Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education

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This podcast is aimed at a non-specialist audience interested in acquiring what Northrop Frye called, in the title of one of his books, an educated imagination. Its materials are drawn from the many courses in literature and mythology that I taught, combi

Michael Dolzani


    • May 11, 2025 LATEST EPISODE
    • weekly NEW EPISODES
    • 37m AVG DURATION
    • 215 EPISODES


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    Latest episodes from Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education

    Episode 215: An Introduction to William Blake. Blake as a Key to Modern Mythology and to the Promethean Pattern. The Songs of Innocence and Experience.

    Play Episode Listen Later May 11, 2025 36:58


    Blake created his own mythology, which eventually included two characters whose antagonism is comparable to that of Prometheus and Jupiter. But he began by exploring the relationship of what he called Contraries, beginning with The Songs of Innocence and Experience: Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.

    Episode 214: Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. Conclusion: Acts 3 and 4. Expanding Visions of Transformation through the Power of the Mind Liberated by Love.

    Play Episode Listen Later May 4, 2025 39:49


    Changes beyond what common sense deems possible would take place if the human mind could renounce the fear and hate that keep it neurotically imprisoned. The transformation of human nature and even nature itself by love, though with a final limit of time and mutability.

    Episode 213: Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, Act 3. The Beginning of the Transformation of Nature and Humanity after the Fall of Jupiter.

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 28, 2025 38:54


    The drama's conflict ends in Act 3, scene 1, with the demise of Jupiter, with two acts still to come. These are taken up by imagery of the transformation of humanity and nature, not just returning to an ordinary state free of tyranny and suffering, but beginning a metamorphosis into the paradisal.

    Episode 212: Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, Act 2. In the Depths, Asia Asks Demogorgon Who Rules Even Jupiter. “The Deep Truth Is Imageless.”

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2025 37:30


    Asia has descended to the realm of Demogorgon and catechizes him. Who created and rules all things? What is behind and beyond even Jupiter. Demogorgon says, “The deep truth is imageless.” We do not know. All we know is Love, and that is all we need to know.

    Episode 211: Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, Act 2. The Descent of Asia and Panthea to the Cave of Demogorgon.

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2025 38:45


    A change of scene to the feminine counterpart of Prometheus, named Asia, Shelley's invention. She and Panthea, guided by a Dream and Spirits, descend to the cave of Demogorgon in a mysterious Otherworld.

    Episode 210: Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. Prometheus Regrets the Curse He Pronounced on Jupiter. Mercury and the Furies Arrive.

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 6, 2025 36:58


    Prometheus calls up the Phantasm of Jupiter to recall the curse he once pronounced on Jupiter, which he now regrets. Mercury arrives with the Furies, who, in this drama of the mind, are the forms of human despair and hopelessness. Other Spirits arrive, sent from a poet's imagination, saying don't give up. End of Act 1.

    Episode 209: Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, Act 1, Scene 1. Prometheus Wants to Recall His Curse on Jupiter, but Can't Remember It. His Mother, Earth, Tells Him to Summon a Phantasm.

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2025 37:51


    Prometheus's opening speech indicates that he has changed. He no longer hates, and would recant his curse on Jupiter, but can't remember it. No one, even his mother, Earth, dares tell him. But Earth tells him to summon someone from a mysterious Otherworld “below” death, in which reside images which are the doubles of all things in this life.

    Episode 208: Poems about Prometheus as Heroic Rebel, by Goethe and Byron. The Preface to Shelley's Prometheus Unbound.

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 23, 2025 37:55


    Interest in Prometheus revived in the Romantic revolutionary age. Short poems by Goethe and Byron show his as defiant rebel. Shelley's famous Preface to his Prometheus Unbound. The influence of Milton's titanic rebel, Satan.

    Episode 207: Versions of Prometheus between Aeschylus and Shelley—and New Versions of Pandora.

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 16, 2025 36:04


    Christian writers made Pandora the Classical Eve, disobedient the “cause of all our woe.” But in the 17th-19th centuries, Pandora was transvalued as a redemptive figure, especially by Calderón de la Barca and Goethe (influenced by Calderón) in a fragment called Pandora.

    Episode 206: Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, Act 4. Prometheus' Defiance of Zeus's Messenger Hermes. The Later Reconciliation of Zeus and Prometheus. Prometheus and the Romantic Era.

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2025 36:33


    The drama ends with a proud, defiant Prometheus. The last play of the trilogy, featuring his reconciliation with Zeus, is lost. The new interest in the Prometheus myth during the Romantic era, the age of revolutions.

    Episode 205: Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, “Act 3,” Io, the Innocently Tormented Woman. Instead of Pandora, a Positive Female Figure.

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2025 35:24


    Aeschylus brings in Io, not part of the original Prometheus story, as a positive female figure replacing Pandora. Turned into a cow and stung by a gadfly, she wanders the world, an innocent sufferer. But from her line will come Herakles or Hercules, who will release Prometheus.

    Episode 204: Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. Second Unit or Act: Prometheus Speaks to Oceanus, Who Counsels Obedience. Prometheus's Long Speech about the Fire of the Creative Mind.

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2025 35:52


    An “act” in Greek tragedy consists of dialogue between the hero and another character, followed by an interchange with the Chorus and a Choral Ode. In the second “act,” Prometheus speaks to Oceanus, the ocean, who counsels repentance and humble obedience. Prometheus responds by a remarkable speech in which fire becomes the fire of the creative mind.

    Episode 203: Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. The Conventions of Ritualized, Stylized Greek Tragedy. The Opening Scene: Prometheus Bound to the Rock by Hephaestus.

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 16, 2025 41:05


    Greek tragedy was not realistic, but stylized, ritualized, with actors wearing masks and a Chorus that sang and danced. The opening scene: Prometheus bound to the rock by Hephaestus. Key thematic words are repeated. This is a play about “limits” of all kinds.

    Episode 202: The Myth of Pandora in Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days. Zeus's Revenge against Humanity: the Artificially Made Woman, Pandora.

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2025 37:44


    Hesiod, a partisan of Zeus, casts Prometheus, the antagonist of Zeus, in a negative light. Zeus's revenge against humanity is Pandora, an artificially-constructed woman given to Epimetheus, Prometheus's brother. She opens a jar (“box” is a mistranslation), and all evils fly out. Theories that Pandora is a patriarchal distortion of an original Goddess myth.

    Episode 201: The Myth of Prometheus. The Earliest Version of the Myth, in Hesiod's Theogony. A Negative Portrayal.

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 2, 2025 38:03


    The myth of Prometheus has been recreated over time by different authors for radically different purposes. The earliest account is in Hesiod's Theogony. Hesiod champions Zeus as a figure of law and order, and disapproves of Prometheus the Trickster

    Episode 200: John Donne's Love Poems. Poems of Disillusionment, Hate, and Requited Love Here on This Earth.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2025 41:13


    A thank you to my listeners, all over the world, on our 200th episode. The thematic spectrum of Donne's love poetry, continued. Moods of skepticism (“Go and catch a falling star”), hatred (“The Apparition”) and requited sexual and romantic love (“The Good Morrow,” “The Sun Rising,” “The Canonization”).

    Episode 199: The Love Poems of John Donne. Two Satiric, Erotic Poems: “Elegy 19, On His Mistress Going to Bed,” and “The Flea.”

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 19, 2025 38:39


    Donne's are arguably the greatest love poems in English after Shakespeare's sonnets. Donne as a Metaphysical poet. Donne's fascinating and troubled life. A spectrum of types of love, beginning with the satiric and overtly erotic: “Elegy 19” and “The Flea.”

    Episode 198: Shakespeare's “The Phoenix and Turtle.” The Paradox of Two Who Are Also One.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 12, 2025 39:44


    Shakespeare's enigmatic and fascinating poem about the love-death union of two lovers symbolized as the phoenix and the turtledove. The symbolism of two who are paradoxically one in love, in religion, and in poetic metaphor, which says “A is B.”

    Episode 197: Shakespeare's Sonnets. Ironic Themes in the Beautiful Youth Sequence. The Even More Ironic Themes of the Dark Lady Sequence.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2025 38:24


    The ironic themes in the beautiful youth sequence include old age and death and the possibility of infidelity. The Dark Lady sequence begins with mildly tender irony and moves to fierce condemnation of both the Lady and love itself.

    Episode 196: Shakespeare's Sonnets. A Thematic Spectrum of the Possibilities of Love, from Ideal to Ironic.

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 29, 2024 37:51


    Ideal resolutions in the beautiful youth sequence include (1) urging the youth to marry and perpetuate his beauty through offspring; (2) finding their own Platonic love satisfying; (3) making the youth immortal through the poet's art. Famous examples of each. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 195: Shakespeare as an “Equivocal” Artist. His Texts Generate “Equivocal” Possibilities and Force Us to Choose Their Meaning. The Sonnets as Interpretable in That Sense.

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2024 36:53


    Shakespeare's texts, both the plays and the sonnets, are “equivocal.” They are endlessly suggestive because they seem to offer a range of interpretive possibilities, from the ideal to the ironic, and force the reader to read actively and choose. Sonnets 12, 20, and 29: the beautiful youth and an ideal love. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 194: Shakespeare's Sonnets. The Will to Order Versus the Undecidable.

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2024 38:34


    The Sonnets constantly suggest a total order and total meaning. Yet they simultaneously suggest that such an order is “undecidable,” tantalizing yet elusive. The meaning of a text and the meaning of a love affair may be undecidable, despite our repeated attempts to find a definitive meaning or moral in them. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 193: Shakespeare's Sonnets. Autobiographical or Not? The Mysterious Dedication. The “Beautiful Youth” Sequence and the Theme of Immortality

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 8, 2024 38:10


    The two sequences, the “beautiful youth” sonnets (1-126) and the Dark Lady sonnets (127-52), are so distinctive, so unlike the standard Courtly Love formulas, that it is natural to wonder if they are based on real life, but there is no proof. The enigmatic Dedication to the sonnets only confuses the issue. The beautiful youth is a young male, and in the opening sonnets, the poet urges him to perpetuate his beauty by breeding. Later, the poet promises another form of immortality, in his verse. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 192: Shakespeare's Life and the Conspiracy Theories about It. An Introduction to the Sonnets.

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 1, 2024 37:41


    The various conspiracy theories about alternate authorship of Shakespeare's works. What we actually do know about Shakespeare, as opposed to the various legends. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 191: The Arthurian Vision, Recreated through Time. The Tragic End as Recounted in Malory's Morte Darthur.

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2024 36:17


    The Arthurian stories or Matter of Britain are not just a set of tales but a vision evolving through time, at the hands of many authors. A brief look at the conclusion of Malory's Morte Darthur, where the destruction of all that Arthur created suggests an ideal too great for this imperfect earth. And yet, the prophecy that Arthur will return someday. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 190: The Symbolic Pattern of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Two Contests or Games. Human Striving as Loyalty to a Virtue or Cause: Gawain's Greatness.

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2024 36:50


    Gawain's adventure consists of two contests or games. Huizinga's Homo Ludens: human culture as play, as game-playing. But for real stakes. Gawain is really striving not for a prize or fame but for loyalty to virtue. He comes short because he is human and imperfect, but we must strive anyway, or nothing is achieved. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 189: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain Tempted Three Times by the Lady. Gawain's Triple Ordeal beneath the Green Knight's Axe. The Poem's Enigmatic Ending.

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2024 38:19


    The lord's wife tries three times to seduce Gawain while her husband is out hunting, but Gawain resists. On New Year's, Gawain endures his ordeal at the Green Knight's “chapel,” an opening in the earth. He feels shame that he has tried to cheat by wearing the lady's magic belt that confers invulnerability, but the Knight commends him, and back at home the lords and ladies all wear green belts in his honor. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 188: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The 2nd Fitt. A Year Passes. Gawain Arms Himself. The Shield with the Pentangle. The Lord of the Northern Castle and His Wife. The Lord's Wager.

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2024 37:54


    Description of the seasonal cycle. Finally, it is winter again, and Gawain leaves to find the Green Knight's chapel. His shield with the pentangle or “endlesse knot,” symbolizing five sets of five virtues. The northern journey through wonders and adventures. The northern lord's castle. Hopitality is granted by the lord, who also offers a wager—another bet. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 187: The Development of the Arthurian Story. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: the First Fitt or Part. The Green Knight's Challenge.

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 27, 2024 37:22


    A quick sketch of the development of the Arthurian mythos. The Middle English alliterative Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a romance full of wonders. The Green Knight challenges the Court of Arthur. Gawain accepts the challenge, and cuts off the Knight's head. The Green Knight picks up his head and departs, telling Gawain that a year hence he must allow the Knight to strike his own blow. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 186: From Old English to Middle English. The New Genre of Romance. The New Theme of Courtly Love.

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 20, 2024 37:44


    The Norman Conquest of 1066. The transformation of Old English into Middle English, partly through the influence of Anglo-Norman French. From heroic poetry to the romance, the tale of wonders. The new theme of Courtly Love, a new kind of idealized romantic love. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 185: Beowulf, Part 3. The Final Fight with the Dragon and Beowulf's Death.

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 13, 2024 38:34


    Beowulf returns to the Geats, eventually becomes king for 50 years of peace. The dragon is awakened when someone steals from his hoard. Beowulf and Wiglaf defeat the dragon, but Beowulf is mortally wounded. He asks to see the treasure, then dies. The Geats may not long survive his death. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 184: Beowulf, part 2. The Fight with Grendel's Mother. Victory and a Celebration That Is Also a Farewell Party.

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 6, 2024 34:17


    Grendel's mother breaks into Heorot, grabs Hrothgar's best friend and her son's hand. Beowulf pursues her to the uncanny mere, dives in, slays her with the help of a sword from the days of the giants, whose blade is melted by her blood. Return and a second celebration. Beowulf the triumphing warrior—but also Beowulf the peacemaker. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 183: Beowulf. Hrothgar's Lineage. The Building of Heorot and Attack of Grendel. Beowulf Arrives, Fights, and Defeats Grendel.

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 29, 2024 36:30


    Hrothgar's line from the mysterious Scyld opens the poem. The building of Heorot, and the bard's song. Grendel preys on Heorot 12 years. The arrival of Beowulf. Beowulf insulted by Unferth. The battle with Grendel. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 182: Introduction to Beowulf. A Mysterious Poem in Many Different Ways.

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2024 36:09


    Everything about Beowulf is a mystery: its date and place of origin; its atypical hero, a monster slayer rather than heroic feuding warrior; its problematic relationship to Christianity. J.R.R. Tolkien's famous essay about these problems. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 181: The Beginnings of English Literature. The “Northumbrian Renaissance” of the 7th and 8th Centuries. Bede's History and “Caedmon's Hymn,” the first English poem.

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2024 37:50


    Northumbria, along the northeastern coast, site of a cultural efflorescence in the 7th and 8th centuries. From here, the Lindisfarne Gospels and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 731 CE, which preserves the first English poem, “Caedmon's Hymn.” Also, an Anglo-Saxon elegiac lyric, “The Wanderer.” --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 180: An Introduction to Old English Language and Literature. From the Indo-Europeans to the Anglo-Saxons.

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 8, 2024 38:46


    The 18th century discovery that 1/3 of languages today, including English, derive from the lost language of the Indo-Europeans. The waves of settlement of the British Isles: the Celts, then the Romans, then the Anglo-Saxons, bearing with them what became Old English, the first form of the English language. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 179: Goethe's Faust. Acts 4 and 5. Act 4: War for the Emperor. Act 5: Faust's Final Project and His Death. Saved by Angels and the Eternal Feminine.

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 1, 2024 43:28


    Faust and Mephistopheles win a war for the Emperor in Act 4. In Act 5, Faust, now 100, reclaims land from the sea, and is responsible for the death of an aged couple in the process. He dies, angels save his soul in a wildly comic scene, and he is redeemed in the eternity of the Eternal Feminine. He is not yet done striving. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 178: Goethe's Faust, Part 2, Act 3. The Union of Faust and Helen of Troy, and the Birth and Death of Their Child Euphorion. Illusion, Dream, or Symbolic of a Non-Literal Truth?

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2024 37:44


    Helen has been rescued from the underworld and taken to a medieval castle by Faust, courting her, uniting with her as a union of opposites, Classical with Medieval/German/Romantic. Their child Euphorion plunges to his death by trying to climb too high. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 177: Goethe's Faust, Part 2, Act 3. The Union of Faust and Helen of Troy. Parallel to the Quest of Homunculus for Galatea. Another Failure of Faustian Striving, or Something More?

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 18, 2024 36:45


    It is easy to read Act 3 ironically. Faust strives for the archetypal feminine, but their union is an illusion and produces a child who, because ungrounded in the real world, leaps to his death. But there may be a less reductive way of looking at it, not instead of but in addition to the ironic reading. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 176: Goethe's Faust, End of Act 2. Homunculus Breaks His Glass Jar and Plunges into the Sea in Front of Galatea, Union of Consciousness and Matter, Fire and Water

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 11, 2024 37:43


    As Faust disappears to find Helen again, the Homunculus achieves his quest to be embodied at the climax of the Classical Walpurgis Night, the end of Act 2. Alchemical and scientific imagery of the union of fire and water unite with the imagery of evolution as Homunculus "impregnates” the waters of the sea nymph Galatea. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 175: Goethe's Faust, Part 2, The Classical Walpurgis Night. The Quest of Four Groupings across a Mad Tea Party of Mythology.

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2024 38:57


    Goethe invented the idea of a Classical Walpurgis Night? Why? Four quests: Faust for Helen (again), Mephistopheles for sex, the Homulculus for a body, and a fourth quest, symbolized by the enigmatic Cabiri. Symbolism of 3 and 4; of fire and water; of life as evolutionary metamorphosis. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 174: Goethe's Faust, Part 2, Act 2. The Homunculus, Alchemical AI, Announces the Classical Walpurgis Night. Three Quests During that Night.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 28, 2024 38:52


    The Homunculus, artificial disembodied intelligence created by Wagner, tells the group that Faust is dreaming of Helen's engendering through the rape of Leda, and that Faust must be revived at the Classical Walpurgis Night, where he will search for a body. The site in Thessaly is the Pharsalian fields, where Julius Caesar defeated Pompey and Cato, victory of future imperialism over freedom, the ironic cycle of history. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 173: Goethe's Faust, End of Act 1, Beginning of Act 2. Faust Descends to the Mothers but Is Knocked Unconscious Trying to Seize Helen of Troy. In Act 2, Wagner Has Become an Alchemist.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 21, 2024 38:14


    Faust descends to the uncanny realm of the Mothers while the Court watches. He attempts to seize Helen of Troy, but an explosion knocks him unconscious. As Act 2 opens, he has been removed to his old study, still in a coma. Wagner has become an alchemist. Serious alchemy as a ritual meditation whose goal was the spiritualization of matter. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 172: Goethe's Faust, Part 2. The Carnival Masque, Satire on Greed. The Mysterious Boy Charioteer. Faust Prepares to Descend to the Realm of the Mothers.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 14, 2024 36:40


    To celebrate the solving of the Emperor's financial crisis, a carnival-masque, dramatizing society's ultimate value: wealth. Faust as Plutus, god of wealth, on a chariot. The mysterious Boy Charioteer who leads the chariot. Hijinks involving illusions of wealth. The Emperor commands Faust to summon up Helen of Troy. Mephistopheles tells Faust he must descend to the Nothing that is the ground of being, the realm of the Mothers. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 171: Goethe's Faust, Part 2, Act 1. Faust and Mephistopheles Solve the Financial Crisis of the Holy Roman Emperor by Inventing Fictional Wealth. A Parable for Our Time.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2024 38:21


    The Holy Roman Empire is broke, but Faust and Mephistopheles “solve” the Emperor's problem by inventing wealth that only exists on paper—in short, by inventing modern finance, based not on material wealth like gold but symbolic wealth like money. It is fake alchemy, a con job. It is also the world of modern finance. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 170: Goethe's Faust, Part 2. Faust as Antihero, Not Tragic Hero, Redeemed, by the Sacrifice of an Innocent Female Figure. Act 1: The Rainbow of the Waterfall, Spirit Immanent in This World.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 30, 2024 38:19


    Goethe does judge Faust morally, but not in the Aristotelian framework of the tragic hero, which is how he'd like to see himself. He is instead an antihero, redeemed, but not by the sacrifice of Christ: instead, perhaps unfortunately, through that of an innocent female figure, saving an unworthy man. The metaphor of the waterfall, the rainbow created by the sun within its spray: spirit immanent in this material world. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 169: Goethe's Faust. End of Part 1, The Opening of Part 2, Act 1. Gretchen's Tragedy. Can Faust Be Judged Morally? Part 2: Move into the Larger Social World, and into Psychological Depths.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 23, 2024 39:32


    For stark power, the end of Part 1 is almost unequalled in modern literature. Gretchen, mad, will not leave the dungeon, and Faust leaves her. Why is there a Part 2? In it, Faust moves in new directions: into the larger sociopolitical realm, and into transpersonal psychological depths. The difficulty of making a moral judgment of Faust. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 168: Goethe's Faust, Part 1. The Walpurgis Night Festival: Demonic Sexuality on the Mountain. Meanwhile, Elsewhere, Gretchen Descends into Madness and Tragedy

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2024 39:29


    Walpurgis Night, April 30, the day before May Day, an old fertility festival demonized by northern Christianity into a witches' Sabbath. Goethe backs away from initial plans to show an orgy, substituting a strange “Intermezzo,” but there is a catalogue of demonic female spirits, from Lilith to a figure who looks like Gretchen, with a red line across her neck. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 167: Goethe's Faust, Part 1. The Tragedy of Gretchen, Continued. Faust Kills Valentine, Gretchen's Brother. Faust and Mephistopheles Attend the Witches' Sabbath on Walpurgis Night.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2024 37:15


    Gretchen distrusts Faust's lack of religion. What does he think about God? “Feeling is all,” he says. Faust, with Mephistopheles' help, kills Gretchen's brother Valentine in a sword fight. Then Faust and Mephistopheles begin ascending a mountain to attend the witches' sabbath on Walpurgis Night. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Episode 166: Goethe's Faust, Part 1. The So-Called “Gretchen Tragedy.” Faust Seduces Gretchen, Whose Friend Martha Encourages Her.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 2, 2024 37:42


    The “Gretchen tragedy” is not a tragedy at all but Aristotelian or Shakespearean standards, not to fall of a great and elite figure but of a common and unknown one. Perhaps more accurately called “melodrama,” an important genre in the 19th century. Faust seduces Gretchen, who falls in love with him. Her friend Martha, a much more down-to-earth figure. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

    Goethe's Faust, Part 1. The Witch's Kitchen. A Youth Potion for Faust. The Ideal Feminine in a Mirror. Faust Sees Margarete. He and Mephistopheles Invade Her Bedroom and Leave Jewels.

    Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2024 38:34


    The Witch's Kitchen episode is satiric—the Witch's servants are marmosets, and the spell by which she makes a youth potion for Faust parodies the symbolism of alchemy. Faust sees an ideal Feminine image in a mirror. On the street, he sees and is infatuated with Margarete, or Gretchen. He and Mephistopheles snoop in her bedroom and leave jewels. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-dolzani/support

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