Reconhecimento fáustico: Pessoa, Mann, Valéry

Abstract

This thesis aims at investigating the way in which the idea of acknowledgment could guide the reading of the Faustian interpretations written in the first half of the twentieth century: Tragédia Subjectiva by Fernando Pessoa, Dr. Fausto by Thomas Mann and Meu Fausto by Paul Valéry. That is, the appropriations of the myth by Thomas Mann, Pessoa and Paul Valéry would all be different interpretations on the tragedy of knowledge whose development lies in the idea of a failure of acknowledgement: failure or impossibility to acknowledge. The study of the concept of acknowledgment will be based on Stanley Cavell s essays and books, by understanding that acknowledgment is the common denominator between the ideas of tragedy and skepticism: both result from a failure or impossibility to acknowledge. Thus, this present study s aim is to understand how the three Faustian interpretations deal with the failure of acknowledgment and therefore reiterate their distance from Goethe s tradition