is a verse drama of some 7500 lines in five acts. Its resemblance to normal tragedy extends no further. Faust travels not only through space, from Germany to Greece and back, but also through time as he engages with sphinxes, griffons and other mythological monsters, Helen of Troy, the Renaissance court of the German Emperor, and the contemporary world of land drainage projects. The plot proceeds in dream-like fashion with unexplained leaps through time and space, with the continuity provided neither by action nor character, but exclusively through thematic connections. Even within the more or less coherent units of the individual acts there are substantial variations in tone, style, verse form and dramatic genre. The text includes passages that sometimes imitate and…
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Citation: Brown, Jane K.. "Faust: Der Tragödie zweiter Teil". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 December 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16640, accessed 21 November 2024.]
