“Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt, / Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt!”: Goethe's Faust I as aesthetic experiment

Abstract

Goethe's Faust I stages an aesthetic experiment akin to the theoretical program of Schiller's Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen: an education of the senses through art, an aesthetic education, in both meanings of the word. The play self-reflexively presents itself as presenting a new aesthetic: a new sensory experience and a new type of art that shares conceptual affinities with the negative representation of the Kantian sublime. Focusing on the weaving metaphors that recur throughout the play, this article argues that the text comprises a negative representation, an aesthetic solution to Faust's quest for knowledge of the Absolute.