Présentation de l'éditeur
In the close of the Prelude at the Theatre with which Goethe called the public to his show, before opening with the Prologue inH eaven in his First Part ofF aust, the manager indicates the spirit of the whole design :O nly engage, and then the mind grows heated Begin it, and the work will be completed. Stmt on our narrow stage with lofty stature, As moving through the circle of wideN ature. With swiftest speed, in calm thought weighing well Each movement, move from Heaven, through Earth, to HelL What is known as the First Part of Goethe sF aust, is a complete work, dealing with mans individual life as the poet felt it in his earlier years. But the use of the Faust legend for poetic contemplation of this stage of life on which we all are players, had fascination for Goethe. He went on to a second play on the same subject, parallel in many respects with the first, in which Helena takes the place of Gretchen, the problem of the race is the main theme, and the final triumph of good, evil itself shaping unconsciously the future good, leads to the close inH eaven. The Prologue also was inH eaven: all begins and ends in God. As a play, theS econd Part is feebler than the First, deficient in that individual life and action which is inseparable from any play meant to be acted, and, in some parts, wholly unactable. The poet has chosen to sound in his own way the depths in the great stream of life and sport over its shallows, without suffering his invention to be bounded by conditions proper to one form of art. The genius of a great master is lavished upon every part of the design. One individuality is never absent, that of Goethe himself. The whole man is in the two parts ofF aust; and from that point of view theS econd Part sntl %x 2fw than the First. As the utterance oi ripti fe,S x.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books is a pub
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