Notes And Study Material for Exam Papers

In such a situation a humanist not merely relaxes and ignores the problem. He must call upon his studies, his philosophy, and his ancient friends, to guide him. He must grid up his soul to the vigor and tension necessary for meeting the ills of life head on. But precisely why? Montainge seems to sense that this is the weakest point in his argument. Although he says that lack of preparation costs us too much in panic and torment at death, his explanation of the frequent bravery of simple people is not convincing, and he seems to know it; for he offers it tentatively and never repeats it. He knows that common people, whole nations, even cowards, can often perform the bravest actions even without study. He does not insist on the strictest possible regime of preparation, as do those who seek our privation. He says that we may use the body to help us if the soul is not strong enough alone; that all honourable assistance against the ills of life is not only permissible but even laudabl...

Montainge’s early view of life was a rather Epicurean pessimism. “The wretchedness of our condition,” he was to write, “makes us have less to desire than to fear...That is why the sect of philosophy that set the greatest value on voluptuousness and raised it to its highest price still ranked it with mere freedom from pain. To have no ill is to have the happiest state of well being that man can hope for.” Though he said that he had thus far lived reasonably happily, except for the loss of his friend, this was a great exception. Moreover, his other bereavements were to contribute their share to his pessimism. Fifteen years later the mere expressions that reminded him of his grief could still revive it: “My poor master! Or, My great friend! Alas, my dear father! Or, My good daughter!” in his gloomy apprehension, he looked for security in preparation, like the healthy young men he had seen carrying pills around to take in case of a cold. As the surest way to the negative contentmen...

The religious wars, which had broken out a year and a half before La Boetie’s death, were to involve Montaigne deeply and to form the somber background of the last half of his life. There were intervals of comparative peace, some of them rather long. But they were never better than armed truces, for no settlement could satisfy both sides, and during most of them, sporadic violence continued in one part of France or another. The Protestants were never comparable in numbers to the Catholics; but these were sharply divided, with the government generally holding to a policy at first of tolerance, then of moderation, while the extremists opposed all concessions.  After three lasting each year or two, the Reformists reached their highest peak of influence when their leader Coligny came to court in 1570 and gained greater favour with King Charles IX. But the Catholics grew alarmed as Coligny pressed for armed intervention in the Protestant Netherlands against Catholic Spain. When tho...

Montaigne as a boy stands well revealed in the essay “On the Education of Children”. Independent and tenacious but slow to move, he was in danger of doing not wrong, but nothing at all-a reproach he was to hear all his life. Secure in the intelligent love of the father he loved dearly in return, he spent a boyhood generally happy but marred by his first seven years of formal education. These gave him his first real taste of folly and injustice: and from what he tells us of his mind at the time, he may well even then have judged much as he did later the inanity and severity that could come of knowledge and authority misapplied. No matter what his father did, “It was still school.” Montaigne’s Catholicism must have been the result of a real decision. When this came, we do not know, nor even just when his brother and sister-or possibly two sisters-were converted to Protestantism. But his father was presumably concerned about the matter by the time Montaigne was thirteen, for it was ...

We usually thing of Montaigne as a meditative middle-aged man, reading and writing alone in the tower of his manor. This is proper enough, for it was in his last twenty years that he wrote the Essays that make him live today. Our knowledge of the first two-thirds of his life is still tantalizingly fragmentary. There are some facts to go on most of them external and some judgments and insights, a few by his friends La Boetie, the majority by himself. Most of these need weighing as well as arranging to give a true and clear picture of young Montaigne. He was born at bright moment for French humanists and for the peaceful religious reform they sought. Inspired by Erasmus and Lefevre d’Etaples (Faber Stapulensis), they wanted mainly to know the Bible better through humanistic inquiry and make it available and understandable to all. They were bitterly attacked by the powerful conservative theologians of the Sorbonne but were protected by King Francis I, who had never liked the Sorbonn...

In studying the development of Montaigne’s thought we must not, of course, forget the element of permanence. Often he remarks on how little he has changed. “I am nearly always in place, like heavy and inert bodies,” he writes. “For the firmest and most general ideas I have are those which, in a manner of speaking, were born with me.” In himself as in others he finds a ruling pattern that successfully opposes any radical change. Many views, attitudes, and feelings of the young Montaigne were only confirmed by age and experience, Young or old, he is still Montaigne. His mental temper, for example, seems always to have been skeptical. Skeptical in the etymological sense of one who judiciously stops to look before he takes a mental leap, who considers all sides before he commits himself. Skeptical because his mind is always more sensitive to diversity than to uniformity; because nature as he sees it, has made things more unlike than like, so that all comparisons are lame and all stat...

The dull, unimaginative but honest Wagner is a parody of bourgeois pedantry. His characterization emphasizes the differences between the search after knowledge for its own sake or for worldly rewards and the search for true understanding. After Wagner departs, Faust returns to bitter thoughts about human impotence. The sight of a skull makes him think of suicide as the solution to his problems. He is about to drink a glass of poison when the pealing of church bells and the melodious singing of a choir remind him of the Easter message of resurrection and eternal life. Faust does not literally believe in these concepts, but they bring back memories of his childhood religious faith and their symbolic meaning restores his self-confidence. Martha, the neighbour, is Gretchen’s friend. At the opening of the scene she is alone,, thinking about the long absence of her husband. Gretchen runs in and tells Martha that she has found another casket of jewels, but this time has not told her...

Goethe himself once described the differences between the two sections of his poem by saying: The first part is almost entirely subjective; it proceeded entirely from a perplexed, impassioned individual, and his semi-darkness is probably highly pleasing to mankind. But, in the second part, there is scarcely anything of the subjective; here is seen a higher, broader, clearer, more passionless world, and he who has not looked about him and had some experience, will not know what to make of it. The two parts of the poem are essential elements of a single whole, but their relationship is an indirect and metaphorical one. They present alternative views of the human yearning for truth and fulfilment by exploring different aspects of this same problem. Part One is concerned mainly with highly personal experience, while Part Two treats society as a whole, and Faust develops from a single individual into a symbolic figure who represents the striving spirit of man in the modern world. Th...

Although there are many elements of Catholic religious symbolism in this scene, they were adopted by Goethe only because he saw in them a means to give tangible expression to his beliefs, and do not demonstrate his adherence to orthodox Christianity. Faust has been saved as a result of the heightened knowledge and insight gained through great experience. The presence of all these figures in the place to which Faust’s soul is brought, indicates that striving for union with the ultimate is part of the essential character of all life, and is the basis from which immortality arises. The angles who bring in Faust’s soul reveal that he has not yet attained Salvation. Now that he has been liberated from sin, however, he will commence his purification and will free himself from the remaining traces of his earthly existence. He will be reborn, in a sense, like the spirits of the innocent children, and with them will rise to the higher levels of Salvation. This indicates the Salvation ...

The scene is particularly praised by critics for its poignant portrayal of Gretchen’s madness. Gretchen’s restoration to sanity when she sees Faust illustrates the regenerative power of love. He refusal to escape is based on her acknowledgment of responsibility for her acts and her acceptance of God’s law. She has a simple and clear-cut conception of right and wrong which is incomprehensible to the still inwardly doubling Faust. Gretchen is granted salvation by God’s grace (the voice from Heaven) because her crimes were the result of inexperience and her motives were never sinful or impure. Gretchen was led into sin by following her instincts, but in Goethe’s thought it is part of being human to err. One is redeemed in the end if his conscience learns to know the difference between good and evil, rejects sinfulness, and repents. Gretchen’s final words, “Heinrich! I shudder to look at you,” express her horror at the ungodly, negativistic life Faust has chosen by maintaining his as...

It has been nearly a year since Valentine’s death and Faust has again abandoned Gretchen. Now it is Walpurgis Night (April 30 th ), the time of the annual gathering of witches and spirits at the top of the Brocken in the Harz Mountains (located in central Germany ) to celebrate a satanic orgy. The mountaintop is covered with swarms of demons dancing and singing. While coupled in an erotic dance with a young female witch, Faust suddenly notices a mouse coming out of his partner’s mouth. The shock of this causes him to remember Gretchen. He has a vision of her in chains, becomes distressed, and starts to wander away. This episode can be interpreted symbolically as the descent into Hell promised in the “Prelude in the Theatre.” The witches and demons whom Faust encounters are incarnations of all the many facets of evil. Faust is made to face the awful reality of his degeneration, but at the last moment his moral sensibility makes a final effort to assert itself. He remembers Gretc...

Gretchen: Gretchen is a simple, innocent, and pious maiden who develops into a figure of genuine tragic stature. She is essentially pure and innocent, but becomes a willing victim of Faust’s seduction due to loneliness, inexperience, resentment of her mother’s strictness, and an idealistic naivete that leads her to assume that Faust’s love will be as permanent and unselfish as her own. In a sense her crimes are the result of her innocence, although this does not negate her own responsibility for her downfall. Gretchen has an innate religious sense, and one critic has called her the only the Christian in the poem.  This is why she is able to accept her punishment at the end of Part One, and also explains her intuitive aversion to Mephisto and her insight that Faust’s plan for escape would be morally unbearable. Gretchen is admitted to Heaven at the close of Part One because, despite her acts, she was never motivated by evil intentions and had acted according to her natural i...

This scene reiterates Goethe’s low opinion of the established Church, which has already been noted in Commentary to Part One. The Emperor’s indiscriminate rewarding of his courtiers and his neglect of his kingdom’s real problems emphasizes the decadence of his Empire and any other human institution that is not organized according to sound and harmonious moral principles. In payment for his services, the Emperor gives Faust a large strip of what he thinks is worthless land. This is an additional demonstration of the Emperor’s lack of imagination and good sense. It also serves to call attention to Faust’s courage and dedication in attempting to reclaim the land for human use. Faust’s great project, an achievement that is of widespread and permanent value to mankind, is seen through the eyes of a simple peasant couple. The couple’s prayer in the chapel to the “old God” is a symbolic expression of resistance to Faust’s new regime. The names Philemon and Baucis evoke ian idyllic old G...

Faust and Gretchen are together in the garden. She has noticed that he never participates in any religious rites, and she is concerned about the state of his soul. She asks whether he believes in religion. In answer Faust states his tolerance for the beliefs of other people, despite his contempt for conventional religion and orthodox theology. He defines God as the creative spirit of the universe and describes his personal faith in Nature and human emotions as manifestations of this cosmic guiding force. He explains: Then call it what you will-Happiness! Heart! Love! God! I have no name for it! Feeling is all; Name is mere sound and reek Clouding Heaven’s light. Faust’s answer is an equivocating one and demonstrates contempt for reason and analytical thought. His creed, as given here, visualizes God as a dynamic force that imbues all of life with vitality and form. It can only be known by feeling and intuition, and not through artificial rituals or system of belief. To ...

The songs of the three archangels express Goethe’s belief that the universe is a dynamic continuum where action is the law that dominates Nature and man. In this system the only absolute sin is non-action; man, despite many errors of judgment or wrong turns can find the path of righteousness, but only if he continues striving. He eventually will succeed if he keeps up the struggle because striving is itself a moral act and his intuitive yearnings all point toward a good end. Mephisto represents the spirit of negativistic cynicism, of endless denial. He can be a force for good or evil inducing a man to surrender to his lowest instincts and give up the quest, or driving him by persistent prodding and frustration to find the fulfilment of his ideals, i.e. salvation. He is unmoved by Mephisto’s threats to Faust because he knows that man has an innate will for good, and that errors or backsliding are natural incidents in the human progression toward righteousness. The conversation...

Transcendentalism is a word which has been variously interpreted. “Transcendent” means ‘beyond’ and ‘above’, hence a transcendentalist is one who believes in the existence of a divine world, beyond and above the world of the senses. The divine cannot be known by reason or rational analysis, but it can be felt and experienced by the spirit through intuition. The divine is referred to as ‘the over-soul’ by Emerson and it was referred to as the “Soul of all the Worlds” by Wordsworth. The external world is but the raiment or outer covering of the divine. Men can know the divine and ultimately become one with it through the agony of Nature which speaks to the soul and not to the reasoning faculty. If man comes to Nature in a mood of ‘wise passivity’ and allows influences from Nature to enter into his soul, he can see into “the heart of thing.” Thus there is oneness of God. Man and Nature. Emerson stressed the worth of the individual, the dignity of the human soul. He taught Man to rely on...

Emerson was an inspired poet who writes from inner conviction and not according to rules and regulations. His philosophy of life, based essentially on the authenticity of intuition and – genuine emotion, is, in sense, a poetic view of life. His views on the nature and function of poets and poetry have been forcefully expressed in the essay on The Poet. His poetry is to be assessed in terms of his general philosophical outlook. As a theorist of aesthetic experience, he always emphasized the supremacy of poetic inspiration over more technical skill. A poet, according to him, is not a mere craftsman, but a seer and a visionary, “It is not metres,” he says in his essay on The Poet, “but a metre-making argument that makes a poem.” And is not, “ America a poem in our eyes that may not wait long for metres.” “It is in me, and shall out” This statement embodies the fundamental tenet of Emerson’s theory of poetic communication. It is only thought “Expression is all we need, not knowledge...