1. Germany in the Eighteenth Century: Background to Goethe’s Faust LIT 181 Hour 10

2. Where was Germany in the 18 th Century?

3. Germany in 1789

4. Prussia Prussia, capital in Berlin / Potsdam Friedrich the Great Codification of law Freedom of press & religion Roundtable of advisors, included Voltaire Influence of French culture is strong

5. Austria

6. Austria – ethnic diversity

7. War of Austrian Succession Pragmatic Sanction – Emperor Charles VI ensured his daughter Maria Theresa would inherit an intact Hapsburg Empire Silesian Wars of the 1740’s Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) Maria Theresa, 1717-1780

8. Frankfurt am Main An important western German city Center of trade and culture Post WWII: became the banking center of Germany Goethe was born here on August 28 th, 1749. Goethe’s House in Frankfurt

9. Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe “Shakespeare of Germany” Last “Renaissance” person = he knew everything that was to be known. Collected works = 144 volumes in every intellectual field of the late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.

10. Goethe: so let’s all pronounce his name! “`gay tuh” & round your lips on the “ay” Known primarily for Faust, but also wrote huge numbers of poems, novels, novellas, stories, plays, epics, epigrams, ballads songs, occasional verse, letters, etc.

11. Goethe (how is that name pronounced, one more time?????) Conducted experiments in scientific areas “The Metamorphosis of Plants”The Metamorphosis of Plants Treatise on how the eye recognizes color – still important in optics

12. College years Attended university in Leipzig, studied law, grew ill in 2 nd yr. & came home While convalescing, met a pietist woman, became a devoté, spoke and wrote the “language of feeling.” Became interested in the writings of Herder. Goethe as a young man Susanna von Klettenberg

13. Johann Gottfried Herder 1744-1803 Philosopher: folk language, folk culture and folk literature Ideas formed the core of the German movement called “Storm and Stress” (Sturm und Drang)

14. Herder (cont’d) Took a trip in 1769: Journal of My Voyage of 1769 Suffered from bad eyesight Left the ship in France, travelled to Strassburg to have an operation on his cataracts

15. Herder in Strassburg Ouch! – anesthesia then wasn’t what it is now. Goethe went to see him there and ask him, “what should I do?” Herder tells him: go out into the country and collect folk literature. He does this, and it sets him on the path to becoming the most important literary figure ever in Germany.

16. Storm & Stress (Sturm und Drang) 1770-1775 (1786) Name of a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger Primarily group of young men, especially in Göttingen Emphasized strong emotion (against the Enlightenment emphasis on reason)

17. The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) Story of young man, overwhelmed by unrequited love, commits suicide Greatest best seller in Germany before the 20 th century, Goethe gains an international reputation People started dressing and acting like Werther all over Europe!

18. Women in Goethe’s life From Goethe’s autobiography Poetry and Truth, we know several women exerted major influence on his early work Friederike Brion, whom Goethe leftFriederike Brion Charlotte Buff, who was engaged to another man and “rebuffed” Goethe’s advancesCharlotte Buff

19. 1775: Duke Karl August “invites” Goethe Goethe should come to Weimar and be the Duke’s Prime Minister Goethe accepts Until 1786 Goethe works full time as PM and at night must ride out with the Duke on hunting forays – this starts to wear on him.

20. Weimar: center of culture Karl August begins to invite the major intellectual figures of Germany to his court at Weimar, including Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and others As a young man he liked to stay out all night carousing with the guys. For Goethe, it eventually proves too much!

21. Goethe works in Weimar until 1786 Then he leaves for Italy & stays there until 1788 His “Italian Journey” begins the “classical” period in German literature “noble simplicity, quiet grandeur”

22. Italy for Goethe Goethe learns how to “feel” through the senses & to write with great power & beauty J. J. Winckelmann’s (1717-1768) Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and in Sculpture

23. After Italy, Goethe returns to Weimar Beginning of friendship with Schiller Schiller: Germany’s greatest dramatist Maid of Orleans, Maria Stuart, Wilhelm Tell Schiller dies of tuberculosis in 1805

24. Goethe lives in Weimar until 1832 Novels: Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, Elective Affinities Poetry: West-Eastern Divan, Roman Elegies Plays: Iphigenia in Tauris, Torquato Tasso, Egmont His most famous work is the story of the professor and performer of black magic, Johann Faustus – in two parts, we will read only part 1 and I will fill you in on part 2.

25. 1587: Faust Book in Leipzig: Johann Spiess Volksbuch = “Chapbook” Episodes from anecdotes, jokes and stories popular back then, tied together through the personality of the professor who wants to be wealthy and loved, and so offers his soul to the devil in exchange for favors. Enables the reader to enjoy the “sins” vicariously, and then to hear the rebuke that “a good Christian would never act this way…

26. Faustus Name means something like “fortunate one” Actual university professor/alchemist in Leipzig during the fifteenth century Rumors and stories of his ability to conjure up the dead, to fly, and to place spells on people This was the time of the witchhunts, heresy and inquisition in Germany

27. Faust Spiess Volksbuch creates this “type”: a talented artist, famous person, or intellectual strikes a bargain with the devil: in exchange for his immortal soul he gains fabulous wealth or is empowered to perform marvelous feats, travel to exotic lands, etc.

28. Christopher Marlowe’s Tragical History of Dr. Faustus Follows Spiess’ Chapbook well (available in English translation). After 20 years, devil comes to Faustus and demands his due Faustus is torn apart by a throng of hell’s emissaries

29. Faust’s literary transmission: As a puppet play though the 17 th Century – Goethe as a child first saw the Faust story this way Lessing, a German dramatist, tried his hand at Faust in the 1750’s

30. Goethe, Faust Begun 1771, took over 60 years to complete Spans all major intellectual movements of the 18 th & early 19 th centuries 2 parts, part 1 appears in 1806, part 2 in Goethe’s final year, 1832 Part 1 = microcosm, Part 2 = macrocosm Not a “pact” = contract, but rather a wager

31. After Goethe’s Faust Chamisso’s “Peter Schlemihl’s Marvelous Story” “The Devil and Daniel Webster” by Stephen Vincent Benet Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus

32. “Bedazzled”

33. Who is this devil Mephistopheles? What is the devil? – personification of evil? Biblical personage in opposition to God? Some minion of hell who wants your soul? Image = largely based on Dionysus / Bacchus or on a satyr = cloven hoof, horns, tail, hair, unruly, lusty etc.

34. History of the Devil (Jeffrey Burton Russell) Devil = antiquity to primitive christianity Satan = early christianity

35. History of the Devil (Jeffrey Burton Russell) Lucifer = Middle Ages Mephistopheles = the modern devil

36. Each age fashions the masks of its devils as it chooses to view its own evils

37. Goethe in Italy: in the Giardino Botanico PaduaGiardino Botanico Padua Sitting beneath a palm tree, he contemplated the structure of the leaf, the branch and the trunk, and at that moment realized the interrelation among all parts of the art work on this same organic model Chamaerops humilis, the Goethe Palm, planted 1585

38. HOW DO YOU KEEP A TREE HEALTHY? Good soil, Good fertilizer, Good place in the sun Pruning… What???? Doesn’t this kill the plant? Cutting it’s leaves and branches, isn’t this amputation?

39. HOW DO YOU MAKE YOUR MUSCLES HEALTHY? Exercise? Doesn’t that actually destroy muscle tissue? Scar tissue – why would anyone want it? Because that is what goes into making your muscle bigger Working out with weights – tears down healthy tissue, then the healing process makes them stronger, fitter, more capable of doing more, for a longer period of time.

40. Also: Think of some of the other works we have read… How is Faust like Dante? Think of Don Quixote & Sancho, or Candide & Pangloss? … are these pairs anything like Faust & Mephistopheles? Think about some of the heroines we have encountered: Iseult, Beatrice, Teresa Panza, Madame Jourdain, Cunigonde.