Naturwissenschaft, Mythos, Kunst: Licht und Finsternis in Goethes ‚Faust‘

Abstract

Light and darkness are examined as central motifs in Goethe’s ‘Faust’ in four thematic complexes: 1. christian-divine light; 2. art; 3. remembering and forgetting and 4. seeing. These themes are brought together with four contemporary discourses: 1. natural science, specifically the physics of light; 2. mythology; 3. psychology and 4. art. This results in many interpretative approaches for ‘Faust’, such as the light that creates harmony/order in the ›Prolog‹ or Mephisto as the attacker of this harmony/order, who implicitly pleads for the dark unconscious. The concept of obscure or dark and light states of consciousness as well as the psychology of obscure perceptions are also discussed several times. The role of reflection from contemporary painting as a way of illuminating dark shadows is applied to Mephisto. The thesis that light in ‘Faust’ emerges from darkness is anchored in the discourses of the physics of light, natural philosophy and religion and, related to this, the Romantic idea of a dialectical world formula, is identified. In the ›Zueignung‹, the wavering forms are made legible as muses, and the poetic figure and consequently the text itself are interpreted as holding the key to the world formula. Illusion and (self-)­deception are discussed as well as the correspondences between the lighting situation and the inner brightness level of the figures. In addition to the link between the night and ­remembering and forgetting, the performance of a contemporary glare experiment in the ›Anmutige Gegend‹ is elaborated. In the case of seeing, the sinful-sexual side is also illuminated, as well as the nocturnal blindness towards the end of Part II.