Faust (Avenarius)
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| Title: | Fist. A game |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Ferdinand Avenarius |
| Publishing year: | 1919 |
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Fist. A play is a drama in five acts (acts) and a prelude by Ferdinand Avenarius . It is mainly written in blank verse . It was first printed in 1919.
content
foreplay
The drama is designed as a continuation of Goethe's Faust I and begins immediately afterwards. A monk (the brother ) leads the exhausted Faust into a shelter on a stormy night. He wants to accompany him to Rome the next day, where Faust wants to atone for his deeds. During the night a voice penetrates Faust, apparently the Gretchens, two weeks after her executioner death, to which she was sentenced as a child murderer. Suddenly Mephistopheles appears, reminding Faust of his great ambitions and now mocking him for wanting to atone. Faust wakes the monk and warns to leave. Mephistopheles wants to follow the two, but the monk banishes him with the cross.
First act
Carnival in Rome, hustle and bustle. Faust arrives in town and is received as a guest by the prince. Six friends of the prince are introduced to him: a builder, a humanist, a painter, a researcher, a teacher, a poet. Together they talk shop about a newly found statue of Eros when another guest arrives and calls them to the Capitol, where “a young Roman woman / in death” was found who has outlasted the centuries with her face.
It turns out to be Helena . A captain of the Swiss Guard pushes the curious people back from the marble sarcophagus and closes the room. There suddenly Mephistopheles appears from a flame, begins to conjure up Helena and bring her to life: “Helena, get up!” After the resurrection, Mephistopheles pretends to be an oriental doctor.
On a walk, Faust and Helena discuss his heaviness of mind, conscious of the past, and its light-heartedness, which knows no yesterday but only a today. In his garden, the prince addresses Helena, and finally the Pope appears and talks to her. When Faust tries to make sure of her at night, she tells him that the prince and the pope want to see her too. Faust is angry and stabs her with a dagger, but it breaks. In addition, Helena freezes into a statue, while Mephistopheles appears on the scene with roaring laughter. He showed Faust his weakness again. By virtue of her contract, Faust orders Mephistopheles to go away.
The monk ( brother ) has found Faust again. You go to the church of San Pietro in Vincoli . The monk prays, while Faust meets the aged Michelangelo , who is currently chiseling on the robe of his statue of Moses , and asks him questions about happiness and fulfillment. Michelangelo's answers are incomprehensible to the monk, he urges to leave.
Second act
In a German university town, Faust meets his old professor who is dissecting a corpse with his students. The professor weighs down the canon’s objection that this corpse belongs to the church. After sending his students off on summer vacation, he talks to Faust about both their views on their profession as scientists. A messenger enters and brings a book with tables and equations from an old friend of the professor who has since passed away. The professor and Faust are calculating a few things when suddenly the canon and servants of the Inquisition come in. The professor announces that he now has scientific proof that the earth revolves around the sun . The Canon has him taken away, Faust remains behind.
Third act
A predicant gives a speech in front of farmers about the unreasonable demands of the authorities. Five episcopal horsemen appear, leading a captured farmer whom they harass.
In his sermon in the university church, the canon justifies the arrest of the professor. Faust contradicts him in the middle of the sermon. The angry Canon wants to have him seized, but Faust is not only protected by the students, but also led to the pulpit, where he calls for action, and the students swear to him that they will heed this call.
Faust waits with a renegade knight-captain in a country school room for the leaders of the peasant army ( Bundschuh movement ). When they arrive, they discuss who should lead the storm on Grafenstein Castle. You are voting for the newly added Deix. However, this turns out to be Mephistopheles. The peasant troop led by him successfully took the castle, Mephistopheles allowed the subsequent arson to take place, against the protest of a few. The situation gets out of hand, just as the crowd is about to burn the priest, Faust appears. He reminds Mephistopheles of their pact and orders him to stop the goings-on. He also demands to be brought before the emperor.
Fourth act
The young emperor holds an audience in an imperial city. At his side is Mephistopheles, who has offered himself up as a fool. The Chancellor leads the audience, he doesn't like the presence of Mephistopheles at all.
Treasurer and prelate give their lectures, followed by the captain, who points out the raging peasant struggle. Finally, an adventurer is brought in who was there to conquer an overseas gold country. Disaffected, he tells of the brutal proselytizing of the locals and the gold robbery, so that the young emperor does not know what to do about it. To change the subject, Fool-Mephistopheles suggests that Faust be heard. This describes the situation of the peasants and reminds the emperor of his promise to rule as a “people's emperor” for the benefit of all. But his request fades, and the audience is finally over.
The Chancellor remains behind with Faust. Faust confronts the Chancellor, whose cynical worldview drives him insane. When Faust is about to be led away, a diabolical voice appears to him, offering him power on earth, but Faust cannot make up his mind to worship evil.
Fifth act
The renegade knight-captain rests on a mountain slope with the last survivors of the rioters. They learn that their planned retreat, the knight's castle, is on fire. In the meantime the news arrives that the professor has been executed. When everyone has gone to sleep, Faust appears one last time Gretchen's figure, who says goodbye to him. Then Mephistopheles appears. Together with Faust, he reviews the history of mankind. Mephistopheles triumphs in the face of wickedness in the world that was caused not by the devil but by humanity itself. A "huge, maddeningly distorted human face" appears on the horizon, "the head of holy humanity". Faust speaks to the face, which comes closer and takes on more friendly features and becomes an "extremely noble head", "which may remind of the Goethe of his most mature days". Faust recognizes:
And even if the world is murdering itself, there are
longings in it, which demands justice and peace ...
Mephistopheles goes mad, he hits his heart on his fist and disappears. Faust dies optimistically:
That hit the body, it didn't hit the soul!
He is experienced, the highest moment
And kindly draws the body to the gentle earth
The destiny that transforms everything anew.
This programmatic conclusion also refers back to the dedication that Avenarius placed in front of the volume: “To the future”.
expenditure
- Fist. A game at Zeno.org
- Fist. A game. Edited by the art warden in the art publishing house of Georg DW Callwey in Munich, 1919. Fourth thousand. ( online in the Internet Archive )