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Faust In His Study: The Paradox Of Visual Representations And Poetic Possibilities, Donna Ramsey

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The Faust theme has inspired individuals to creative endeavors over the years. While many of the resulting literary works are widely recognized and highly valued, few of the pictorial efforts have been similarly acknowledged. This investigation treats this apparent paradox as it applies to the soliloquy in the first scene of Part I of Goethe's poetic drama. The first part of the study compares the written word with its graphic interpretation, utilizing twenty-seven portrayals of Faust in his Study. The second section traces the iconography of the scene in a broader context, using twenty-eight prototypes which correspond to the depictions. …