How Faust, Part Two drew on The Iliad
A documented line of influence: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe demonstrably engaged Homer’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Iliad
Homer · c. 750 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
Faust, Part Two
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1832
RomanticismRelevance
8/10
On Faust, Part Two’s page
- The woman at the center of the Helen act is Homer's Helen of Troy — the prize and the cause of the war the Iliad sings
- Goethe, who memorized Homer young, threads the work with Homeric allusion and stages Helen's return from Troy to Sparta
- Read the Iliad first and you arrive at Faust's marriage to Helen knowing exactly what she has already cost the world
On The Iliad’s page
- Goethe had Homer by heart from childhood — and in Faust, Part Two he reaches all the way back to the war the Iliad is fought over
- The entire Helen act picks up Homer's matter at Menelaus's palace in Sparta, casting Helen of Troy as its heroine
- The face that launched the thousand ships becomes Goethe's, summoned back from the dead to marry Faust