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Bezig met laden... Faust the Theologiandoor Jaroslav Pelikan
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In this erudite and beautifully written book, an eminent scholar meditates on the theological implications of Goethe's Faust. Jaroslav Pelikan reflects on Goethe's statement that he was a pantheist when it came to science, a polytheist in art, and a monotheist in ethics, and he uses it for the first time to analyze Faust's development as a theologian. By so doing, Pelikan enables us to see Goethe's masterpiece in a surprising new light.Pelikan begins by discussing Faust's role as natural scientist or pantheist. He examines Faust's disenchantment with traditional knowledge, considers his interests in geology, oceanography, and optics, and analyzes his perception of nature as a realm inspirited throughout by a single unifying Power. Pelikan next follows Faust on his journeys to the two Walpurgis Nights, where he shows how Faust reveals his delight in the polytheistic extravaganzas of Germanic and especially of Greek mythology. Finally Pelikan describes the operatic finale of the book, where Faust's spirit is drawn upward to salvation by the Eternal Feminine, and he argues that this marks Faust's evolution into moral philosopher and monotheist. Pelikan's analysis thus reveals thematic unities and a dialectical development of Faust's character that have been unnoticed heretofore. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)832.6Literature German and related languages German drama 1750–1832 : 18th century; classical period; romantic periodLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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The essay is divided into four parts: a preliminary overview on the characterization of Faust as a theologian, a section on "The Natural Scientist as Pantheist," one on "The Poetic Artist as Polytheist," and last "The Moral Philosopher as Monotheist." Pelikan emphasizes that these are never mutually exclusive in the text, and that Goethe's construal of the three placed them as informing and enhancing one another.
Goethe was nothing like a conventional Christian of a well-defined creed, and his own theological perspective is an issue in the book. But the primary focus is not on Goethe, but on his fictional character, and what ideas and perspectives can be attributed to Faust within Goethe's poem. Although Faust the Theologian was written with the aim of accessibility to casual readers as well as persuasiveness to literary scholars, I suspect it is mostly the latter who would be able to sustain their interest through the course of this book.