Goethe's Faust - by Jane K Brown (Paperback)

About the Book

In this book, Jane K. Brown offers an original reading of Goethe's complex masterpiece in the context of European Romanticism. Looking at the two parts of Faust in sequence, she views the second part as an elaboration of what was implicit in the...

Book Synopsis

In this book, Jane K. Brown offers an original reading of Goethe's complex masterpiece in the context of European Romanticism. Looking at the two parts of Faust in sequence, she views the second part as an elaboration of what was implicit in the first, and she clarifies the patterns of thought and organization underlying the play. In Faust, she argues, Goethe not only situates German culture within the wider European literary tradition, but also demonstrates that all literature is by its nature allusive--that it exists only as part of a tradition.

Review Quotes

This is a major interpretation of Goethe's Faust, the most challenging and innovative one since Stuart Atkins's 1958 analysis, at least in English, if not in any language. The author accomplishes her goals well: to show that Faust belongs to the genre of non-Aristotelian, illusionist drama; to locate the work within the European literary tradition; and to pursue its epistemological concerns by taking it up scene by scene and act by act.