Faust's pursuit of truth can be divided into five stages: ① scholar's life, ② love life, ③ political life, ④ pursuit of classical beauty, and ⑤ transformation of nature.
Faust's image shows the duality of the bourgeoisie, which is both enterprising and eager to enjoy. He said: "Anyone who strives for self-improvement can finally be saved by our generation." This spirit of never being satisfied, constantly pursuing and striving for self-improvement is the so-called Faust spirit. Faust's life is permeated with the spirit of criticizing reality and dialectical spirit. He and the evil incarnation Mephisto fellers are interdependent and interactive, which is the embodiment of dialectical philosophy.
Mephistopheles's image embodies the spirit of evil and negation, and he holds a contemptuous and mocking attitude towards everything. His sobriety can often reveal the nature of ugly things. He led Faust out of his study, led him to live a happy life, and tempted him to do evil again and again. In fact, it was he who kept Faust moving towards truth, goodness and beauty, and he became an indispensable driving force on Faust's way forward. The author shows such a philosophy through Mephisto fellers: the role of evil is not all destruction, "It is in the struggle against evil that human beings have overcome their own contradictions and made progress."
The artistic features of Faust;
(1) has a complex image and a grand conception, and adopts a creative method combining realism with romanticism.
(2) Various poetic forms and means of expression have been adopted since ancient times.
Analysis of Faust's image
Faust, the hero of Faust, is a representative of positive enterprising spirit and a self-reliant and persistent explorer image. For the true meaning of life, in order to observe short, perfect and beautiful moments, he is not afraid to gamble on his own blood and soul; In the process of exploring the meaning of life and the ideal society, he showed an endless, persevering and extraordinary perseverance and character. He has withstood all kinds of temptations and tests; Bet with Mephistopheles to arouse his belief in re-exploration; The tragedy of passionate love made him stop pursuing sensory enjoyment; Political tragedy made him escape from reality; The disillusionment of classical ideals brought him back to reality to find a way to realize them. He is never satisfied, never shows weakness, and never stops exploring. "Nothing can satisfy his heart on earth or in heaven", and he has been doing good. These constitute the most distinctive characteristics of personality. This is a portrayal of some intellectuals eager to get rid of ignorance and gain true knowledge during the rise of the European bourgeoisie. Faust is also a representative of ordinary human beings, and has a distinct duality in human beings: on the one hand, driven by life instinct and lust, he is often addicted to real desires such as fame and fortune, status, power, women and beauty; On the other hand, he was not confused by personal desires and reality, but bravely surpassed himself again and again and moved towards a new life. On the one hand, he wants to be celibate, pursue the truth and start a career, on the other hand, he is obsessed with the lingering affair of his children; On the one hand, it is a sober ideal society, on the other hand, it is a blind and decadent supporter of kingship. The contradiction between "spirit" and "flesh" and the struggle between "good" and "evil" in Faust embodies Goethe's materialist dialectical thought, shows the complexity and authenticity of human beings, and also reflects the arduousness of human pursuit of truth.
The image significance of Faust lies in pointing out a road of spiritual purification, the meaning of life and the ideal of life that people should pursue, and leading people to the great road of unremitting struggle for lofty ideals.
Dialectical Relationship between Faust and Mephisto fellers
In the poetic drama Faust, Mephistopheles is the antithesis of Faust. He does evil subjectively and does good objectively, which is a supplement to Faust's image. He played an objective role in promoting Faust's exploration of life: he introduced Faust to the world with the main purpose of tempting Faust to fall, in fact, helping him get rid of dark study and join social practice; He tempted Faust to do evil many times, but objectively made Faust wake up from his mistakes and setbacks and move towards a higher realm; He faithfully fulfilled the mission entrusted to him by God: to spur people's mental slackness and laziness in seeking comfort and inspire people to work harder. In a word, Mephistopheles and Faust are the unity of opposites, and Faust's satisfaction is the time of his death. On the one hand, their bet contract shows that Mephistopheles helped him. In order to possess him, there must be gains and losses, and the relationship between gains and losses is dialectical. At the same time, their bet, especially the death of Faust, shows that the pursuit of truth should not be endless, and satisfaction will inevitably stop, and stopping means death. Contradictions will always exist, and the day when contradictions are resolved is the time when things die and disappear. So enterprising can't be satisfied. The Emperor of Heaven finally accepted Faust to heaven, which not only shows that good will definitely overcome evil, but also shows that evil can in turn promote good. Faust was constantly pursued under the impetus of Mephistopheles. Therefore, Mephistopheles and Faust embody the complementary relationship of opposites between good and evil.
The Artistic Features of Faust
Faust has its unique artistic style.
① Poetic drama is based on fantasy, and realism is combined with fantasy. Heaven and earth, the reality of ancient times, the devil on earth, the author interweaves fantasy scenes with real life to create a magnificent and peculiar artistic picture, making Faust not only an ode to bourgeois agitation, but also a profound summary of German real life.
② In characterization, the most prominent thing is to use dialectics to depict the main characters. The unity of opposites between Faust's spirit and flesh, and Mephistopheles's evil and good promoted the development of the whole plot and showed their respective personality characteristics. The work also depicts the group image of the characters through contradiction and contrast. Heaven emperor and devil are the contrast between reason and lust; Faust and Mephistopheles are the contrast between human beings and demons; Faust and Margaret are the contrast between intellectuals and natural persons. Contrast makes their personality characteristics more distinct.
(3) The forms of works are diversified. The poetic drama begins with free rhyme, Margaret uses folk songs, and Helen uses ancient Greek tragic poems. Almost all European poems appeared in the works at that time. Narration, lyricism and discussion are integrated to make the works rich and colorful. In addition, poetic drama uses a lot of symbols, and criticizing the church is often used as a metaphor. However, a large number of fantasy scenes, the appearance of characters and the use of symbolism confuse readers. Especially in the second part of the poetic drama, there are many abstract expositions, which make some parts of the work deviate from the theme and appear loose.
Goethe's World Significance
Goethe is a great German national poet and the most outstanding representative of German classical literature and national literature. During his creative career of more than 60 years, he created a lot of excellent poems, plays and novels, and became the most important writer in Germany from the middle of18th century to the beginning of19th century, and also one of the greatest writers in the history of world literature. His representative poetic drama Faust is a work about the world and life, which has philosophical significance, that is, people always have conflicts with the outside world, and failure and disaster are inevitable, but the protagonist determines his own nature with his own actions, thus laying the foundation of modern personality. Goethe revealed the true meaning of life in Faust: "We should explore life and freedom every day before we can enjoy freedom and life", which undoubtedly has great reference significance for modern people. It was Goethe who first put forward the concept of "world literature" and promoted the process of global literature integration.