Summary
Franz Werfel: Between Up and Down
Although written over a period of fifteen years, all four parts of the book complement each other thematically, providing a rounded picture of Werfel's worldview, a peculiar synthesis of the most diverse religious and philosophical influences. The first three texts were not written as essays, but were given as speeches and were only later edited and supplemented for printing. The first of the texts "Realism and spirituality" is based on a lecture that Werfel gave in Vienna in the spring of 1931. Second text "Can we live without faith in God?" it is also largely identical to the text of a lecture held in Vienna in 1932, and the article "On the Purest Bliss of Man" is the text of Werfel's lecture to members of the "League of Nations" in Vienna in 1937. The fourth part of the book is "Theologumena", a collection of epigrams, aphorisms and essay sketches, written in America between 1942 and 1944, near the end of the writer's life.
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