>In the nineteenth century another mentality manifested itself It is evident in a very able and brilliant poem, Goethe’s Faust. Marlowe’s Mephistopheles is a simpler creature than Goethe’s. But at least Marlowe has, in a few words, concentrated him into a statement. He is there, and (incidentally) he renders Milton’s Satan superfluous. Goethe’s demon inevitably sends us back to Goethe. He embodies a philosophy. A creation of art should not do that: he should replace the philosophy. Goethe has not, that is to say, sacrificed or consecrated his thought to make the drama; the drama is still a means. And this type of mixed art has been repeated by men incomparably smaller than Goethe. We have had one other remarkable work of this type: Peer Gynt.
Is Eliot's criticism correct?
Incidentally these are the works Weininger most esteemed (besides the libretto of Wagner, which is similarly "philosophical")

>>24554431 (OP)
>Is Eliot's criticism correct?
I don't know

I do think it's a bit of a skewering of Goethe that Faust isn't dragged to Hell at the drama's end. Goethe wants humanity to reign supreme over everything, even Nature, even the Angels and the Devils, even God Himself.

But that's not how it really works, in the end.

>>24554431 (OP)
Eliot's criticism is very insightful and original, but under the veneer of restrained objectivity are motivations of extraordinary subjectivity. This is evident when he admitted that his career as a critic was intimately tied up with his career as a poet. By all means study what he has to say, but remember that they are almost always the expression of views that underpin the English Modernist project. The essay that this quote is from is an early one in his career, and it's important to remember that the radicalness of his views softened as he got older, becoming in fact more objective and impartial. The gigantic Weltanschauung of German Romanticism, encapsulating equally poetry and philosophy, remained largely incomprehensible to Eliot and the other Modernists.

>>24554476
Guess

>>24554431 (OP)
probably