About the work
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's festival play, which he left as a fragment, was begun in 1810 and never completed — a deliberate work of art of non-completeness. The piece in strict classical verse forms (trimeter, anapaestic choruses) was composed at the height of Goethe's Greece-oriented late Classicism and treats the Pandora myth in radically reimagined form.
Plot
Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus live in separated worlds — Prometheus as active fire-bringer and master craftsman, Epimetheus as contemplative mourner. Pandora, once loved by Epimetheus and removed by divine decree, exists as memory in the background of the action. Her daughters Elpore (Hope) and Epimeleia (Care) embody the opposition of hope and sorrow. The fragment breaks off before Pandora herself appears — her return was to bring the outstanding reconciliation.
Cultural significance
Pandora is Goethe's most enigmatic work and has been interpreted by Albert Bielschowsky and Karl Philipp Moritz as a symbolic self-reflection by Goethe on productive versus contemplative existence. The fragment remains rare on stage but was adapted by Wilhelm Hauff as early music theatre. Gerhart Hauptmann and Hugo von Hofmannsthal saw in the work the prelude to literary modernism. Musical settings exist by Hans Werner Henze and others.