Faust: Part One

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Overview

Faust Part One - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - The story of Dr. Faustus and the Devil is one of such deep human significance, and, from the Reformation downwards, of such large European reputation, that in giving some account of its origin, character, treatment, legendary and poetical, I shall seem to be only gratifying a very natural curiosity on the part of the intelligent reader. We, who live in the nineteenth century, in a period of the worlds intellectual development, which may be called the age of spiritual doubt and scepticism, in contradistinction to the age of faith and reverence in things traditional, which was first shaken to its centre by the violent shock of the Reformation, can have little sympathy with the opinions as to spiritual beings, demoniacal agency, magic, and theosophy, that were so universally prevalent in the sixteenth century. We believe in the existence of angels and spirits, because the Scriptures make mention of such spiritual beings; but this belief occupies a place as little prominent in our theology, as its influence is almost null in regard to actual life. In the sixteenth century, however, Demonology and Angelography were sciences of no common importance; and were, too, a fruitful root whence the occult lore of the sages, and the witch, ghost, and magic craft of the many took their rise, and spread themselves out into a tree, whose branches covered the whole earth with their shadow. From the earliest Christian fathers, to the last lingering theosophists of the seventeenth century, we can trace a regular and unshaken system of belief in the existence of infinite demons and angels in immediate connection with this lower world, with whom it was not only possible, but of very frequent occurrence, for men to have familiar intercourse. Psellus,[i1] the prince of philosophers, does not disdain to enter into a detailed account of the nature and influence of demons, and seems to give full faith to the very rankest old wives fables of dæmones incubi et succubi, afterwards so well known in the trials for witchcraft which disgraced the history of criminal law not more than two centuries ago. Giordano Bruno, the poet, the philosopher, and free-thinker of his day, to whom the traditionary doctrines of the Church were as chaff before the wind, was by no means free from the belief in magic, the fixed idea of the age in which he lived. O! quanta virtus, says he, in all the ebullition of his vivid fancy, O quanta virtus est intersectionibus circulorum et quam sensibus hominum occulta!!! cum caput draconis in sagittario exstiterit, diacedio lapide posito in aqua, naturaliter (!) spiritus ad dandum responsa veniunt.[i2] The comprehensive mind of Cornelius Agrippa, the companion of kings and of princes, soon sprung beyond the Cabbalistical and Platonical traditions of his youth; but not less is his famous book De Philosophia Occulta a good specimen of the intellectual character of the age in which he lived. The noted work De Vanitate Scientiarum is a child of Agrippa, not of the sixteenth century. The names of Cardan, Campanella, Reuchlin, Tritheim, Pomponatius, Dardi, Mirandula, and many others, might be added as characteristic children of the same spirit-stirring era; all more or less uniting a strange belief.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783986473778
Publisher:	Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
Publication date:	09/26/2021
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	333
Sales rank:	820,054
File size:	741 KB

About the Author

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer. George Eliot called him "Germany's greatest man of letters... and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism, and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust. Goethe's other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther.Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang, and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also long served as the Privy Councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar.Goethe is the originator of the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"), having taken great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, Arabic literature, amongst others. His influence on German philosophy is virtually immeasurable, having major impact especially on the generation of Hegel and Schelling, although Goethe himself expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense.Goethe's influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Goethe is considered by many to be the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in Western culture as well. Early in his career, however, he wondered whether painting might not be his true vocation; late in his life, he expressed the expectation that he would ultimately be remembered above all for his work in optics.

Read an Excerpt

Dedication One
Wavering forms, you come again;
once long ago you passed before my clouded sight.
Should I now attempt to hold you fast?
Does my heart still look for phantoms?
You surge at me! Well, then you may rule as you rise about me out of mist and cloud.
The airy magic in your path stirs youthful tremors in my breast.
You bear the images of happy days,
and friendly shadows rise to mind.     
With them, as in an almost muted tale,
come youthful love and friendship.
The pain is felt anew, and the lament sounds life's labyrinthine wayward course and tells of friends who went before me and whom fate deprived of joyous hours.
They cannot hear the songs which follow,
the souls to whom I sang my first,
scattered is the genial crowd,
the early echo, ah, has died away.     
Now my voice sings for the unknown many whose very praise intimidates my heart.
The living whom my song once charmed are now dispersed throughout the world.
And I am seized by long forgotten yearnings for the solemn, silent world of spirits;
as on an aeolian harp my whispered song lingers now in vagrant tones.
I shudder, and a tear draws other tears;
my austere heart grows soft and gentle.
What I possess appears far in the distance,
and what is past has turned into reality.

Prelude in the Theater
Manager, Dramatic Poet, Comic Character.

Manager
You two who often stood by me in times of hardship and of gloom,
what do you think our enterprise should bring to German lands and people?
I want the crowd to be well satisfied,
for, as you know, it lives and lets us live.
The boards are nailed, the stage is set,
and all the world looks for a lavish feast.    
There they sit, with eyebrows raised,
and calmly wait to be astounded.
I have my ways to keep the people well disposed,
but never was I in a fix like this.
It's true, they're not accustomed to the best,
yet they have read an awful lot of things.
How shall we plot a new and fresh approach and make things pleasant and significant?
I'll grant, it pleases me to watch the crowds,
as they stream and hustle to our tent  
and with mighty and repeated labors press onward through the narrow gate of grace;
while the sun still shines—it's scarcely four o'clock—
they fight and scramble for the ticket window,
and as if in famine begging at the baker's door,
they almost break their necks to gain admission.

The poet alone can work this miracle on such a diverse group. My friend, the time is now!

Poet
Oh, speak no more of motley crowds to me,
their presence makes my spirit flee.   
Veil from my sight those waves and surges that suck us down into their raging pools.
Take me rather to a quiet little cell where pure delight blooms only for the poet,
where our inmost joy is blessed and fostered by love and friendship and the hand of God.
Alas! What sprang from our deepest feelings,
what our lips tried timidly to form,
failing now and now perhaps succeeding,
is devoured by a single brutish moment. 70
Often it must filter through the years before its final form appears perfected.
What gleams like tinsel is but for the moment.
What's true remains intact for future days.

Comedian
Oh, save me from such talk of future days!
Suppose I were concerned with progeny,
then who would cheer our present generation?
It lusts for fun and should be gratified.
A fine young fellow in the present tense is worth a lot when all is said and done.      
If he can charm and make the public feel at ease,
he will not mind its changing moods;
he seeks the widest circle for himself,
so that his act will thereby be more telling.
And now be smart and show your finest qualities,
let fantasy be heard with all its many voices.

Manager
Above all, let there be sufficient action!
They come to gaze and wish to see a spectacle. 
If many things reel off before their eyes,
so that the mob can gape and be astounded,
then you will sway the great majority and be a very popular man.
The mass can only be subdued by massiveness,
so each can pick a morsel for himself.
A large amount contains enough for everyone,
and each will leave contented with his share.
Give us the piece you write in pieces!
Try your fortune with a potpourri      
that's quickly made and easily dished out.
What good is it to sweat and to create a whole?
The audience will yet pick the thing to pieces.

Poet
You do not feel the baseness of such handiwork.
How improper for an artist worth his salt!
I see, the botchery of your neat companions has been the maxim of your enterprise.

Manager
Such reproaches leave me unperturbed.
A man who wants to make his mark must try to wield the best of tools.   
You have coarse wood to split, remember that;
consider those for whom you write!
A customer may come because he's bored,
another may have had too much to eat;
and what I most of all abhor:
some have just put down their evening paper.
They hurry here distracted, as to a masquerade,
and seek us out from mere curiosity.
The ladies come to treat the audience to their charms and play their parts without a salary. 
Now are you still a dreamer on poetic heights?
And yet content when our house is filled?
Observe your benefactors at close range!
Some are crude, the others cold as ice.
And when it's finished, this one wants a deck of cards and that one pleasure in a whore's embrace.
Why then invoke and plague the muses for such a goal as this, poor fools?
I say to you, give more and more and always more,
and then you cannot miss by very much. 
You must attempt to mystify the people,
they're much too hard to satisfy—
What's got into you—are you anguished or ecstatic

Poet
Go find yourself another slave!
The poet, I suppose, should wantonly give back,
so you'd be pleased, the highest right that Nature granted him, the right of Man!
How does the poet stir all hearts?
How does he conquer every element?
Is it not the music welling from his heart     
that draws the world into his breast again?
When Nature spins with unconcern the endless thread and winds it on the spindle,
when the discordant mass of living things sounds its sullen dark cacophony,
who divides the flowing changeless line,
infusing life, and gives it pulse and rhythm?
Who summons each to common consecration where each will sound in glorious harmony?
Who bids the storm accompany the passions,     
the sunset cast its glow on solemn thought?
Who scatters every fairest April blossom along the path of his beloved?
Who braids from undistinguished verdant leaves a wreath to honor merit?
Who safeguards Mount Olympus, who unites the gods?
Man's power which in the poet stands revealed!

Comedian
Very well, then put to use those handsome powers and carry on the poet's trade,
as one would carry on a love affair.   
One meets by accident, emotes, and lingers,
and by and by one is entangled,
one's bliss increases, then one is in trouble;
one's rapture grows, then follow grief and pain,
before you know, your story is completed.
We must present a drama of this type!
Reach for the fullness of a human life!
We live it all, but few live knowingly;
if you but touch it, it will fascinate.
A complex picture without clarity,     
much error with a little spark of truth—
that's the recipe to brew the potion whence all the world is quenched and edified.
The fairest bloom of youth will congregate to see the play and wait for revelation;
then every tender soul will eagerly absorb some food for melancholy from your work.
First one and then another thing is stirred,
so each can find what's in his heart.

Editorial Reviews

This is a facsimile of the original 1833 English translation of Goethe's epic. For serious literature collections only.

Library Journal

One of the Western European classics least appreciated by English-speaking readers gets another chance in an adroit new translation. Furthermore, in his introduction translator Greenberg seeks to rescue the play from the German nationalism that made its protagonist far more heroic than Greenberg believes Goethe intended. Greenberg says Faust is a "loser" whose "behavior at crucial junctures is small, indeed ignominious." In the first part of the play, Faust indeed appears a pretty sorry character, using the devil Mephistopheles merely to help him seduce and abandon the beautiful Gretchen. Of course, besides this tragic action, there's a vaudevillian variety of stuff in "Faust"'s first part that has long rubbed English-speaking readers, used to their own language's purer classics, the wrong way. Greenberg seeks approbation for "Faust"'s variousness by also reflecting its metrical, hence tonal, variety more accurately than have previous translators. To his credit, he's metrically very competent; however, many may find his off-rhymes and nonrhymes jarringly contemporary and flavorless. Still, this may be the most readable, most performable American translation of Goethe's most vaunted masterpiece.

Ray Olson

"Luke demonstrates a rare genius in his translation: he maintains essential meaning, retains meter, and recreates rhyme.... As far as his introduction is concerned, it is a marvel of lucid exposition."—The German Quarterly

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