Goethe's creative path, which spanned sixty-five years, was marked by the creation of the highest examples of poetry, prose and dramaturgy, closely connected with the German cultural tradition and reaching universal spiritual and aesthetic significance. This multidirectionality is one of the testimonies of the universality and plasticity of Goethe's genius.

The creative development of the writer proceeded under the influence of the Sturm und Drang movement, which protested against the unjust social order and the desire for liberation from the "father's" dogmas and norms that fettered the natural spiritual development of the younger generation. Central to this movement was the notion of "stormy genius", which was personified by the young Goethe. Of great importance for the beginning poet was his communication with Herder, who inspired him with the idea of ​​an inseparable connection between artistic creativity and the national folk cultural tradition.

Goethe's path to the top of world literature began with poetry, the composition of which he indulged in in his early youth. During his life he wrote about 1500 poems. Revealing different facets of the poet's rich personality and reflecting the different stages of his inner development, Goethe's lyrics are a kind of chronicle of his spiritual autobiography.

In the second half of the 1870s, Goethe tried his hand at various literary genres. Pan-European fame brings him close to sentimentalism the novel The Suffering of Young Werther, written from the perspective of a sensitive, dreamy and deeply lonely young man who committed suicide because of unhappy love. Werther's letters to a friend and fragments from his diary, which make up the novel, represent an emotional "summary" of events, revealing the tragic life disorder of the hero, endowed with a rich spiritual potential, which, however, is not destined to be realized.

The move of the author of Werther to Weimar coincided with his departure from Sturm und Drang, which by that time was already showing signs of exhaustion. For Goethe, this departure meant a transition from creativity closed in the inner world to artistic cognition of objective reality. Ten years of public service in Weimar relegated literary activity to the background, but even in such conditions, Goethe snatched hours for creativity. During this period, he, in particular, worked on the novel The Theatrical Vocation of Wilhelm Meister, in which he spoke about the efforts of the hero to create a national theater in Germany. The image of Wilhelm in many respects differed from the passive melancholy dreamer Werther: Meister was written out as an energetic, active young man striving to benefit society.

Shortly after his return from Italy, Goethe entered a period of so-called "Weimar Classicism". The beginning of this stage was marked by the appearance, in particular, of the cycle "Roman Elegies", which expressed the mood of intoxication with earthly joys, as well as the educational novel "Years of Wilhelm Meister's Teaching", in which the hero was depicted, knowing the world, overcoming his speculative ideas about reality and acquiring a wise humanity towards people. material from the site

The main achievement of the Weimar period, as well as of Goethe's entire literary work, was the tragedy "Faust", which embodied the results of his spiritual and artistic quest, the most important discoveries of the enlightenment thought of the 18th century, as well as the cultural experience of the entire era. Borrowing the image of Faust from the previous literary and theatrical tradition, Goethe gave him a powerful philosophical meaning, symbolic volume and titanic scope, thanks to which he grew into a figure embodying the very spirit of the new European civilization.

In fact, Goethe laid the foundation for all subsequent German literature, showed the possibility of synthesis of different national cultural traditions and made a significant contribution to the establishment of the foundations of Western humanism. Having predicted the further formation of world literature, he paved the way for it with his work and set an example of a world-class writer.

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on August 28, 1749 in Frankfurt am Main, a German poet, thinker and naturalist. An outstanding representative of the Enlightenment in Germany, one of the founders of modern German literature, a versatile scientist.

The son of an imperial adviser, an educated burgher, Goethe studied in Leipzig (1765-1768) and Strasbourg (1770-1771), lectured in jurisprudence and many other scientific disciplines, including medicine. In Strasbourg, Goethe met J. G. Herder and became a member of the Sturm und Drang movement. In 1775 he came to Weimar at the invitation of Duke Karl August. Ignoring the opinion of the court, Goethe entered into a civil marriage with a flower shop worker, Christiane Vulpius. He accepted the Great French Revolution with restraint, but in September 1792, at the Battle of Valmy, he brilliantly defined the world-historical significance of the victory of the revolutionary troops of France: “From this day and from this place a new era of world history begins.” Goethe's friendship with Schiller (since 1794) was of great importance. In Weimar, Goethe directed the theater organized by him in 1791.

The early poetic works of Goethe (1767-1769) gravitate towards the traditions of the Anacreontic lyric. Goethe published his first collection of poems in 1769. A new period of his work begins in 1770. Goethe's lyrics from the Sturm und Drang period are one of the most brilliant pages in the history of German poetry. The lyrical hero of Goethe appears as the embodiment of nature or in an organic merger with it ("The Traveler", 1772, "The Song of Mohammed", 1774). He turns to mythological images, comprehending them in a rebellious spirit (“Song of the Wanderer in the Storm”, 1771-1772; Prometheus’ monologue from an unfinished drama, 1773).

The historical drama Goetz von Berlichingen (1773) reflected the events on the eve of the Peasant War of the 16th century, sounding like a harsh reminder of princely arbitrariness and the tragedy of a fragmented country. In the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), Goethe, using the form of a sentimental novel in letters, conveys the dramatic personal experiences of the hero and at the same time creates a picture of German reality. In the drama "Egmont" (1788), which began even before moving to Weimar and is associated with the ideas of "Storm and Onslaught", the conflict between foreign oppressors and the people, whose resistance is suppressed, but not broken, is at the center of events; the finale of the drama sounds like a call to fight for freedom.

The decade of 1776-1785 is a transitional one in Goethe's creative development. The reaction to individualistic rebellion determined Goethe's thought about the need for self-restraint of the individual ("Borders of Humanity", 1778-1781; "Ilmenau", 1783). However, true to the heroic precepts of humanism, Goethe argues that man is capable of creative daring ("Divine", 1782). This is the inconsistency of Goethe's worldview. The poet could not completely escape the oppressive influence of backward social relations. At the end of the 80s of the 18th century, the concept of the so-called. Weimar classicism - a special version of European and German enlightenment. In the idea of ​​harmony, adopted by Goethe from I. Winckelmann and developed by Goethe and Schiller, the statement of the ideal of a harmonious personality is combined with a program of gradual reforms, the ideas of struggle are replaced by the idea of ​​education, which ultimately meant reconciliation with the existing order (drama "Torquato Tasso", 1780 -1789, ed. 1790).

The pagan-materialistic perception of ancient culture is most clearly expressed in the "Roman Elegies" (1790), glorifying carnal joys. Later, in the ballad The Corinthian Bride (1797), Goethe contrasts this life-affirming paganism with the ascetic religion of Christianity. The tragedy "Iphigenia in Tauris" (1779-1786, published in 1787) is based on the plot of an ancient Greek myth, the idea of ​​the tragedy is the victory of humanity over barbarism.

The Great French Revolution is directly reflected in the Venetian Epigrams (1790, published in 1796), in the drama The Citizen General (published in 1793), and in the short story Conversations of German Emigrants (1794-1795). ). Goethe does not accept revolutionary violence, but at the same time he recognizes the inevitability of social reorganization. During these years, he wrote the satirical poem "Reinecke the Fox" (1793), denouncing feudal arbitrariness. In the poem "Hermann and Dorothea" (1797), written in hexameter, in a genre close to idyll, Goethe confronts the quiet patriarchal way of the German outback and the "unprecedented movement" unfolding beyond the Rhine. Goethe's largest work of the 90s is the novel "The Years of the Teaching of Wilhelm Meister" (1793-1796, published 1795-1796). The stage hobbies of the hero appear as a youthful delusion; in the finale of the novel, he sees his task in practical economic activity.

In fact, this meant reconciliation with the backward German reality. The brightness of realistic everyday scenes, the colorfulness of the images are combined in Goethe's novel with a far-fetched mysterious ending, the image of mysterious figures, etc. The autobiographical book "Poetry and Truth from My Life" (parts 1-4. ed. Goethe's early life, before moving to Weimar, and critically assesses the rebelliousness of Sturm und Drang. "Italian Journey" (vols. 1-3, ed. 1816-1829) is a remarkable artistic document of the era. In the family novel "Elective Affinity" (ed. 1809), Goethe raises the issue of freedom of feeling, but under the sign of renunciation and fidelity to family foundations.

The novel The Wandering Years of Wilhelm Meister (parts 1-3, 1821-1829), already largely associated with the tradition of the German romantic novel, is notable for the idea of ​​collective labor, embodied as a naive utopia of a craft community. Interest in the East, characteristic of romanticism, is reflected in the cycle “West-Eastern Divan” (1814-1819, published in 1819), inspired by Persian poetry. In the journalism of recent years, Goethe, rejecting Teutonomania and the mystical aspects of German romanticism, welcomes the collection of folk songs by L. I. Arnim and C. Brentano "The Magic Horn of a Boy" (1806-1808), highly appreciates Byron's romanticism. In polemic against the nationalistic tendencies that developed in Germany during and after the Napoleonic Wars, Goethe puts forward the idea of ​​"world literature", while not sharing the Hegelian skepticism in assessing the future of art.

The tragedy "Faust" (1st part - 1808, 2nd part - 1825-1831) sums up the development of the entire European educational thought of the 18th century and anticipates the problems of the 19th century. In processing the plot, Goethe relied on the folk book about Faust (1587), as well as on the puppet drama. The image of Faust embodies faith in the limitless possibilities of man. The inquisitive mind and daring of Faust are opposed to the fruitless efforts of the dry pedant Wagner, who fenced himself off from life, from the people. In the process of searching, Faust, overcoming the contemplativeness of German social thought, puts forward the act as the basis of being. The works of Goethe reflected the brilliant insights of dialectics (the monologue of the Spirit of the Earth, the contradictory aspirations of Faust himself). Goethe removes the metaphysical opposition of good and evil. Denial and skepticism, embodied in the image of Mephistopheles, become the driving force that helps Faust in his search for truth. The path to creation passes through destruction - such is the conclusion to which, according to Chernyshevsky, Goethe comes, summarizing the historical experience of his era. Gretchen's story becomes an important link in the search for Faust.

The tragic situation arises as a result of an insoluble contradiction between the ideal of a natural person, as Margarita appears to Faust, and the real appearance of a limited girl from a petty-bourgeois environment. At the same time, Margarita is a victim of social prejudices and dogmatism of church morality. In an effort to establish the humanistic ideal, Faust turns to antiquity. The marriage of Faust and Helen is a symbol of the unity of two eras. But this unity is only an illusion - Elena disappears, and their son dies. The result of Faust's searches is the conviction that the ideal must be realized on the real earth. At the same time, Goethe already understands that the new, bourgeois society being created on the ruins of feudal Europe is far from ideal. Faced with a complex set of problems of the 19th century, Goethe retains an Enlightenment optimism, but turns it to future generations when free labor on a free land becomes possible. In the name of that bright future, a person must act and fight. “Only he is worthy of life and freedom, Who goes to battle for them every day!” - this is the final conclusion that follows from Goethe's optimistic tragedy.

The death of Goethe, according to G. Heine, marked the end of the "artistic period" in German literature (a concept meaning that the interests of art then prevailed over socio-political ones).

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe- German poet, statesman, thinker.

Goethe is born August 28 1749 years in Frankfurt am Main in a wealthy bourgeois family. His father is an imperial adviser, a lawyer, his mother is a noblewoman, the daughter of a Frankfurt elder.

Already in childhood, Johann began to show amazing abilities for science. Already at the age of seven he knew several languages, in addition, at this age he began to write his first poems and compose plays. A talented child read a lot and tried to replenish his knowledge base as much as possible.

AT 1765 year Goethe becomes a student at the University of Leipzig, where he was supposed to study law. At this time, he falls in love for the first time, and this was the reason for the creation of the lyrical collection of poems "Annette" (1767).

Serious illness in 1768 year almost put an end to the biography of Johann Goethe, forcing the young man to leave his studies at the university, which he was able to continue only in 1770 in Strassburg. Here, along with the acquisition of legal knowledge, he studied natural sciences and medicine.

AT 1771 g. after defending his dissertation, Goethe becomes a doctor of law.

AT 1772 Goethe moves to Wetzlar to practice law. It is in this city that the poet experiences the pangs of unrequited love for his friend's fiancee Charlotte Buff. Goethe depicted his deep feelings and torments in his work “The Sufferings of Young Werther” - this novel made the poet famous.

AT 1775 In the year Johann Goethe receives an offer from his close friend, Prince Karl-August, to enter the civil service. He agrees and settles in Weimar. A well-known writer and poet, having broad powers, controlled finances, the state of roads, and education. For his success in this field, Goethe was elevated to the rank of nobleman in 1782, and in 1815 he became the first minister in the government of Charles August. 1791 was marked by the opening of a theater in the city, which happened with the direct participation of the writer.

AT 1784 In 1790, Goethe discovered the human premaxillary bone, and in 1790, the treatise “Experience in the Metamorphosis of Plants” was published.

When Goethe was almost sixty years old, he married Christiane Vulpius, his lover and mother of his children, in a civil marriage, despite the fact that she was a commoner, and this provoked public outcry.

In 1808, the first part of the tragedy Faust was published. The end of work on Faust falls on 1831.

Brilliant writer dies March 22, 1832, leaving his brilliant legacy in the form of many poems, ballads, plays, novels, scientific works in the field of anatomy, geology, mineralogy, physics.

The greatest poet and universal genius of German literature. He called his work "fragments of a huge confession." His autobiographical works, incl. Poetry and Truth (Dichtung und Wahrheit), which tells the story of the poet's childhood and youth up to 1775; Travel to Italy (Italienische Reise), an account of a trip to Italy in 1786–1788; The French campaign of 1792 (Die Campagne in Frankreich 1792) and the Siege of Mainz in 1793 (Die Belagerung von Mainz, 1793), as well as the Annals and Diaries (Annalen and Tag- und Jahreshefte), covering the period from 1790 to 1822, were all published in firm belief that it is impossible to appreciate poetry without first understanding its author.

Goethe was born on August 28, 1749 in Frankfurt am Main. “My father went to my harsh / way of life, physique; / In mother - the temper is always alive / And the attraction to tales ”(translated by D. Nedovich), - he wrote in one of his later poems. Goethe's first experiments in poetry belong to the age of eight. Not too strict home schooling under the supervision of his father, and then three years of student freemen at the University of Leipzig left him enough time to satisfy his craving for reading and try all the genres and styles of the Enlightenment, so that by the age of 19, when a serious illness forced him to interrupt his studies , he already mastered the techniques of versification and dramaturgy and was the author of a fairly significant number of works, most of which he later destroyed. A collection of poems by Annette (Das Buch Annette, 1767), dedicated to Anna Katharina Schonkopf, the daughter of the owner of the Leipzig tavern where Goethe used to dine, and the pastoral comedy The Caprices of a Lover (Die Laune des Verliebten, 1767) were specially preserved.

In Strasbourg, where in 1770-1771 Goethe completed his legal education, and for the next four years in Frankfurt he was the leader of a literary revolt against the principles established by J.H. Gottsched (1700-1766) and the theorists of the Enlightenment.

In Strasbourg, Goethe met J. G. Herder (1744–1803), the leading critic and ideologist of the Sturm und Drang movement, overflowing with plans to create great and original literature in Germany. Herder's enthusiastic attitude towards Shakespeare, Ossian, T. Percy's Monuments of Old English Poetry and folk poetry of all nations opened new horizons for the young poet, whose talent was just beginning to unfold. He wrote Goetz von Berlichingen (G tz von Berlichingen) and, using Shakespeare's "lessons", began work on Egmont (Egmont) and Faust (Faust); helped Herder collect German folk songs and composed many poems in the manner of a folk song. Goethe shared Herder's conviction that true poetry should come from the heart and be the fruit of the poet's own life experience, and not rewrite old patterns. This conviction became his main creative principle for the rest of his life. During this period, the ardent happiness that filled him with love for Friederike Brion, the daughter of the Sesenheim pastor, was embodied in the vivid imagery and sincere tenderness of such poems as Date and Parting (Willkommen und Abschied), May Song (Mailied) and With a Painted Ribbon (Mit einem bemalten Band); reproaches of conscience after parting with her were reflected in the scenes of abandonment and loneliness in Faust, Goetz, Clavigo and in a number of poems. Werther's sentimental passion for Lotte and his tragic dilemma: the love of a girl already engaged to another is part of Goethe's own life experience. Poems to Lily Schönemann, a young beauty from Frankfurt society, tell the story of his fleeting infatuation.

Eleven years at the Weimar court (1775-1786), where he was a friend and adviser to the young Duke Charles August, radically changed the life of the poet. Goethe was at the very center of court society - a tireless inventor and organizer of balls, masquerades, practical jokes, amateur performances, hunts and picnics, a trustee of parks, architectural monuments and museums. He became a member of the ducal Privy Council, and later a minister of state; he was in charge of laying roads, recruiting, public finances, public works, mining projects, etc. and spent many years studying geology, mineralogy, botany, and comparative anatomy. But most of all he benefited from his long daily contact with Charlotte von Stein. The emotionality and revolutionary iconoclasm of the Sturm und Drang period are a thing of the past; now the ideals of Goethe in life and art are restraint and self-control, poise, harmony and classical perfection of form. Instead of great geniuses, his heroes are quite ordinary people. The free stanzas of his poems are calm and serene in content and rhythm, but little by little the form becomes harsher, in particular Goethe prefers the octaves and elegiac couplets of the great "troika" - Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.

Goethe's numerous official duties seriously impeded the completion of the major works he had begun - Wilhelm Meister, Egmont, Iphigenie and Tasso. Taking a year and a half vacation, he travels to Italy, where he sculpts, makes more than a thousand landscape sketches, reads ancient poets and the history of ancient art by I. I. Winkelman (1717–1768).

Upon his return to Weimar (1789), Goethe did not immediately switch to a "sedentary" way of life. Over the next six years, he made a second trip to Venice, accompanied the Duke of Weimar on his trip to Breslau (Wroclaw), participated in the military campaign against Napoleon. In June 1794, he established friendly relations with F. Schiller, who asked for help in publishing a new magazine, Ory, and after that he lived mainly in Weimar. Daily communication of poets, discussion of plans, joint work on such ideas as satirical Xenia (Xenien, 1796) and ballads in 1797, were an excellent creative stimulus for Goethe. The works that lay in his desk were published, incl. Roman Elegies (R mische Elegien), the fruit of nostalgia for Rome and love for Christiane Vulpius, who became Goethe's wife in 1806. He completed the Years of Wilhelm Meister's teaching (Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, 1795-1796), continued to work on Faust and wrote a number of new works, incl. Alexis and Dora (Alexis und Dora), Amyntas (Amyntas) and Hermann and Dorothea (Hermann und Dorothea), an idyllic poem from the life of a small German town against the backdrop of the French Revolution. As for prose, Goethe then wrote a collection of short stories, Conversations of German Emigrants (Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten), which also included the inimitable Tale (Das M rchen).

When Schiller died in 1805, thrones and empires trembled as Napoleon reshaped Europe. During this period he wrote sonnets to Minna Herzlieb, the novel Elective Affinity (Die Wahlverwandtschaften, 1809) and an autobiography. At the age of 65, wearing an oriental Hatem mask, he created the West-East Diwan (West-stlicher Diwan), a collection of love lyrics. The Zuleika of this cycle, Marianne von Willemer, was herself a poetess, and her poems organically entered the Divan. Parables, deep observations and wise thoughts about human life, morality, nature, art, poetry, science and religion illuminate the verses of the West-Eastern divan. The same qualities are manifested in Conversations in prose and in verse (Spr che in Prosa, Spr che in Reimen), Orphic first verbs (Urworte. Orhisch, 1817), as well as in Conversations with I.P. Eckerman, published in the last decade of the poet's life when he was finishing Wilhelm Meister and Faust. Goethe died in Weimar on March 22, 1832.

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Goetz von Berlichingen with an iron hand (G tz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand, 1773), inspired by the historical chronicles of Shakespeare, gives a vivid realistic picture of Germany in the 16th century, drawing a conflict between the old imperial order, represented by its chivalry and peasantry, and new forces, the conflict princes and cities that are destined to determine modern life. The play Clavigo (Clavigo, 1774) is based on an episode from the memoirs of P.O.K. Beaumarchais; in contrast to Götsu, this is a compositionally simple modern tragedy from the life of the middle class, raised by Goethe to the level of a problematic play, where each character is right in his own way. The Hero of Egmont (Egmont, 1788) is a Dutch stadtholder (viceroy) of the time of Philip II, who was executed by the Spaniards during the struggle of the Netherlands for liberation from the Spanish yoke. Freedom is the main theme of the tragedy. The use of an orchestra accompanying the allegorical vision of the goddess Liberty in the last act caused sharp criticism at the time, but later Schiller also resorted to this technique - this was the first step towards Wagnerian musical dramas, Beethoven's overture to Egmont continued this tradition. Iphigenia in Tauris (Iphigenie auf Tauris, 1787) is a truly beautiful hymn to Goethe's woman. In contrast to Iphigenia Euripides, a cunning intriguer, Goethe's heroine, having set herself the lofty goal of removing the family curse, achieves this goal by refusing blood feud, does not change herself under any circumstances and lives a pure, sinless life, confident that the gods approve of her philanthropy . Torquato Tasso (Torquato Tasso, 1790) - stunning to the core and, with all the restrictions imposed by the sublimity of poetic language and classical form, a realistic and convincing tragedy of a genius threatened by madness. The novel Electoral Affinity (Die Wahlverwandtschaften, 1809) examines the problems of divorce in detail and without prejudice.

Published in 1774, the sentimental psychological novel in the letters The Suffering of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) brought the author worldwide fame. The first part contains more or less exact circumstances of Goethe's unhappy love for Charlotte (Lotta) Buff, the bride of his friend GK Kestner, in the summer of 1772 in Wetzlar. The second part is based on the unlucky fate of KV Yeruzalem, the Brunswick plenipotentiary secretary: despised by the aristocratic society of the Judicial Chamber, harassed by his superiors and in love with his colleague's wife, he committed suicide in October 1772. The crystallization of these materials and characters, however, took place under the influence of a painful incident that happened to Goethe in February 1774 in the house of Maximilian's jealous husband Brentano.

The unprecedented success of the novel cannot be attributed only to the unsurpassed skill with which Goethe clothed an ordinary love story in epistolary form. Here is the credo of a whole generation that rebelled against the primitive optimistic rationalism of the fathers, who saw the action of speculative laws in the wondrous abundance of nature, in its mysterious Creator - a kind of watchmaker, in the events of life - a set of moral prescriptions, and in the roundabout paths of losses and gains - the torrent path to happiness attainable by rational behavior. In spite of all this, Werther proclaimed the right of the heart.

Wilhelm Meister is the main character in Goethe's dilogy Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre and Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. By genre, this is a novel of education (Bildungsroman), revealing the organic spiritual development of the hero as life experience accumulates. The first edition of the novel - Wilhelm Meister's Theatrical Vocation (Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung, written in 1777-1786) - was discovered in Switzerland in 1910 and was published in 1911. The novel is remarkable for its realistic description of the actor's life, the life of burghers and aristocrats, and is truly unique in German, French and English playwrights, in particular Shakespeare. Wilhelm Meister's years of study (1795–1796) were inspired by Schiller's friendly participation; six books of the Theatrical Vocation were included in the first four books of the new edition, but were revised from a more mature position of the author. According to the new plan, Meister was to be led into a more universal, humanistic conception of life, which could only be achieved by associating with aristocrats. The theater undoubtedly retains its educational value, but only as a detour in the direction of the ideal, and not as an end in itself. Years of wandering, written in the last years of his life (publ. 1829), again demonstrate the changes in philosophy and manner of writing, which is typical for Goethe, who always tried to keep pace with changing times. The Industrial Revolution, much more important in its consequences than the fleeting French Revolution, confirmed how radically times have changed since the Years of Learning were completed. It is noteworthy that at the end of his European travels, Wilhelm emigrated with his family and a group of friends to America, where they intended to create a democratic brotherhood of workers.

Faust is the central figure of many legends, found more than once in the history of literature. It took Goethe more than 60 years to complete the processing of the legend according to the master plan drawn up in 1770. The first part did not appear until 1808. The second part - with the exception of the magnificent tragedy of Helena in act III, begun in 1800 and published in 1827 - mainly the work of the last years of the writer's life (1827-1831); completed shortly before Goethe's death and published in 1833.

The two great antagonists of the mystery tragedy are God and the devil, and the soul of Faust is only the field of their battle, which will certainly end in the defeat of the devil. This concept explains the contradictions in Faust's character, his passive contemplation and active will, selflessness and selfishness, humility and audacity - the author skillfully reveals the dualism of his nature at all stages of the hero's life.

The tragedy can be divided into five acts of unequal size, in accordance with the five periods of the life of Dr. Faust. In act I, which ends with an agreement with the devil, Faust the metaphysician tries to resolve the conflict between two souls - contemplative and active, which symbolize respectively the Macrocosm and the Spirit of the Earth. Act II, the tragedy of Gretchen, which concludes the first part, reveals Faust as a sensualist in conflict with spirituality. Part two, which takes Faust into the free world, to higher and purer spheres of activity, is allegorical through and through, it is like a dream play, where time and space do not matter, and the characters become signs of eternal ideas. The first three acts of the second part form a single whole and together form act III. In them, Faust appears as an artist, first at the court of the Emperor, then in classical Greece, where he unites with Helen of Troy, a symbol of harmonious classical form. The conflict in this aesthetic realm is between the pure artist, who makes art for art's sake, and the eudemonist, who seeks personal pleasure and glory in art. The culmination of Helena's tragedy is her marriage to Faust, in which the synthesis of classics and romanticism finds expression, which both Goethe himself and his beloved student J. G. Byron were looking for. Goethe paid poetic tribute to Byron, endowing him with the features of Euphorion, the offspring of this symbolic marriage. In Act IV, which ends with Faust's death, he is presented as a military leader, engineer, colonist, business man, and empire builder. He is at the pinnacle of his earthly accomplishments, but internal discord still torments him, because he is unable to achieve human happiness without destroying human life, nor is he able to create a paradise on earth with abundance and work for all without resorting to bad means. The devil, always present, is in fact necessary. This act ends with one of the most impressive episodes created by Goethe's poetic fantasy - Faust's meeting with Care. She announces his near death, but he arrogantly ignores her, remaining a masterful and imprudent titan until his last breath. The last act, the ascension and transfiguration of Faust, where Goethe freely used the symbols of Catholic heaven, completes the mystery with a majestic finale, with the prayer of saints and angels for the salvation of Faust's soul by the grace of a good God.

Faust's influence on German and world literature is enormous. Nothing compares to Faust in poetic beauty, and in terms of the integrity of the composition, only Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's Divine Comedy.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe - the greatest German poet, educator, statesman, politician, natural scientist, thinker, philosopher. His homeland was the city of Frankfurt am Main, where on August 28, 1749 he was born into the family of an imperial adviser and a noblewoman. With the genes of his burgher father, scrupulousness, stamina, curiosity were transferred to him, from his mother Johann Wolfgang inherited an interest in writing. Wealthy parents did not spare money for his education. In 1755, home teachers were invited to the boy. At the age of seven, a capable child knew several languages, at the age of 8 he wrote the first poems in his life, composed plays that were played in a home puppet theater. The young Goethe replenished his baggage of knowledge on his own, often looking into the rich home library.

In 1765, the 16-year-old Goethe was a law student at the University of Leipzig. In 1767, he wrote the first collection of lyrical poems - "Annette", which he was inspired by his first love. In 1768, Goethe became so ill that he had to forget about his studies. He resumed his education only in 1770, but already at the University of Strasbourg. During this period, he not only received knowledge of jurisprudence, but also paid considerable attention to the study of natural science, medicine, and was seriously interested in literature. In Strasbourg, he met Herder, and this meeting revolutionized Goethe's views on creativity, on culture in general. Here, in Strasbourg, his formation as a poet takes place, here he turns into one of the brightest representatives of the Sturm und Drang movement.

In 1771, after defending his dissertation, Goethe became a doctor of law. In order not to disappoint his relatives, the newly minted lawyer worked as a lawyer, moving to Wetzlar in 1772, but literary activity, his true passion, was extremely intense during this period. Under the influence of a new love, he wrote the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), which made Goethe famous throughout the world. Personal circumstances (falling in love with a friend's fiancee) forced the writer to leave Wetzlar. Departure drew a line under a whole period in his biography - a stormy youth, passionate hobbies and sentimentalism in his work.

In the autumn of 1775, Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, invites the illustrious author of The Sorrows of Young Werther to his service as a manager. In this regard, Goethe moves to Weimar in order to stay here forever. Karl August endowed him with broad powers, the famous writer had to deal with finances, education, culture, etc., and in the field of public service he turned out to be no less talented. In 1782, the duke awarded him a noble title for his successful work, and in 1815 Goethe had the honor of becoming the first minister of the government formed by Karl August.

With all his busyness, Goethe found time for literary activity. So, in 1796, the novel “The Years of the Teaching of Wilhelm Meister” was completed, in 1808 - the first part of the tragedy “Faust”, one of those works that make up the treasury of world literature. The idea for the book arose as early as 1770, and work on it did not stop until the writer's death.

In the autumn of 1806, Goethe, who was already under 60, ignoring the discontent of the court, married a commoner Christiane Vulpius, an old lover and mother of his children. In 1826, the list of Goethe's regalia was supplemented by his election as an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He was an excellent illustration of the thesis that a talented person is talented in everything, having gained fame not only as a writer, but also as a natural scientist. Throughout his life, Goethe published scientific works on mineralogy, geology, comparative morphology of flora and fauna, anatomy, acoustics, and optics. It is difficult to find a topic that he, with his inherent depth and artistic talent, did not touch upon in literary work: the Great Weimar edition of Goethe's works amounted to almost one and a half hundred volumes. The great son of the German people met old age and death in Weimar, which became his native, and died on March 22, 1832.