Abstract

“And so the spirit looks neither ahead nor behind: the present alone is our joy”. This verse form Goethe's Faust Part Two expresses a manner of concentrating oneself on the present instant, of recognizing the value of this instant, corresponding to a type of experience of time which was felt quite strongly in ancient philosophies such as Epicureanism and Stoicism. It is primarily this type of experience which will be considered here. But we cannot overlook the literary context in which these verses appear and the significance they assumed in Faust Part Two and in Goethe's oeuvre in general. In this respect we can remark that Goethe himself is a telling witness to the type of experience that we are going to describe.