The Myth of Modernity in Goethe's Faust

3 credits · Undergraduate

The Faust myth can be described as the myth of modernity itself: the ideas of human self-realization and progress are under debate in the story of the German scholar Dr. Faustus, who in his pact with the devil transgresses the boundaries that nature, religion, and society imposed on mankind. Unquestionably, the most famous representation of this modern myth is Goethe’s Faust. Written over a period of sixty years (1772–1832), Goethe’s opus magnum broadens the focus of the original myth to portray the central ambiguities and controversies presented by the modern age. His Faust is the story of modern man at large, successful, egotistical, torn, alienated, driven, in search of truth and totality, a man who in the course of his life becomes spectacularly guilty, and in the end is spectacularly (and controversially) redeemed. Faust’s journey through the world traces major developments of the western world from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, developments that still shape today’s world. FORMATS: Seminar