Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: Der Tragödie zweiter Teil [Faust: The Tragedy's Second Part]

Jane K. Brown (University of Washington)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1827 - 1832

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play
Poetry (any)
Tragedy

Resources

Faust, Part II is a verse drama of some 7500 lines in five acts. Its resemblance to normal tragedy extends no further. Faust travels not only through space, from Germany to Greece and back, but also through time as he engages with sphinxes, griffons and other mythological monsters, Helen of Troy, the Renaissance court of the German Emperor, and the contemporary world of land drainage projects. The plot proceeds in dream-like fashion with unexplained leaps through time and space, with the continuity provided neither by action nor character, but exclusively through thematic connections. Even within the more or less coherent units of the individual acts there are substantial variations in tone, style, verse form and dramatic genre.…

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2993 words

Citation: Brown, Jane K.. "Faust: Der Tragödie zweiter Teil". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 December 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16640, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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