Man's development forseen in Goethe's Faust

MAN’S DEVELOPMENT FORESEEN IN

GOETHE’S FAUST

THE DRAMA of Faust represents the whole lifetime of its author. When Goethe was a boy in Frankfurt, he was fascinated by the busy life of its streets. This included outdoor forms of art, especially puppet shows which passers-by could watch. Among those which he saw was a representation of the medieval legend about the mysterious Dr. Faustus, with his master-mind, who sold his soul to the devil. The legend has reappeared in literature many times. The best-known version in English is that of Marlowe, the contemporary of Shakespeare. The boy Goethe became absorbed in this story. As a young man he started to write his own drama on this theme. He was dissatisfied and laid his version aside. In the course of his very active life, he returned to it again and again. Only as an old man nearing his end did he finish the drama. He left it divided into two parts containing so many speeches and so many scenes, that a full performance, without cutting, takes five days. Such performances on the stage are rare but it has become a special part of the work done at the Goetheanum in Dornach to hold such complete performances at regular intervals.

Goethe carried the idea of Faust in his heart all through his working life. The drama, as he finally represented it, developed along with his development. Nevertheless, one could not fairly say that the play as we have it now is an autobiography. In a sense, Goethe was identified with the character of Faust, but he came to identify Faust, not with himself as a person, but with ‘Mansoul’ in

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