A Woman's Version of the Faust Legend: The Seven Strings of the Lyre
By George Sand
()
About this ebook
The Seven Strings of the Lyre is Sand's response to Goethe's Faust and a reflection of her views of music as developed in conversations with Chopin and Franz Liszt. Sand, unlike so many of her contemporaries, saw Goethe as a less-than-ideal poet. She criticized him for lacking "enthusiasm, belief, and passion," and she faulted him for being a proponent of the art-for-art's-sake movement, which Sand deplored for its lack of social conscience.
Sand's play describes the efforts of Mephistopheles to win the soul of Albertus, a teacher of philosophy and descendant of Faust. Regarding Goethe's Mephistopheles as insufficiently wicked, Sand conjures up a devil truly worthy of the epithet. For Faust, whom she considered too cold, Sand substitues the more emotional Albertus, whose despair that life and love have passed him by in his devotion to philosophy makes him vulnerable to the machinations of the devil. And in place of Goethe's village girl, Marguerite, or the dangerous Helen of the earlier Faust legend, Sand creates the angelic Helen, who awakens Albertus's love and teaches him the emotional and spiritual truths he had never learned from books.
Richly philosophical and deeply romantic, the play is a reaction against eighteenth-century rationalism. It asserts the existence of some higher truth to be foud in music, poetry, and a sympathetic response to nature, but it also, contrary to the doctrine of art for art's sake, demands social responsibility from the artist. Sand believed that the arts should lead society to an awareness of truth, freedom, and the meaning of life, and The Seven Strings of the Lyre is an attempt to dramatize this belief.
Originally published in 1989.
A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
George Sand
George Sand is the pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, a 19th century French novelist and memoirist. Sand is best known for her novels Indiana, Lélia, and Consuelo, and for her memoir A Winter in Majorca, in which she reflects on her time on the island with Chopin in 1838-39. A champion of the poor and working classes, Sand was an early socialist who published her own newspaper using a workers’ co-operative and scorned gender conventions by wearing men’s clothing and smoking tobacco in public. George Sand died in France in 1876.
Read more from George Sand
HARVARD CLASSICS - All 20 Volumes in one Edition: Complete Fiction Classics: Crime and Punishment, The Scarlet Letter, Pride and Prejudice, Notre Dame, Anna Karenina, Vanity Fair, Sleepy Hollow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsValentine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Correspondence of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert: Collected Letters of the Most Influential French Authors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsValentine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sand - Flaubert Letters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHarvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMauprat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leone Leoni Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLucrezia Floriani Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Fadette Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greatest Novels of George Sand: Indiana, Mauprat, The Countess of Rudolstadt, Valentine, Leone Leoni, Antonia… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mauprat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Countess von Rudolstadt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Indiana Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIndiana Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mauprat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPersonal Correspondence Between Gustave Flaubert & George Sand Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConsuelo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Devil's Pool Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIndiana Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to A Woman's Version of the Faust Legend
Related ebooks
Sand - Flaubert Letters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComplete Works of Robert Southey (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Countess von Rudolstadt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mauprat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Novels of George Sand: Indiana, Mauprat, The Countess of Rudolstadt, Valentine, Leone Leoni, Antonia… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSchiller's Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Antonia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVenice Preserved A Tragedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrançois the Waif Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIndiana Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Devil's Pool Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Plain Dealer: 'Money makes up in a measure all other wants in men'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDelphi Collected Poetical Works of Mary Robinson (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Widow's Tears: 'She be my guide, and hers the praise of these, My worthy undertakings'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes to Shakespeare's Comedies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDelphi Complete Works of Fulke Greville (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe White Devil: "Man is most happy, when his own actions are arguments and examples of his virtue" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Malcontent: 'People don't forget. Nothing gets forgiven'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDelphi Complete Works of William Congreve (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLittle Fadette Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Countess of Rudolstadt: Historical Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAria da Capo: "Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEzra Pounds Aesthetics and the Origins of Modernism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe White Devil Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLucrezia Floriani Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cenci: “Poets and philosophers are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Brotherhood of Consolation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Death and the Maidens: Fanny Wollstonecraft and the Shelley circle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Criticism For You
Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Power of Habit: by Charles Duhigg | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A Woman's Version of the Faust Legend
0 ratings0 reviews