Johannes Anderegg , University of St. Galen, Switzerland

Goethe’s Faust can be regarded as one of the most important documents of the 18th and 19th century debate on Christian belief, religious traditions and theology. His knowledge of the Bible, of religious thought in general and of religious art greatly influenced his work. The tragedy opens with a palimpsest of the prologue in the Book of Job, it ends with what has been called Faust’s ascension or redemption, and the most important figure of the play is not Faust but Mephisto, who does not only mirror the devil of the New Testament but seems to be kind of an allegory of the powers that dominate the modern world. The project aims at describing the special technique of intertextuality and even intermediality by which the play is linked to biblical and to other religious texts or traditions, and thus it will try to outline an understanding of Goethe’s fundamental and unique concept of this tragedy.

Johannes Anderegg, Professor emeritus at the University of St.Gallen (Switzerland), received his Doctorat from the University of Zürich in 1964. He held a professorship for German Literature at the University of Kassel from 1971 to 1978 when he became professor for German Language and Literature at the University of St.Gallen. He was elected vice-president in 1982 and was president of the University of St.Gallen from 1986 to 1990. He was a visiting-professor at the University of Konstanz (1980/81), at Yale University (1977 and 2001) and at Dartmouth College (1992). His primary areas of specialization are literary theory, aesthetics, Goethe, and German literature of the 18th and early 19th century. From 1982 to 2007 he was a member of the team translating the Hebrew Bible for the new Zürcher Bibel, which appeared in 2007. The University of Zürich conferred on him the title of Dr.theol.h.c. for his publications on problems of the translation of biblical texts and of religious language. Among his books are Leseübungen (1970), Fiktion und Kommunikation (1971), Literaturwissenschaftliche Stiltheorie (1977), Sprache und Verwandlung (1985), Schreibe mir oft (2001). He is editor or co-editor of numerous books, e.g. Das Zeitalter des Barock (1970), Wissenschaft und Wirklichkeit (1977), Kulturwissenschaften (with Edith A. Kunz, 1999), Schule auf christlicher Grundlage (2001), Goethe und die Bibel (with Edith A. Kunz, 2005).