hulit1-4, Exercise 2: The Tragedy of Man

Model answer (check the details in a named translation):

The idea: Adam, the first man, guided by Lucifer, is shown a series of scenes from history, from ancient Egypt, Athens and Rome through the medieval and early modern world to a scientific future and finally a cold, dying earth. In each period the hope for a better world is disappointed, and Adam is tempted to despair.

Pessimistic reading: every age repeats failure, freedom turns into tyranny, ideals are corrupted, and the future ends in decline, so human striving looks pointless.

Hopeful reading: the play ends with a call to go on, with the sense that struggle itself has value, and with a final voice that tells Adam to strive and trust. Readers differ on whether this ending is earned.

Because the work holds both, it has been read in different ways in different times, including as a reflection on the failure of 1848.