[Chap. I] Genesis
Old Andreas Futteral and Gretchen his wife: their quiet home. Advent of a mysterious stranger, who deposits with them a young infant, the future Herr Diogenes Teufelsdröckh. After-yearnings of the youth for his unknown Father. Sovereign power of Names and Naming. Diogenes a flourishing Infant ([p. 61]).
[Chap. II] Idyllic
Happy Childhood! Entepfuhl: Sights, hearings and experiences of the boy Teufelsdröckh; their manifold teaching. Education; what it can do, what cannot. Obedience our universal duty and destiny. Gneschen sees the good Gretchen pray ([p. 68]).
[Chap. III] Pedagogy
Teufelsdröckh’s School. His Education. How the ever-flowing Kuhbach speaks of Time and Eternity. The Hinterschlag Gymnasium; rude Boys; and pedant Professors. The need of true Teachers, and their due recognition. Father Andreas dies: and Teufelsdröckh learns the secret of his birth: His reflections thereon. The Nameless University. Statistics of Imposture much wanted. Bitter fruits of Rationalism: Teufelsdröckh’s religious difficulties. The young Englishman Herr Towgood. Modern Friendship ([p. 76]).
[Chap. IV] Getting under Way
The grand thaumaturgic Art of Thought. Difficulty in fitting Capability to Opportunity, or of getting underway. The advantage of Hunger and Bread-Studies. Teufelsdröckh has to enact the stern mono-drama of No object and no rest. Sufferings as Auscultator. Given up as a man of genius, Zähdarm House. Intolerable presumption of young men. Irony and its consequences. Teufelsdröckh’s Epitaph on Count Zähdarm ([p. 90]).
[Chap. V] Romance
Teufelsdröckh gives up his Profession. The heavenly mystery of Love. Teufelsdröckh’s feeling of worship towards women. First and only love. Blumine. Happy hearts and free tongues. The infinite nature of Fantasy. Love’s joyful progress; sudden dissolution; and final catastrophe ([p. 101]).