"Cliff Notes - Faust" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Phorcyas, points out that she can be rescued by walking to a
medieval castle. There, Faust, dressed as a medieval knight, greets
her. They unite to produce a son, Euphorion, who is the spirit of
poetry (and a symbol for the English poet, Lord Byron, whose
"unsatisfied nature" and striving for a heroic form of existence, as
Goethe told Eckermann, epitomized the contemporary Romantic poet).

Euphorion has a brilliant, though short, career but when he tries to
fly he crashes to the ground. Helen returns to the underworld,
broken by the tragedy that her beauty seems always to bring about.
Faust is left only with her garments.

Again, Faust must reconcile himself to being a failure. He plunges
into a scheme to reclaim land from the sea and control it. In order
to gain the land, he and Mephistopheles must help the Emperor
suppress a rebellion. They bring to the battle the Three Mighty Men
who fought with King David. They win the battle through magic, but
barely.

With Mephistopheles' help, Faust reclaims the land. He builds a
magnificent palace overlooking the shore but is irritated because he
has allowed an old couple, Baucis and Philemon, to keep their tiny
cottage and a chapel on the land. He asks Mephistopheles to remove
the couple to a small farm he has promised them. Mephistopheles
takes the Three Mighty Men to do the job; they burn down the cottage
and the chapel, killing the old couple and a traveler who was
visiting them.

Although Faust has failed again, he does not stop striving and
planning. He is struck blind by Care, who tries to make him worry
about his coming death. He dies reflecting that he has never found
any moment so beautiful, so pleasant, that he wanted it to linger.
So Mephistopheles loses his bet. The Devil cannot claim Faust's soul,
but he tries to snatch it by trickery. He is outmaneuvered, however,
by a chorus of angels, who are so sexually alluring that
Mephistopheles becomes distracted by their charms and doesn't notice
they are stealing away Faust's soul.

Faust's soul is carried to Heaven by the angels and by the souls of
children who have died young. The three penitent women of
Christianity pray to the Virgin Mary to save Faust's soul. When
Gretchen adds her voice to theirs, the Virgin Mary allows her to
lead Faust's soul upward. His journey is completed and he is at rest
in Heaven.


The following is a discussion of the major characters in Faust.
There are in addition many other interesting, if less developed,
characters, and they are discussed at the appropriate places in The
Play section of this guide.