makes a deal with the devil only because he wants to comprehend all the secrets of the world. He wants to find the elusive truth of being, to find the truth, constantly with despair seeks out more and more new knowledge. Soon he realizes that he himself will not be able to find answers to questions, he will not be able to reveal all the secrets.

For the sake of knowledge, the hero is ready to pay any price. After all, everything that is in Faust's life, everything that moves him, is a search. Goethe endows the hero with the full gamut of all existing emotions. In the work, he is either in ecstasy from the fact that he discovered a grain of new information, or on the verge of suicide.

The main task of the hero is not just to know the world, but to understand himself. The image of Faust in the tragedy "Faust" is somewhat reminiscent of His life does not revolve in a circle, does not return to its roots. He constantly goes only forward, making new discoveries, exploring the unknown. For gaining knowledge, he pays with his soul. Faust is well aware of what he wants, and for this he is ready to call the devil.

The main positive features that the image of Faust absorbed in the tragedy "Faust" are perseverance, curiosity, and goodwill. The main character not only seeks to acquire new knowledge, he wants to help others with it.

The image of Faust in Goethe's tragedy also has negative qualities: the desire to gain knowledge immediately, vanity, doubts, and carelessness.

The protagonist of this work teaches that you can’t look back and regret something, you need to live in the present, look for what makes a person happy. Despite the horrendous deal, Faust lived an absolutely happy life, never regretting it until the last moment.

The image of Margarita

Margarita - a modest girl, naive in many matters, has become the main temptation for the already elderly hero. She turned the whole world of the scientist and made him regret that he had no power over time. The poet himself was very fond of the image of Margaret in the tragedy "Faust", probably identifying him with the biblical Eve, who gave the forbidden fruit to Adam.

If all the years of his life Faust relied on his mind, then, having met this seemingly ordinary girl on the street, he begins to rely on his heart and feelings. Margarita after meeting with Faust begins to change. She puts her mother to sleep in order to get on a date. The girl is not as careless as it might seem in her first description. She is proof that looks can be deceiving. Having met with Mephistopheles, the girl subconsciously understands that it is better to bypass him.

The image of Margarita Goethe took from the streets of his time. The writer often saw sweet and kind girls whom fate throws into extremes. They cannot get out of their midst and are doomed to live their lives the way the women of their family did. Striving for more, these girls are falling more and more down.

Finding her happiness in Faust, Margarita believes in a better outcome. However, a series of tragic events does not allow her to enjoy love. Her brother is killed by Faust himself, unwillingly. He curses his sister before dying. The misfortunes do not end there, and, having suffered more than they should, having gone mad, Margarita ends up in prison. In a moment of complete despair, she is saved by higher powers.

The image of Mephistopheles in the tragedy "Faust"

Mephistopheles is a fallen angel who is constantly arguing with God about good and evil. He believes that a person is so corrupted that, succumbing to even a slight temptation, he can easily give his soul to him. The angel is sure that humanity is not worth saving. Faust, according to Mephistopheles, will always be on the side of evil.

In one of the lines of the work, Mephistopheles is described as a devil who previously had sharp claws, horns and a tail. He does not like scholasticism, preferring to get away from boring sciences. Being evil, it helps, without knowing it, to find the truth for the hero. The image of Mephistopheles in Faust is made up of contradictions.

Often in conversations and disputes with Faust, Mephistopheles manifests himself as a true philosopher, who watches with interest the deeds of man, the progress. However, when he communicates with other people or evil spirits, he selects other images for himself. He does not lag behind the interlocutor and supports conversations on any topic. Mephistopheles himself says several times that he does not have absolute power. The main decision always depends on the person, and he can only take advantage of the wrong choice.

Many thoughts of Goethe himself were invested in the image of Mephistopheles in the tragedy Faust. They expressed themselves in sharp criticism of feudalism. At the same time, the devil profits from the naive realities of the capitalist foundation.

Despite the superficial similarity of the demon and the protagonist, the image of Mephistopheles in the tragedy "Faust" is absolutely opposite to him in the main. Faust strives for wisdom. And Mephistopheles believes that no wisdom exists. He believes that the search for truth is an empty exercise, because it does not exist.

Researchers believe that the image of Mephistopheles in Faust is the subconscious of the doctor himself, his fears of the unknown. At that moment, when good begins to fight evil, the demon talks to the main character. At the end of the work, Mephistopheles is left with nothing. Faust voluntarily admits that he has reached the ideal, has learned the truth. After that, his soul goes to the angels.

Hero of all time

The eternal image of Faust became the prototype for many heroes of new literature. Nevertheless, he seems to complete a whole string of literary "loners" who are used to fighting life's problems on their own. Of course, the image of Faust has notes of the sad thinker Hamlet or the expressive defender of humanity, the desperate Don Quixote, and even Don Juan. Faust resembles the Lovelace most of all with his desire to come to the truth in the secrets of the Universe. However, at a time when Faust knows no boundaries in his search, Don Juan stops at the needs of the flesh.

Each of the listed characters has its own antipodes, which make their images more complete and partially reveal the inner monologue of each. Don Quixote has Sancho Panza, Don Juan has an assistant Sganarelle, and Faust fights in philosophical battles with Mephistopheles.

The influence of the work

After the publication of the tragedy about a desperate lover of knowledge, many philosophers, culturologists, researchers found the image of Goethe's Faust so fascinating that they even singled out a similar type of person, which Spengler called "Faustian". These are people who are aware of infinity and freedom and strive for it. Even at school, children are asked to write an essay, the image of Faust in which should be fully disclosed.

This tragedy had a significant impact on literature. Inspired by the novel, poets and prose writers began to reveal the image of Faust in their creations. There are hints of it in the works of Byron, Grabbe, Lenau, Pushkin, Heine, Mann, Turgenev, Dostoevsky and Bulgakov.

Goethe worked on Faust for over sixty years. The image of the great seeker of truth excited him even in his youth and accompanied him until the end of his life.

Goethe's work is written in the form of a tragedy. True, it goes far beyond the limits of the possibilities that the stage has. It is rather a dialogized epic poem, the deepest in its philosophical content, comprehensive in terms of the breadth of the reflection of life.

In Goethe's philosophy, the idea of ​​the dialectical unity of opposites is perhaps one of the main ideas. In the struggle of contradictions, the harmony of the world is created, in the clash of ideas - truth. The poet constantly reminds us of this. (In the time of Goethe, as is known, Hegel's dialectic was created). Two heroes of the work of the German poet - Faust and Mephistopheles - clearly demonstrate this dialectical relationship of positive and negative principles.

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

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

Sometimes I don't have enough strength to fight, -

After all, how many have I already ruined,

And life flows like a wide river ...

In essence, he also creates, but through negation:

... I am a particle of power,

Desiring evil forever, doing only good.

N. G. Chernyshevsky left thoughtful judgments about this character: “Negation, skepticism are necessary for a Man, as an excitation of activity that would otherwise fall asleep, And it is precisely skepticism that true convictions are affirmed.” Therefore, in the dispute between Faust and Mephistopheles, and they constantly argue, one must always see some kind of mutual replenishment of a single idea. Goethe is not always for Faust and against Mephistopheles. More often than not, he wisely recognizes the correctness of both.

Putting lofty philosophical allegories into his images, Goethe by no means forgets about the artistic concreteness of the image. Faust and Mephistopheles are endowed with certain human traits, the poet outlined the originality of their characters. Faust is an unsatisfied, restless, "stormy genius", passionate, ready to love passionately and hate strongly, he is able to err and make tragic mistakes. The nature is hot and energetic, he is very sensitive, his heart is easily hurt, sometimes he is carelessly selfish out of ignorance and is always disinterested, sympathetic, humane. Goethe's Faust is not bored. He's looking for. His mind is in constant doubt and anxiety. Faust is the thirst for comprehension, the volcanic energy of knowledge. Faust and Mephistopheles are antipodes, the first is thirsty, the second is full, the first is greedy, the second is fed up, the first is torn "beyond", the second knows that there is nothing there, there is emptiness, and Mephistopheles plays with Faust, as with an unreasonable boy, looking to all his impulses as to whims, and cheerfully indulges them - after all, he, Mephistopheles, has an agreement with God himself.

Mephistopheles is balanced, passions and doubts do not excite his chest. He looks at the world without hatred and love, he despises it, There is a lot of sad truth in his sharp remarks. This is by no means a type of villain. He mocks the humane Faust, who is destroying Margarita, it is not in his mockery that the truth sounds, bitter even for him - the spirit of darkness and destruction. This is the type of a person who is tired of long contemplation of evil and has lost faith in the good beginnings of the world. He doesn't look like Milton's Satan. He suffers. There is fire in his chest. He regrets the lost Eden and hates God. He craves revenge and is adamant, proud and freedom-loving. Freedom is dearer to him than Eden. Mephistopheles is not similar to Lermontov's Demon, He is tired of eternity. He is cold in the vastness of the universe. He wants simple, human love. He is ready to put at the feet of a mortal girl both eternity and all his might. But it is powerless before the unpretentious heart of a mortal girl. Eternity and infinity are insignificant in comparison with the short, like a moment, happiness of a mortal. And he, Lermontov's demon, is sad.

Goethe's Mephistopheles is sometimes a kind fellow. He does not suffer because he does not believe in good or evil or happiness. He sees the imperfection of the world and knows that it is eternal, that no effort can change it. He laughs at a man who, with all his insignificance, is trying to fix something in the world. He is amused by these attempts of a man, he laughs. This laugh is indulgent. This is how we laugh when a child is angry at a storm. Mephistopheles even pities the man, believing that the source of all his suffering is the very spark of God that draws him, the man, to the ideal and perfection, unattainable, as it is clear to him, Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles is smart. How much irony, mockery of false scholarship, human vanity in his conversation with a student who mistook him for Faust!

Theory, my friend, is dry,

But the tree of life is green.

He exposes false teachings (“they are in a hurry to deprive the soul”), ironically instructs the youth: “Keep your words”, “Vanityless speech is always easy to put into words”, “Saving unfoundedness will save you from all adversity”, “Everyone who is the most involuntarily believes in him. presumptuous,” etc. Along the way, Goethe, through the mouth of Mephistopheles, also condemns the conservatism of the legal foundations of society, when laws are “like a load of hereditary disease.”

These are the main characters of Goethe. The poet chose and reworked the centuries-old legend of Dr. Faust and reworked it in his own way, in his own philosophical and artistic manner. The whole work reveals the aesthetic views of Goethe, which are confirmed by the dialectical images of Faust and Mephistopheles. Already "Prologue in Heaven" revealed the author's philosophy, his views on man, society, nature.

Goethe's poem resembles a gigantic symphony through which it passes, varying, now fading, then. gaining strength, picking up new motives along the way, merging with them, fading and flaring up again and again, a single theme - Man, Society, Nature. In the "Prologue in Heaven" we are talking about the moral stamina of a person, about his ability to resist base instincts. All these problems are solved by Goethe with the help of the dialectical unity of opposites - Faust and Mephistopheles.