Discussion: Goethe's Faust

Last class of the term and of LS800.  It's been an intense 3 months - yet despite the heavy reading load, most books made me want to delve deeper and read more about the period, about the issue, by the author etc.  Some much history and so many things I have a glancing awareness of but no knowledge.

GOETHE background - 'last' Renaissance man
1749-1832, born in Frankfurt, died in Weimar
Contemporary of Wollstonecraft
Born in the Holy Roman Empire, prior to unification of Germany (1871). HRE dissolved during his lifetime
At age 27, went to live in Weimar, died there (though in Italy for a period)
French soldiers invaded Weimar while he was living there, entered his house and his mistress convinced the soldiers to leave the house.  They married the following day
The Age of Enlightenment - away from Religion, towards Romanticism and emotions/passions/sensibility
Writer, poet, philosopher, natural scientist, critic, director, actor, painter, lawyer, government minister/advisor
Heigl, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer
Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert

Opposed French Revolution, opposed Romantic tradition (critical of emotional excesses)
In Italy during a period of renaissance of neo-classical influences
Like a German Shakespeare vis a vis language (as Dante was for Italy)
Accused by scientists of trying to import romanticism into science (i.e.: work with colours) - more appreciated in 21st c.  Hard science doesn't give us all the answers.


FAUST
Part 1 more about Faust, Part 2 more about society.
Goethe finished Faust Part 2 just before his death
Goethe wrote the work over an extended period 1773-1831
Original idea was a simple legend about a magician who makes a deal with devil.

QUESTIONS
1. Compare Adam and Eve myth with Faust & Mephistopheles myth: searching for knowledge, Fall from Grace, serpent

Faust wants all knowledge and Mephisto tells him he can't have god's understanding of universe, meaning of universe.  Offers him alternatives.
Mephisto tempts people but they have a choice.

Jung was very influenced by Goethe and Faust and relation of myth with collective unconsciousness.
Science vs intuition
Germany began to divide learning into departments: science vs philosophy etc
The beginnings of the concept of dangerous knowledge.

2. Is Faust a victim of a pact made by forces more powerful than himself, or a self-centred individual who leads an innocent young girl to her ruin?

Faust wanting to know and unify everything.
Mephisto couldn't tempt Gretchen as too pure but Faust could ensnare her with love.

3.  In the Prologue, Mephisto argues that "man's life would be easier without Reason - for he uses it only for bestial pursuits." Is this a fair assessment?
Goethe would agree with Hume that we are using Reason to serve passions.


Movement in Germany that assigns naziism and Holocaust to Reason - as a very rational approach to a goal and how to accomplish it.  It's a frightening thought, but this is probably the only approach that would enable people to commit such atrocities - remove the emotion, the empathy, the reactions from it.
WWI was a tremendous blow to reason - such a big change - got even worse with WWII and after.

Passion is pushing us to do things but reason separated from morals can be horrifying and terribly destructive.  See Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Goethe sees the start of the industrial revolution: destruction of cities, families, rise of importance of individuals, science, production and innovation - and foresees the dangers of where mankind was heading.

Goethe seemed to support man's striving - for the best of something.  We will read another of his texts in the new year and I'm curious to see how it compares to Faust.

This is it until 2013!

Discussion: Antigone and Phedre

On one level a play about conflicting laws, on another level a play about passion and duty.  The play ANTIGONE was full of dualism, a word I've never really thought much about prior to this class.

Youth [Antigone]  vs. Age [Creon]
Female [Antigone] vs. Male [Creon]
Ruler [Creon] vs. subjects [Antigone]
Passion [Antigone] vs. reason [Creon]
Duty to Family and Gods [Antigone] vs. duty to the State/Thebes [Creon]

Some of the group felt that Antigone was a rebellious teenager and the main conflict was between youth and age.  I didn't get that perpective from my reading of the text.  For me the main conflict was between the duty to the gods to bury a family member vs the duty towards the state to stand strongly against threats to the city state (and NOT bury the body of a traitor - as a warning to others who might try to attack Thebes).

Stephen set possible resolutions out as Aristotelian moderation vs a Hegelian requirement for synthesis (a better and more progressive solution, working out a way to have family loyalties AND loyalty to state).  Creon eventually did bend and decide to provide a proper burial and to pardon Antigone but too late.

Antigone is very single-minded: her duty to her family (brothers, parents) comes above all.  She even says that she would not go against the state for her husband or children as they can be replaced.  It's hard to know how she feels about her sister as she doesn't seem too concerned about any duty towards Ismene.  Creon feels equally strongly (though I'm not sure if he is equally passionate) about Thebes.

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But it’s even worse when he plays favourites

Puts family or friends ahead of fatherland.

Someone mentioned that in Greek plays, women are the holders of passion and men are the holders of reason but they get thrown off course by passion.
Lorraine mentioned that the cover of the text is a photo of Simone Weil.  I hadn't read the note about the photo.  Simone Weil died for holding to her principles, just as Antigone did.

Other than Creon, no one in the play seems to question Antigone's decision and actions.  At the end, Antigone who has been so strong, suddenly bewails her fate:

…They are taking me against my will.

Look at me O you lords of Thebes:
I am the last remnant of kings.
Look at what these wretched men are doing to me,
For my pure reverence!

Did Antigone feel that the gods would save her?  She seems to suddenly be fighting against her [self-induced] fate – being murdered for her reverence to the unwritten laws of the gods.

During the course of the play, Creon is the only character who really changes.  Unyielding and unwilling to bend at the beginning, before the end of the play he decides that holding to his original positions will lead to injustice.  He changes his mind but too late to avert tragedy.

In Phedre as well, passion seems much stronge than reason though those whose actions are most governed by passion seem to end tragically.  The play by Racine is based on a play called Hippolytus by Euripides.  Stephen mentioned that Racine was raised and educated in a Jansenist monastery in Port Royal.  Cornelius Jansen argued that since the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, man has not possessed free will.  Our lives are guided or directed by "concupisentia" (ardent desire) and subject to grace.  Most people are driven by their desires with only a few being guided  by grace.  This was compared to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination.  Neither the Jansenists nor the Calvinists wanted to admit they felt desire because that would show they were not one of the "elect".

We had a discussion about guilt.  Phedre resists her attraction to Hipploytus because she feels it is wrong but her life is blighted by the guilt she feels over her feelings (though she feels she has been cursed by Venus and this is why she makes poor choices in love).  Hippolytus was a strong character, upright, chaste, strong and brave but he becomes weak and doomed when he falls in love (with Aricia).

Finally we discussed Aristotles' championing of "moderation" and how his works would have been known to the audiences of both plays.  Both Antigone and Phedre would have demonstrated what happens when you go to extremes and don’t practice moderation.

PHEDRE by Racine

PHÉDRE by Jean Racine, Tr by Ted Hughes

This book was quite interesting.  Before reading it, I had looked at some links to movie clips that Stephen had sent out.  There are a few clips and a movie trailer on youTube for  PHEDRE directed in 1962 by Jules Dassin and starring Anthony Perkins and Melina Mercouri.  The clips were very melodramatic.  Black and white with a voice-over describing Phedre in sharp, dramatic terms.  The scenes are emotional, Phedre pacing restlessly and throwing herself on the bed weeping, gazing longingly at Hippolytus, slapping her maid.  These may have coloured my perception of the play and of Phedre.

The language of the play seemed very different.  Phedre was written in the 17^th century by Racine, then translated in the last century by Ted Hughes, poet laureate in Great Britain – and this may be where the stylistic difference comes from.

It is the story of Phedre, married to Theseus.  When she married him, she met his son Hippolytus for the 1st time and fell in love with Hippolytus.  She tried to block out this love by living away from Hippolytus and treating him harshly so that he would take against her.  As the play opens, Theseus has been away for a long time and is reported dead.  This news causes Phedre to confess her love to Hippolytus, who in turn has fallen in love (secretly) with a young hostage, Aricia.  Just as all these conflicting events are unfolding, Theseus returns.  Phedre's loyal nurse convinces Phedre to allow Theseus to believe that Hipploytus has been importuning Phedre. Father and son have a fight and Theseus fatally curses his son.  Hippolytus speeds off in his chariot and dies bravely fighting a sea monster, the nurse commits suicide and Phedre confesses her illicit love to her husband and unable to face the wreckage she has caused, she takes poison (brought to Athens by her "sister, Medea") and dies.

While this play had all the elements of tragedy, it seemed a bit empty - I'm not really sure why.  When I look for reason and passion here, passion has the upper hand.  Theseus' absence and presumed death is the spark that sets off the chain of events.  He likely has been away indulging his passions.  Phedre is tormented by her passion for Hippolytus, which her reason tells her is wrong.  Hippolytus has a reputation for being chaste but he has a passion for Aricia.  He also has the impetuous passion of youth, that causes him to bolt when he is unjustly accused by his father, and which, along with his bravery, leads to his death.  His father Theseus loses his son when he allows his passion and anger at being betrayed cause him to fatally curse his son.  Though he quickly regrets this and tries to undo the curse, it's too late.  The nurse gives in to her passionate love (loyalty, jealousy?) for Phedre and plots to throw the blame on Hippolytus to save Phedre. When this causes more grief for Phedre, the nurse kills herself.  Phedre allows her passion for Hippolytus to ruin her life though when she tried reason to put distance between herself and Hippolytus, she was able to cope and survive, albeit very unhappily.  At the end when she sees what she has caused and what she has allowed to happen, she kills herself (helped by her very passionate sister, Medea).

GENESIS

GENESIS
(online text)

It was interesting to read Genesis after reading the Bhagavad Gita.  Both texts begin with a listing of family members: in the Gita both Dhritarashtra and Arjuna, his nephew, list family members as the cousins prepare for battle, a battle between the sons of Dhritarashtra and the sons of his brother Pandu.  Genesis contains a recounting of mankind’s lineage beginning with Adam (and Eve) and extending down to Joseph, younger son of Israel (Jacob) and Rachel.

Lineage and family seem to be important in both cultures and times (India before 150 BCE and the Middle East prior to 1250 BCE.  In the Gita the family relationships are in the background but in the Old Testament the lineages described comprise the main framework of the text.  It describes mankind's original descendants and in particular their interactions and covenants with the Lord.  Genesis ends with mention that from the 12 sons of Jacob (Israel) came the 12 tribes of Israel.

Genesis seems to be an attempt to explain how mankind came to be, and why life in the world is so hard: 

• the fall from grace when Eve and Adam ate the apple and were banished from the Garden of Eden, when Adam was condemned to a hard life of labour and Eve was condemned to the pains of childbirth;
• the great flood which was punishment for the wickedness in the world, wiping out all living things except Noah, his family and the pairs of animals he had selected to save in the Ark;
• the Tower of Babel where man’s one language was forever confused by God because mankind had dared to aspire to reach for heaven;
• the covenant with Abraham and his descendants, a covenant renewed with Isaac, one of Abraham’s descendants.

Both texts (the Gita and Genesis) deal to some extent with living a good life (as opposed to living "the good life"), though the Gita’s message or advice is more structured and consistent.  Genesis seems to be more descriptive of ‘historical’ events that led to the known world (or as it was known prior to 1250 BCE) rather than a  carefully thought out set of advice on how to live one’s life.  Aside from fear and devotion to one god, there is no consistent message in Genesis on how to reach Paradise.

I was struck while I was reading Genesis on how much of it still is present in our everyday conversation or literature.  The text itself has a very archaic style and structure but the words and concepts are very much present and in use today:

In the beginning, God created…

And God saw that it was good

Let us make man in our image

Be fruitful and multiply

Garden of Eden

And on the 7^th day…he rested

You are dust and to dust you shall return

Cain & Abel

Am I my brother’s keeper?

A mark on Cain

Dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden [where Cain dwelt]

40 days and 40 nights

Two and two, male and female, went into the ark

The dove came back to the ark after the flood with an olive leaf in her beak (so Noah knew the flood waters had subsided from the earth)

For God made man in his own image

Sold his birthright for a mess of pottage

Tower of Babel

Sodom & Gomorrah

Sold into Egypt

The great Flood

The 12 tribes of Israel

There were many sections that I did not know or remember from growing up in the Catholic school system in Quebec, such as God saying that he would set his bow in the clouds as a sign of his everlasting covenant with the earth that he will never again wipe out all living things with a great flood.   I can see how the terms “old testament” came to mean a severe God and harsh punishment.  There were definite, harsh consequences for actions or sins.  I have more remembrance of New Testament readings from going to mass as a child.  These were very different with their themes of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” and of forgiveness and redemption: the forgiving of the prodigal son, of Judas, of Mary Magdalene, the concept of repentance.

As a guide on how to live a good life, the Bhagavad Gita seems more useful and relevant than Genesis.