the iĄaculty oÍ' Graduate Ątudies April, L96[ - MSpace at the ...

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Cyprian the smith" Paracelsus seeks revenÉ5e upon the
self-assu-red a.nd complacent smith vrhose only concern
iuith his wife is his audacious oossession of her as
rnere chattel" B)' hypnotising Justina, v,iho has been
trying to dissu-ade an ardeni you-th, Paracelsus suggests
a kind of psychodraraa from r,vhich none of the characters
can free himsel-f . As the protagonist exclaims to
Cyprian u¡hen truth and illu-sion have over-shadot¡ed one
another:
rflvlehr als die i;dahrheit. die da v'¡ar
¿ ^/
Ist r'rl.ahn, der ir_t_. . . .t' ¿o
ì ì Ì'þi q ê -l iî I^I'ì Y¡ai
The supnorbing clashes in the play ere ihose of insigh'i;
versus reason, bourgeois values versu-s enlightenrnent,
trariitional medicine versus innovati-on, and- Iove versus
egoism. These elerrrents cause a nassive bu-t delicately
balanced confrontatlon of illusion v'¡hich converges u.'oon
the foil of hypnotic suggestion"
Tha-t the sense of illusion has any validity at
all in the nlay is seen in the fra.me-v¡ork i-nto which
the motlf has been placed.. The frame-work is forned- by
dramatic characters who accep'b as true all that they
feel, see and hear, ancl all to 'rhich tradition has
taught thern to confor::n. lxcept for the figure of
Paracel sus, none of the cha-raciers has å.45i epistento-
I no.i o¡l nr.. ôn+^-l ^'-; ^^i ^^.'l^+ ^ i]*.*-^^+1,-^+; ã .i
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