ABSTRACT
In the fragmentary drama Prometheus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe addresses his growing conviction that his own experience and not God's design had made him the man he was. From a psychological point of view, the dominant theme in the fragmentary drama Prometheus is detachment from parents and religious authorities in order to poetically create one's own self. Goethe himself went through this transitional narcissistic stage, after which he overcame his adolescent self-referentiality and dedicated himself to his social relationships. His interpersonal conflicts and his strategies for solving them are expressed in his works with general validity, especially in Clavigo, Stella, Brother and Sister, and in the Urfaust. Many of the conflicts having an impact on Goethe's life in 1774 were compressed into Clavigo. The self-reflection found in these dramas represents the pandemonium unique to human emotional development. These plays employ distinctly aesthetic forms to express general truths about mankind, hence their continued vitality.
