Kuno Francke

Name: The Harvard Classics Vol. 51
Author: Kuno Francke

The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (1914)

Summary

“The Harvard Classics Vol. 51”, published in 1914, is a work by Kuno Francke. It explores elements such as Faust, devil and compact.

Quotes from The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (Kuno Francke)

Kuno Francke, The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (1914)

“ Faust's wager with the devil is nothing but an act of temporary despair, and the very fact that he does not hope anything from it shows that he will win it. He knows that sensual enjoyment will never give him satisfaction; he knows that, as long as he gives himself up to self-gratification, there will never be a moment to which he would say: "Abide, thou art so fair!" From the outset we feel that by living up to the very terms of the compact, Faust will rise superior to it; that by rushing into the whirlpool of earthly experience and passion his being will be heightened and expanded. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Kuno Francke, The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (1914)

“ The eighteenth century is the age of Rationalism and of Romanticism. The eighteenth century glorifies human reason and human feeling. The rights of man and the dignity of man are its principal watchwords. Such an age was bound to see in Faust a representative of true humanity, a champion of freedom, nature, truth. Such an age was bound to see in Faust a symbol of human striving for completeness of life. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Kuno Francke, The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (1914)

“ But it is the fourth devil to whom Satan gives the prize. He has not done anything as yet. He has only a plan, but a plan which, if carried out, would put the deeds of all the other devils into the shade—the plan "to snatch from God his favorite." This favorite of God is Faust, "a solitary, brooding youth, renouncing all passion except the passion for truth, entirely living in truth, entirely absorbed in it." To snatch him from God—that would be a victory over which the whole realm of night would rejoice. Satan is enchanted; the war against truth is his element. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Kuno Francke, The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (1914)

“ God allows the devil free play, because he knows that he will frustrate his own ends. Faust will be led astray—"man errs while he strives"; but he will not abandon his higher aspirations; through aberration and sin he will find the true way toward which his inner nature instinctively guides him. He will not eat dust. Even in the compact with Mephisto the same ineradicable optimism asserts itself. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Kuno Francke, The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (1914)

“ In Marlowe's drama Faust appears as a typical man of the Renaissance, as an explorer and adventurer, as a superman craving for extraordinary power, wealth, enjoyment, and worldly eminence. The finer emotions are hardly touched upon. Mephistopheles is the mediæval devil, harsh and grim and fierce, bent on seduction, without any comprehension of human aspirations. Helen of Troy is a she-devil, and becomes the final means of Faust's destruction. Faust's career has hardly an element of true greatness. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Kuno Francke, The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (1914)

“ To the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, then, Faust appeared as a criminal who sins against the eternal laws of life, as a rebel against holiness who ruins his better self and finally receives the merited reward of his misdeeds. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Kuno Francke, The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (1914)

“ Much more satisfied is Satan with the report of a third devil, who has stolen the first kiss from a young, innocent girl and thereby breathed the flame of desire into her veins; for he has worked evil in the world of spirit, and that means much more and is a much greater triumph for hell than to work evil in the world of bodies. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Kuno Francke, The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (1914)

“ The example of Schiller as well as his own practical experience had taught him that the untrammeled living out of personality must go hand in hand with incessant work for the common welfare of mankind. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Kuno Francke, The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (1914)

“ The study of Spinoza and his own scientific investigations had confirmed him in a thoroughly monistic view of the world and strengthened his belief in a universal law which makes evil itself an integral part of the good. ”

Kuno Francke

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Quotes from The Harvard Classics Vol. 51 (Kuno Francke)

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