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Goethe, Volume 2: Faust I & II

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Faust, Parts I and II, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was written in stages across the span of nearly sixty years. Having read the work twice now, this time the Stuart Atkins translation, I concur with the wisdom of the ages that it is one of the greatest works of imaginative literature ever composed. Yet, while I think its relevance to a modern audience is as high as ever, this work is not likely to receive much attention, let alone deep study, in America today, in the age of the Oprah book club, admirable though that may be, and computer animated movies, reality television and of course, the World Wide Web.

In fact, the great Goethe himself is hardly known today in the English-speaking world outside of scholars and aesthetes (of which I am neither), yet he was a household name 150 years ago and easily ranks alongside Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. Indeed his body of work is even more vast and varied than each of those other greats, totaling sixty volumes in his lifetime and another score or so posthumously published. While Goethe penned masterpieces in nearly every genre over six decades, clearly the most canonical text is the massive, 18,000 line poetical drama, Faust.

Faust, stated boldly is 'about' the totality of the human struggle. The storyline chronicles the adventures and misadventures of an extraordinarily disaffected academic, Dr. Heinrich Faust, who in a moment of despair makes a wager with the Devil regarding the attainability of a moment of absolute fulfillment. Beneath this surface, however, it is really a metaphysical journey that illustrates on multiple levels, the duality of man's life. Faust seeks the meaning of life, he seeks access to the Absolute, the Ideal, and the Spiritual, yet he is constantly frustrated and dissatisfied by the apparent human limitations of attaining those goals. This frustrated titanic desire results in the other side of Faust's/Man's quest, which is his/our ceaseless and error-prone striving for the highest realms of knowledge and experience (both good and bad) that are attainable during one's earthly tenure.

The poem is a difficult read due in large part to significant translation challenges. In addition to an astonishing number of verse forms used, Faust also has a complex structure, many classical allusions and multiple fantastical situations. While a powerful enough read even on the surface, such a reading can never be altogether quite satisfying. Patient and careful readers who are willing to work through the difficulties, however, should be rewarded with a clear sense of its timelessness and its Universality. Interestingly, and perhaps not coincidental, the complexity of the work makes the sheer act of studying it an exercise, in part, of what the drama itself represents.

While most of the poetic impact is surely lost at the expense of gaining comprehension, I nevertheless still suggest that English language readers first approach the Stuart Atkins modern English translation published by Princeton University Press. I further highly recommend, as a near necessary companion, the 1957 book Goethe's Faust: An Interpretation by Alexander Gillies. Unfortunately this wonderful book is out of print, but may be available through internet search engines. It aided my understanding immeasurably and further increased my already significant admiration for Goethe and this particular work.

In summary, throughout the story of Faust we are able to observe the twin competing forces of instinctive Good and ever-present Evil as they play out their roles within man's life of needs and wants. Importantly, we see their roles in the uncertain endgame of salvation versus damnation. While nominally 'about' the fantastical adventures of a medieval scholar, Faust should really be read and recognized as the allegorical masterpiece that it is, that portrays both the glory and the tragedy of what it means to be fully human.

... how the work has been translated. Goethe spent more or less his whole life on writing and improving this drama. In the original text nearly every line rhymes with another. In fact, there are only a few exceptions.
It's sad that all that is gone with the translation. In my opinion a lot of the magic surrounding the text disappeared, too.
If possible, you should definately read it in german.(only if you're really good) It's hard enough to fully understand it even if german is your native language.
Quotation: (beginning)
Faust: Habe nun, ach! Philosophie,
Juristerei und Medizin,
Und leider auch Theologie
Durchaus studiert, mit heißem Bemühn.
Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor!
Und bin so klug als wie zuvor;
Heiße Magister, heiße Doktor gar
Und ziehe schon an die zehen Jahr
Herauf, herab und quer und krumm
Meine Schüler an der Nase herum-
Und sehe, daß wir nichts wissen können!
Das will mir schier das Herz verbrennen.
....

Marthens Garten
MARGARETE: Versprich mir, Heinrich!
FAUST: Was ich kann!
MARGARETE: Nun sag, wie hast du's mit der Religion?
Du bist ein herzlich guter Mann,
Allein ich glaub, du hältst nicht viel davon.
FAUST: Laß das, mein Kind! Du fühlst, ich bin dir gut;
Für meine Lieben ließ' ich Leib und Blut,
Will niemand sein Gefühl und seine Kirche rauben.
...
I LOVE these parts!

Goethe and his work cannot be read in translation. It is necessary to learn German to understand the depth of his work. German is made of intranslatable words which have a spiralling meaning.
Goethe in Europe and Britain is still very much a prominent figure of writing. His work is allegorical, heavy and fantastic. There are thick and luscious lines which cannot be forgotten.
Translation or not, Faust must be read.

This play is rarely performed, if ever. It is too complicated, too complex, and full of numerous special effects. It is fantastique to the extreme. It also entertwines several lines. First the Emperor. He is captivated by some magic and the apparition of Helen and Paris. This is enough to bring the Court to extreme pleasure. Then this Emperor is lured into creating paper-money. The Empire becomes rich with that money that comes from nowhere. This is of course a criticism of paper money that is invented by the French Revolution, based on all the religious and noble estates that have been requisitioned by the government and are being sold. This episode will end three acts later. This paper money has developed total anarchy because it has made everyone willing and desirous to freely implement their initiative. In other words it has created unregulated free enterprise. Then order has become a demand from the people and they have more or less unified behind a new self-appointed Enperor. Hence a civil war. This vision is absolutely prophetic about the dictatorships that emerged from this nineteenth century's capitalism. Faust and Mephistopheles will provide the old Emperor with victory in exchange of Faust's possession of the coast. The second line is that of the deepest layers of the magical and mythological realms. We go down into the world of the Meres, and of all the fantastique monsters of all mythologies. It becomes a Walpurgis night of a new type and Faust learns how vain and evanescent these beings may be. You cannot count on them to hold their promises. It is fascinating but also totally frustrating. Nothing real can come out of it. And yet, third line, Faust is able to save and conquer Helen just after her return to Greece, just before her being put to death by Melenas. She lives in an old Gothic castle with Faust and she is able to give Faust a son, Euphorion, who will be inspired by Faust so well into believing that anything is possible and desirable, particularly flying in the sky, that he will reenact the experience of Icarus and will fall to the ground and die, and in fact vanish, leaving behind his clothes and lyra. This will determine in its turn the vanishing of Helen. At this point of these three lines Faust finally understands that Mephistopheles can only provide him with illusions, nothing real. And yet, fourth line, he gets from the Emperor the coast along which he is going to implement his ideas, thanks to the real work of people. His mind has thought a way to conquer earth from the sea with dams and canals. Thousands of workers build these polders and create a new rich country that can prosper economically ; His mind, associated to thousands of hands, can create a rich country and bring comfort and wealth to thousands of people who deserve it thanks to and earn it through their work. It is then that Faust dies and Mephistopheles wants to take possession of his soul, as promised a long time agao with a signature in blood. But angels come down and lure his lust into forgetting about his aim and they capture Faust's soul and take it into the sky. That is when Faust's redemption becomes possible, fifth line. He has to be examined by three fatherly figures, three patriarchs, and then defended by three women, among whom Gretchen is one essential figure, and these three women have to convince the Holy Virgin of the redeemable dimension of Faust's soul, which she accepts on the basis of the good he had come to in his last living phase, and because Gretchen actually forgives him for his luring her into a lustful affair that caused her being put to death. This play is a sharp criticism of emerging capitalism and its selfish free enterprise spirit. It is a criticism of the simulacra this new emerging society represents : paper money, phantasms, the chase for pleasure, the rejection of religion and of all ethics, the vanity of fake magical knowledge, the illusion of living in some mythical imagined world, etc. It is also the advocacy of the real world, of nature, of implementable knowledge, of science applied to nature in order to improve the lot of humanity, in order for humanity to improve their lot through their own work. Then we can see that Goethe in his mature old age rethinks the world of his younger spirit through a complete reassessment of all human spiritual constructions and illusions. It is a real descent into the hell of a spirit that does not want to acknowledge any limits to its adventurous passions.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Certainly enough it is shocking (at least to me) that a man of genius on the level and scope of J.W. von Goethe is largely unread, or perhaps even largely unknown except as a musty name, in the English speaking world today.

This Stuart Atkins translation, part of apparently a large series of Princeton U. Press 'Collected Works' of Goethe, is the single BEST translation I have encountered that is likely to be able to reach, to be comprehended, by the widest English language audience.

The richness of Goethe's variation in metre and tone is retained, but the language is modern-day English and avoids anachronisms and archaic language. While old-style language sounds "Classic" and rhyme can be aesthetically beautiful to read and hear, this translation offers comprehension of the original and is quite true to the original. In fact, in the poetic gymnastics required to maintain metre and rhyme scheme, much invention is required that can lose the import of Goethe's original.

My suggestion, in the interest of having a short review, is to recommend the Atkins' translation to most, certainly those just approaching Goethe....and then, read a second translation later, once you have a decent grasp on the import of the great Faust legend.

Aside from the translation, the work itself is incomparable. Nothing short of the story of Western man's struggle of experience and knowledge, of progress and constant striving and becoming. It may be disputed, but Goethe is, in my view, in the totality of his work, in terms of variety and quality, a greater poet than Shakespeare, Dante and Homer, but with Faust alone he at a minimum, garners a place of honor on this Mt. Rushmore of World Literature (a term, incidentally coined by Goethe).

The first Faust is a marvellous romantic tragedy. Dr Faust sells his soul to the devil to be young forever and enjoy life. And he sure does. He seduces the young Gretchen and impregnates her, which is a crime for the woman in those days in Germany. She will be imprisoned because of her fornication and she will become crazy. She will refuse to elope with Dr Faust and she will die on the gallows. The play is extremely fascinating with some interludes that are devilish pageants with witches and wizards, and a direct allusion to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream that is shifted from an entertaining fairy-dream to a wicked and perverse diabolic Sabbath-night. This first Faust has been the model for many adaptations, particularly for the opera.
The second Faust is introduced by a long sequence of illusions and impersonifications of historical figures entertwined with tricks and antics performed by Dr Faust at the German Emperor's court. But this second Faust centers on Faust's love for Helen of Troy. A mystical and pure love. It turns sour when their son tries to fly like Icarus, falls to the ground and dies. He had internalized his father's dream to equal the Gods, to go against all rules of nature. This triggers the disappearance of Helen and Faust's fall. Yet Goethe redeems Faust by making him understand that his science must not be used for his sole pleasure but to govern and inspire the work of simple people and make them build up a rich country gained on the sea with dams and canals. When he thus understands that knowledge associated with work can create a real paradise on earth he is redeemed by God and accepted in Heaven after the intermission of three paternal patriarchal figures (the three judges of the old Greek mythology that greeted the dead to sort them out and send them to Hell or Heaven), the three penitent women that were at the foot of the Cross, the Holy Virgin herself, and Gretchen that had been deemed pure and innocent by God. Thus Faust announces the 19th century and the industrial revolution that will create riches from the association of science and work.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

"Faust" is the masterwork of Goethe, the most important German poet and writer of all times, a giant in his own right, to
be compared with the likes of William Shakespeare, Dante Aligheri, Miguel de Cervantes and the Portuguese Luis de Camões. To some, he is the most bright and intelligent of all 80 billion Homo Sapiens Sapiens creatures who live or ever lived in this world of ours since the genetic split from the first Eve and the first Adam some 130.000 years ago in North Africa (see in this regard, the works of the Italian geneticist Luigi Sforza). Goethe's IQ is in the range of a breath-taking 205, some 30 points ahead of "lesser" genius like Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton or Karl Marx. Despite not being a philosopher in the strict sense of the word, his many folded ideas were bold enough to place him in the companionship of the greatest philosophers of all times, like Plato, Socrates or Aristotle. In fact, many lesser philosophers took the bait of his thinking, gulped it down and digested it to form a brand new full-fledged philosophical thinking. (See in this regard, for instance, the work of the German Oswald Spengler, specially "The Decline of the West"). Goethe was a giant who surpassed all established standards. His work influenced Western thought in many fields.

"Faust", written in two parts, is a theatrical play about the eternal fight between Good and Evil and about a man (dr.Faust) who sold his soul to the devil (Mephistopheles). Faust was the prototype of a bright and most successfull man of his time, being a professional doctor and a man of polymath genius (like Goethe himself), but deeply bored by a routine life, only broken by the plenty of access he had to the western literature of the time. He seems to be drowned in a sea of books, but that was not enough to make him happy with himself. But Dr.Faust wanted more and, at last, he gave his soul to the devil in exchange for a life full of immediate, long-lasting and unexampled sensuous pleasures. Wasn't he in this respect a bit like you and me?

What it is at stake is the supremacy of Evil or Good upon its contrary, an object of all philosophers and religions and the German poet does not take it lightly: he calls the powers and the names of Greek and Roman mythology, along with all the hierarchy of the Catholic tradition, specially the Virgin Mary and a constellation of angels, to help dr.Faust in his battle against the dark forces of evil. Who is to succeed? Evil or Good? Also, the battle can be seen as occurring inside Dr.Faust's mind and body, which opened plenty of room to the argument that what was at stake was in reality the struggle between the Rational and the Irrational (or Unconscious) side of ourselves, an argument taken by, among others, Carl Jung and his followers.

To sum it up, what you have in your hands is one of the most interesting and thrilling stories of our civilization, narrated by a man well ahead of his time and space, a book that can change one's life if read with the appropriate attention and in the adequate circumstance. I am sure you will not be disappointed, and after having read it , you will get back to the book many times to get another glimpse of such and such situation or to fix some point. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I'll save the praise for the genius of Goethe and Faust for another time.

I just wanted to say that out of all the Faust translations out there, this is the only one i've come across that is given in modern day english, without all the fancy, schmantzy intellectual, poetic rhyming verses.

This is a straight, easy to understand translation while keeping all the beauty, majesty, romantic and tragic style of Goethe's dramatic writing.

This book is part of the complete works of Goethe. These people at Princeton University know what they're doing, I mean they're presenting the English speaking world the complete writings of Goethe! So of course everything they come out with in this edition will be well-nigh-definitive.

...with that said, enjoy the Faust!

there is little wonder why authors like Nabokov, Bely, Bulgakov etc. have used this book as a foundation for many of their most famous books. faust is simply exquisite.

Open the first page and embark into the world of Goethe, there is little wonder why faust took fifty years to complete. Be warned, though, that once delved into, the external world will appear mundane and worthless. Faust is a must read for anyone who is willing to devote the necessary time to completely understand the element of absurdity (as according to camus). read and find out if a fifty year vacation with the devil is worth your soul. A MUST BUY NOW!

....and a tale so archetypal, so Frankensteinian and relevant to the concerns of our Faustian culture, that if you read it and don't feel uplifted, bedazzled, and troubled, then you probably don't get it.