"Sie ist die erste nicht". Note sulla seduzione di Margarete nel Faust di Goethe

Abstract

The seduction of Gretchen in Goethe's Faust I is read, in this study, as a dramatic depiction of the literary and emotional problems related to the phenomenon of repetition. The story of a virtuous girl seduced by a self-professed gentleman had, in the cultural context of the late eighteenth century, a high degree of predictability, which is often underscored in the dialogues, so that the whole episode becomes, from a poetological point of view, a critical reflection about the quest for an absolute originality. From a psychological point of view, Faust's commitment to an eternal love, which is belied by his own conduct as well as by Mephistophele's words, is an idle attempt to escape from the repeatability of human feelings, and hence to flee from the threat of boredom. Therefore, this episode refers also to Goethe's own critical views about the modern search for new and extraordinary experiences.