000			03097cam a22003253u 4500
001			77226
003			UtSlPG
005			20260610134805.0
006			m
007			cr n
008			260607r20251835utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d
040			_aUtSlPG
041		7	_ade _2iso639-1
050		4	_aPT
100	1		_aCarus, Carl Gustav, _d1789-1869
245	1	0	_aBriefe über Göthe's Faust.
264		1	_aSalt Lake City, UT : _bProject Gutenberg, _c2025
300			_a1 online resource : _bmultiple file formats
336			_atext _btxt _2rdacontent
337			_acomputer _bc _2rdamedia
338			_aonline resource _bcr _2rdacarrier
500			_aErstes Heft. Ein Vorwort und drei Brief enthaltend.
500			_aNo more published.
500			_aRelease date is 2025-11-13
508			_aKarl Eichwalder and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.)
520			_a"Briefe über Göthe's Faust." by Carl Gustav Carus is a collection of literary-critical letters written in the early 19th century. It reflects on Goethe’s Faust as a grand drama of human development, reading the poem through a scientific-philosophical lens that stresses metamorphosis, error, redemption, and the elevating pull of the feminine, while setting Goethe alongside Dante and the visual arts. The opening of the work begins with a personal preface to a longtime friend, explaining the intimate, reflective origin of these letters and expecting only a small, sympathetic readership. The first letter situates Goethe in the spirit of his age and argues that his scientific sense of “genetic” development shapes his poetry; Faust is cast as his titanic life-task, comparable to Dante’s Commedia, and Carus warns against biographical literalism, instead presenting the soul’s progress (with sin as a purifying stage) through plant-like metamorphoses and mythic parallels. The second letter poses the core question—can Faust be saved after binding himself to evil?—and answers yes: great souls undergo violent transformations; salvation rests on unwearying striving rather than sloth, a view illustrated by Dürer’s Melencolia and sealed by the poem’s “Wer immer strebend sich bemüht.” It also rejects crude calls for punitive damnation, emphasizing inner torment as the soul’s own chastisement and the role of grace. At the start of the third letter, Carus examines the “Ewig-Weibliche,” invoking Beatrice and Marian symbolism to argue that the feminine principle calms, purifies, and lifts the striving spirit. He reads Gretchen as Faust’s first experience of “the infinite happiness of limitation,” then turns toward Helena and the descent to the “Mothers” as a passage into Platonic ideas and the essence of Beauty, where the excerpt breaks off. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534			_nOriginal publication data not identified
653			_aGoethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832. Faust
856	4	0	_uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77226
999			_c117946 _d117946