GOETHE'S FAUST - 626

Goethe’s Faust is often considered the most important work both of Goethe’s life, and of the modern German literary tradition. Written and revised over six decades, the play updates an old German story about experimentation and the limits of human autonomy; it integrates, recasts and anticipates18 th and 19 th-century developments in European intellectual history; it explores virtually every metric and generic form that would be available in German by the time of Goethe’s death in 1832; and it has been invoked as a test case by literary, aesthetic, philosophical, political and social theories of the past 200 years.

This course combines close readings of the play in its various historical contexts, and analysis of a broad range of theoretical projects that have focused on this text, especially in recent decades.

Discussion in English. Primary literature available in English. Secondary literature in English and German. Interested students without reading knowledge of German are asked to contact Nicholas Rennie in advance at nrennie@rci.rutgers.edu.