Welcome back to The Invisible College, my series of literature courses for paid subscribers. The introduction to and schedule for the 2025 season is here. The 2024 archive is here. This episode, the second in a sequence on modern western world literature, concerns Faust, Part II by Goethe. I unravel crucial themes in this famously difficult experimental dramatic poem: the philosophy of money, the conflict between youth and age, the creation of artificial life, the conflict between Classic and Gothic cultures, the end of Romanticism, the potential and costs of technological progress, the multifarious representation of masculine and feminine, and the question of salvation. Plus, critical commentary from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Mann, Harold Bloom, and Goethe biographer Nicholas Boyle, who designates Faust, Part II not an example of Classical, Enlightenment, or Romantic literature but rather a quintessentially postmodern work. Please like, share, comment, and subscribe! The slideshow corresponding to the episode can be downloaded behind the paywall:
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