ABSTRACT
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Percy Bysshe Shelley, both influenced by Dante Alighieri, also both rely on gendered representations of the functions of Eros/love and language for their endings to Faust and Prometheus unbound. With the support of theorists from Goethe and Friedrich Schlegel to Bertolt Brecht and Alan Richardson, this chapter defines what something is, summarizing how Prometheus Unbound can be read as an un-Faustian epic. In the course of making the transition from tragedy, Shelley entered into dialogue again with the Byronic/Goethean/Faustian views that were the background to Julian and Maddalo. F. W. J. Schelling thought differently, believing that Faust would transcend tragedy to end as a work of hope akin to the Commedia. Intriguingly, students of Schelling's, developing their teacher's interpretation, are said to have referred to the 1790 Fragment version of Faust I as a 'divina tragodia'.
