/lit/ - Literature

When you think about it, isn't Goethe's Faust a subversion of the actual Faust legend?

In a straight telling of the legend, the story ends with Faust going to Hell, usually being dragged there by demons, as a result of selling his soul to Mephistopheles. But at the end of Goethe's closet drama, when Faust actually dies, HIS soul manages to escape the clutches of Mephistopheles and float up to Heaven. As though the message Goethe wants to convey is that you can make a deal with the Devil and still go to Heaven when you die. That's not how the Faust legend typically goes.

I've read The Sorrows Of Young Werther and I've read Faust Part 1 and Faust Part 2. Where do I go from here with Big G?

>>23047213
they just burned their brain after a decade of liquor and heroin. tough shit junkie.

Thinking it profound, I began to compose a work wherein I compared the progress of a man's thinking to the four elements. To begin with man is bound to Earth, considering only the needs of their body and indeed eking out an existence from the labor that is attached to land, and the peasants never graduated past this base point.
The thinking man then looked upward and came to know of the great wide world of thought and learning and wisdom far beyond the Earth, and they study with a ravenous, new hunger all things, flitting away as a feather carried by the wind, they become Air.
Air however is able to do very little, and indeed this learning does not turn to anything useful until a true passion is discovered, and thus is Air transformed to Fire, as a cause or a deeply beloved pursuit is discovered. Through Fire comes light and warmth and all things worthy, and yet it may also consume the man entirely, and one can only burn for so long until they are utterly spent.
Those who survive this trial and come out the other side tempered with wisdom from experience, indeed develope temperance itself and moderation, they then become like Water, seeping into every crevice through the path of least resistance; with reason they douse the Fire of others and nurture those who still dwell in the Earth, and though they may be shaken by the ever blowing winds of the studious Air, in time Water always settles to its container, filling it and offering both a profound depth and a mirror of the very heavens.
I thought it all well said, but Mortimer asked me then if still waters wouldn't simply stagnate and grow foul and bitter. Very well then, water should keep running, I replied. But you doofus, don't you see? Water that constantly runs is no different from the blowing wind.
And so I saw the folly of my metaphor. I scrapped it and looked to the sky, where beyond a veil of clouds the sun could be spied by a golden glow, and I knew there was still time to produce something before the readings of the evening, and that I would at least this day not be cast out of the contest for the title of archpoet.
Mortimer made a small fire on which we brewed tea from salty herbs and pondered crackle of burning wood and the sweet scent of smoke and for a time all the poetry in the word was there in that campfire.

As a young poet I went to a likely location to seek inspiration. There, amid ruins overrun by nature, on the shores of a lake I sat at the campfire of a fellow artist, a man much my senior.
"A man's life progresses through the elements," he said to me, "and you are following the path as sure as I have walked it."
"Do tell!" I implored him, opening a notebook.
"At the first are all men tied to Earth. A child cares little for anything beyond their immediate needs, and so it is with the peasants and plebeians, the men and women who till the soil or while away their time at menial labor, content. But next comes the loftiness of Air, the flights of fancy and imagination, dreams of betterment of oneself and the freedom of seeking after the impossible. Men bound to Air fly about from one thing to another, unrooted, half-awake and half-asleep. They accomplish nothing but study everything, superficially."
I nodded my head at this and jotted it down, thinking there was some superficial wisdom in it. The man continued.
"Next comes Fire, the element of passion. A man finds his calling and dedicates himself to it to the exclusion of all else; all his energies are given to his chosen art or craft or cause, and this Fire in time will consume him. Such men may produce works of merit and worth, but they will not do so for long."
"Indeed, indeed. Fire is dangerous," I admitted and beckoned for him to continue.
"Then at last comes Water, and Water is wisdom. Water flows downhill, through the path of least resistance. Water wears down all opposition in time, leaving behind permanent marks in the world. Wisdom overrides passion, there is focus that is lacking in Air, there is a connection to the Earth again."
"I see," I said, "then Water is the supreme element in your system?"
"On the contrary, boy. Water is in the gravest of dangers, for if it ever reaches the sea, it becomes mixed with a greater body of Water, and thus is the man and all his works mixed with the teeming millions, forgotten by all, indistinguishable from the works of any other. But if Water should cease to flow, it would only grow stagnant and foul, of no value to anyone."
"What hope is there, then?" I asked, dropping in my absentminded stupor a blotch of ink over my notes.
"To evaporate, my boy. To turn to Steam and rise to the Heavens."
"And how is this done?"
"Like so!" said the man, and dropped his pants. He pissed on our campfire a mighty stream of urine, a deep yellow in color and mighty in fragrance, and indeed this piss rose up from the flames in a Steam.
Thus did I abandon poetry and art and got a real job, for madness was all that awaited down the road of these fanciful things.

In this thread everything related to Goethe is discussed. Which books have you read by Goethe? Is der West-Östliche Divan a good book?
I am currently reading Faust part 2. It's fun but a bit more difficult than Faust part 1. I have read Safranski's biography which was great. Which is your favourite Goethe book?

>Goethe read Nerval's translation of Faust and called it "very successful", even claiming that he preferred it to the original.

I got back my mojo, AMA

>>19346400
Overwrought pesudo-religious Germanic romanticism.... Gee, I wonder what authors are like that...

>write your most famous work for practically your entire adult life, die before it's fully published
Is it worth it?

>>18808671
I cut out 2k useless words and I'm back to 133k words but with greater integrity. 3 chapters remain to be finished.
Dare I say I'll be done this week?

is it possible to truly read him in english?

Where do I start with it? Obviously the Greeks, all the way up to its culmination, which was Goethe. But is there a chart, or a book that contains the complete works of the greatest poems?

Where can I get a hold of these, in particular the ones he wrote to his sister?

Can anyone recommend any books in particular by the Wunderkind of Deutschland?

I was listening to an anthology of poems in foreign languages and I was deeply impressed by the sound of Goethe's poetry (as an American). Before I had only really known him in translation through the Sorrows of Young Werther and Faust and I hadn't been very impressed by either.

Is there something I am missing out on?

>>15339493
>I'm worried the blaze it 420 fags might read this out of context and start idolizing Goethe like they do Bob Marley.
Why? That would be based. Imagine if every stoner dorm room had a poster of this

What is the best translation of Goethe's Faust?

Books on Bildung and cultivating the self?

This kraut fuck singlehandledly ushered globalism into aristocratic esteem. “Weltsmensch” my ass, Goethe’s life marked the beginning of the degeneration of Wetsern tradition, prove me wrong

>>12962355
>Freemason
> "I am not anti-Christian, nor un-Christian, but most decidedly non-Christian,"
>"I like boys a lot, but the girls are even nicer. If I tire of her as a girl, she'll play the boy for me as well"

Goethe is a very questionable choice for a protestant author.

>Girth