1. The Legend of Dr. Faust(us)
Abhishek Jain
R. Sumanth

2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• 1749 – 1832
• Born in Frankfurt
• Supreme Genius of
Modern German
Literature
• Poet, Dramatist, Noveli
st and Scientist
• Major sources of
inspiration for
drama, poetry, Opera
and even Music!!

3. Inspired Beethoven!
You’re
“…like an edifice erected by SPIRIT GAWD!!
hands DRIVES me and exalts me to
WRITE MUSIC. The SECRET of the
HARMONIES is engrafted in it.”
“When your poems reach my
brain, I am filled with pride so
intense that I long to climb the
height of your grandeur….”
C'mon! You’re
no less.

4. Weimar Classicism
• From 1772 until 1805
• To establish a new
humanism by
synthesizing
Romantic, classical and
Enlightenment ideas.
• Goethe and Schiller –
main figures
Weimar’s Courtyard of Muses

5. Reception of Goethe
• In 19th c. Germany, he was admired for his
breadth of vision & his liberal ideas
• During Hitler’s time Goethe was appropriated
as a nationalist, and was used for the Nazi
propaganda
• In England, he was translated by Thomas
Carlyle, and impacted the English Romantic
Age.

6. A wager with the
Thomas Mann
-Won NOBEL PRIZE for
LITERATURE in 1929
-Compared Faust’s Pact
with German people’s
support to Hitler

7. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
• 6th Feb 1564- 30th May
1593.
• He foremost Elizabethan
Tragedian.
• An English Dramatist
who is considered to be
Father of English
Tragedy.
• Instaurator of Dramatic
Blank Verse.
• His plays known for their
overreaching
Protagonists.

8. Genre?

9. TRAGEDY Seriously!!!
NOT
Again!

10. Main Characters
Goethe’s Faust Marlowe’s Faustus
Gretchen
Mephistopheles
Faustus • Lucifer’s Servant
Faust
Mephistopheles Wagner

11. Faustus Faust
• Proud • Proud
• Arrogant • Arrogant
• Discontent • Discontent
• Lustful • Suicidal (beginning)
• Fails to repent till • Experiences True
the end Love
• Realizes his
mistakes early on

12. Mephastophillis
• Goethe
– Trickster
– Makes the pact
– Purely Evil
– Admires God in the beginning!
• Marlowe
– Trickster
– Mediates the pact
– Gray Shade!

13. Gretchen
• Archetypal Earthly Female
• Love of Faust
• Corrupted by Faust’s ideologies

14. 57 years
1808
First Part appeared in
Second Part published in 1833
One of the BEST and most INFLUENTIAL
German Literature

15. And the Story goes like this...

17. After I deal with this
one, you’re NEXT!
Earth is full
of S#!T!
Earth is May you get
SPLENDID! SUN-BURNS!
Michael
Gabriel
Raphael
CUT the
CRAP!!
Mephistopheles – The BADMAN

18. The Wager FAUST will be
MINE
We’ll See.

19. Sounds Familiar?

20. Somewhere on Earth
• Faust sitting in
despair
• Longs to live in
harmony with nature
• Summons a spirit and
seeks higher
knowledge
• Spirit refuses to
share. “Thou'rt like
the spirit, thou dost Faust in his study
comprehend, Not
me!”
• Faust attempts

21. Wager Again!!
• Later, a dog interrupts
Faust in his study.
• Dog transforms into
MEPHISTOPHELES.
• Mephistopheles makes
another WAGER – now
with Faust
• “If e'er upon my
couch, stretched at my
ease, I'm found,
Then may my life that
instant cease!”

22. The Devil promises to SERVE
Faust and to give Faust a
moment of transcendence, a
MOMENT in which he hopes to
STAY FOREVER. If
Mephistopheles succeeds, Faust
must then be his SERVANT for
the rest of eternity in HELL.

23. Faust – The BadMan!?!
• Faust goes crazy!
• Tempts his student to
pursue women.
• Plays tricks on men at
Auerbach‟s Cellar
• Goes to Witches
Cave and indulge in
stupid games.
• Meets Gretchen
outside the cave!
Auerbach’s Cellar

24. Love at First Sight
• Faust falls in love with Gretchen, love beyond lust.
• Faust had complex feelings. He wanted her body too.
• He corrupts Gretchen and her Christian beliefs.
• He gives sleeping potion to her mother and they
consummate their relationship. Mother dies!
• Gretchen is pregnant.
• Faust visits her. Her brother Valentine rebukes.
• They fight and Valentine is killed.
• Gretchen runs away from Faust, to church. Evil spirits
secure her damnation.

25. Walpurgis Night
• Gretchen attends
Walpurgis Night
• Faust learns that
Gretchen killed their
infant
• She was arrested
• Faust curses
Mephistopheles for
creating such
circumstances.
• Faust orders him to help
him free Gretchen from
prison.

26. Rescuing his Love
• Faust sneaks into prison and meets Gretchen
• She has grown mad due to all the suffering and
doesn‟t recognize him.
• She confuses him with her executioner
• He pleads her to escape with him
• Filled with shame and guilt, she refuses and
accepts death.
• Gretchen surrenders her soul to GOD
• Faust is left devastated. Even with all the power, he
could not save her.

27. PLOT
• Study of Necromancy (Dark Magic).
Rising
Action
• Initial Conversation with Mephastophillis.
Climax
• Sealing the ‘Pact’ with Lucifer.
• Faustus becomes the Clown among Clowns.
Falling
Action
• Faustus soul is dragged to hell.

28. 24 Years!?!
• Time passes quickly when you are
ignorant
• Analogous to cycle of 24 hours
• Tragedy is intensified

29. Themes

30. Utopianism and Enlightenment
• Goethe's Faust
expressed the
'modern world-
system coming
into being.„ –
Utopia
• He wanted to create a social world in
which persons were liberated from
tradition and could experience the
wonders which he did.

31. Science and Spirituality
• Humanity would eventually perfect itself
through the advancement of knowledge and
technology – Technological Utopianism.
Goethe REJECTED this!
• Evident from the peom‟s beginning - Faust
attempts to perfect himself through learning
and science, yet he finds that at the end of
his intellectual journey, he has destroyed his
faith and his reason to live.
• EXISTENTIAL CRISIS!!

32. Is Rationality Enough? - Modernism
• Rational thought alone can never perfect
or complete humanity, Goethe
argues, because human knowledge has
fundamental limits when it comes to the
spiritual world.
• Humanity would only have the question of
whether life should be continued or simply
ended.

33. Whether life is worth more than
the peace that death offers?

34. Fate and Free Will
• Salvation through Constant Striving
• Goethe’s suggests that humans are free to err
and that error, in fact, is inevitable for one
who strives towards salvation.
In short, Goethe
advocated
FREE WILL!

35. Is SOMEONE really watching over us?
• If humanity cannot adequately name
God, does God actually exist for
humanity?
• Faust‟s own subjective experience of this
problem destroys his faith and leads him
to an extreme nihilism and the verge of
suicide at the play‟s beginning.

36. Morally ambivalent libertine!
• Modern rationalism destroys the need for
religion or social constraints, then this
creates a moral vacuum in the human
condition.
• Faust destroys Gretchen's faith and moral
support through his own moral
ambivalence.
• Such a condition can only lead to
tragedy, just as it does for both Faust and
Gretchen.

37. “If god did not
exist, everything is
permitted”- Dostoevsky

38. Power corrupts
• Once Faust(us) actually gains the
practically limitless power that he so
desires his horizons seem to narrow.
• He indulges into petty tricks and somehow
finds happiness in it.
• The border between good and bad blurrs.

39. Conflict between Renaissance and
Medieval Values
Renaissance Medieval
• Emphasis on individual • God was center of
classical learning existence
• Secularism took center • THEOLOGY was queen
stage of sciences

40. THANK YOU