Faust

by Johann W. Geothe
Translated by Anna Swanwick ( 1808 )

Introductory Note
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest of German men of letters, was

born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, August 28, 1749. His father was a man of
means and position, and he personally supervised the early education of his

son. The young Goethe studied at the universities of Leipsig and Strasburg,
and in 1772 entered upon the practise of law at Wetzlar. At the invitation of

Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, he went in 1775 to live in Weimar,
where he held a succession of political offices, becoming the Duke's chief

adviser. From 1786 to 1788 he traveled in Italy, and from 1791 to 1817
directed the ducal theater at Weimar. He took part in the wars against

France, 1792-3, and in the following year began his friendship with Schiller,
which lasted till the latter's death in 1805. In 1806 he married Christiane

Vulpius. From about 1794 he devoted himself chiefly to literature, and after a
life of extraordinary productiveness died at Weimar, March 22, 1832. The

most important of Goethe's works produced before he went to Weimar were
his tragedy "Gotz von Berlichingen" (1773), which first brought him fame, and

"The Sorrows of Young Werther," a novel which obtained enormous
popularity during the so called "Sturm und Drang" period. During the years at

Weimar before he knew Schiller he began "Wilhelm Meister," wrote the
dramas, "Iphigenie," "Egmont," and "Torquato Tasso," and his "Reinecke

Fuchs." To the period of his friendship with Schiller belong the continuation of
"Wilhelm Meister," the beautiful idyl of "Hermann and Dorothea," and the

"Roman Elegies." In the last period, between Schiller's death in 1805 and his
own, appeared "Faust," "Elective Affinities," his autobiographical "Dichtung

und Wahrheit" ("Poetry and Truth"), his "Italian Journey," much scientific
work, and a series of treatises on German Art.

Though the foregoing enumeration contains but a selection from the titles of
Goethe's best known writings, it suffices to show the extraordinaryfertility and

versatility of his genius. Rarely has a man of letters had so full and varied a life,
or been capable of so many-sided a development. His political and scientific

activities, though dwarfed in the eyes of our generation by his artistic
production, yet showed the adaptability of his talent in the most diverse

directions, and helped to give him that balance of temper and breadth of
vision in which he has been surpassed by no genius of the ancient or modern

world.
The greatest and most representative expression of Goethe's powers is

without doubt to be found in his drama of "Faust"; but before dealing with
Goethe's masterpiece, it is worth while to say something of the history of the

story on which it is founded - the most famous instance of the old and
widespread legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil. The historical

Dr. Faust seems to have been a self-called philosopher who traveled about
Germany in the first half of the sixteenth century, making money by the

practise of magic, fortune-telling, and pretended cures. He died mysteriously
about 1540, and a legend soon sprang up that the devil, by whose aid he

wrought his wonders, had finally carried him off. In 1587 a life of him
appeared, in which are attributed to him many marvelous exploits and in

which he is held up as an awful warning against the excessive desire for
secular learning and admiration for antique beauty which characterized the

humanist movement of the time. In this aspect the Faust legend is an
expression of early popular Protestantism, and of its antagonism to the

scientific and classical tendencies of the Renaissance.
While a succession of Faust books were appearing in Germany, the original

life was translated into English and dramatized by Marlowe. English players
brought Marlowe's work back to Germany, where it was copied by German

actors, degenerated into spectacular farce, and finally into a puppet show.
Through this puppet show Goethe made acquaintance with the legend.

By the time that Goethe was twenty, the Faust legend had fascinated his
imagination; for three years before he went to Weimar he had been working

on scattered scenes and bits of dialogue; and though he suspended actual
composition on it during three distinct periods, it was always to resume, and

he closed his labors upon it only with his life. Thus the period of time between
his first experiments and the final touches is more than sixty years. During this

period the plans for the structure and the signification of the work inevitably
underwent profound modifications, and these have naturally affected the unity

of the result; but, on the other hand, this long companionship and persistent
recurrence to the task from youth to old age have made it in a unique way the

record of Goethe's personality in all its richness and diversity.
The drama was given to the public first as a fragment in 1790; then the

completed First Part appeared in 1808; and finally the Second Part was
published in 1833, the year after the author's death. Writing in "Dichtung und

Wahrheit" of the period about 1770, when he was in Strasburg with Herder,
Goethe says, "The significantpuppet - play legend . . . echoed and buzzed in

many tones within me. I too had drifted about in all knowledge, and early
enough had been brought to feel the vanity of it. I too had made all sorts of

experiments in life, and had always come back more unsatisfied and more
tormented. I was now carrying these things, like many others, about with me

and delighting myself with them in lonely hours, but without writing anything
down." Without going into the details of the experience which underlies these

words, we can see the beginning of that sympathy with the hero of the old
story that was the basis of its fascination and that accounted for Goethe's

departure from the traditionalcatastrophe of Faust's damnation.
Hungarian March from the "Damnation of Faust"Op.24 by Hector

Berlioz(1803 - 1869).
Of the elements in the finished Faust that are derived from the legend a rough

idea may be obtained from the "Doctor Faustus" of Marlowe, printed in the
present volume. As early as 1674 a life of Faust had contained the incident of

the philosopher's falling in love with a servant - girl; but the developed story of
Gretchen is Goethe's own. The other elements added to the plot can be noted

by a comparison with Marlowe.
It need hardly be said that Goethe's "Faust" does not derive its greatness from

its conformity to the traditional standards of what a tragedy should be. He
himself was accustomed to refer to it cynically as a monstrosity, and yet he

put himself into it as intensely as Dante put himself into "The Divine Comedy."
A partialexplanation of this apparentcontradiction in the author's attitude is to

be found in what has been said of its manner of composition. Goethe began it
in his romantic youth, and availed himself recklessly of the supernatural

elements in the legend, with the disregard of reason and plausibility
characteristic of the romantic mood. When he returned to it in the beginning of

the new century his artistic standards has changed, and the supernaturalism
could now be tolerated only by being made symbolic. Thus he makes the

career of Faust as a whole emblematic of the triumph of the persistent striving
for the ideal over the temptation to find complete satisfaction in the sense, and

prepares the reader for this interpretation by prefixing the "Prologue in
Heaven." The elaboration of this symbolic element is responsible for such

scenes as the Walpurgis - Night and the Intermezzo scenes full of power and
infinitely suggestive, but destructive of the unity of the play as a tragedy of

human life. Yet there remains in this First Part even in its final form much that
is realistic in the best sense, the carousal in Auerbach's cellar, the portrait of

Martha, the Easter - morning walk, the character and fate of Margaret. It is
such elements as these that have appealed to the larger reading public and that

have naturally been emphasized by performance on the stage, and by virtue of
these alone "Faust" may rank as a great drama; but it is the result of Goethe's

broodings on the mystery of human life, shadowed forth in the symbolic parts
and elaborated with still greater complexity and still more far - reaching

suggestiveness - and, it must be added, with deepening obscurity - in the
Second Part, that have given the work its place with "Job," with the

"Prometheus Bound," with "The Divine Comedy," and with "Hamlet."
The Tragedy Of Faust - Dedication

Ye wavering shapes, again ye do enfold me, As erst upon my troubled sight
ye stole; Shall I this time attempt to clasp, to hold ye? Still for the fond illusion

yearns my soul? Ye press around! Come then, your captive hold me, As
upward from the vapoury mist ye roll; Within my breast youth's throbbing

pulse is bounding, Fann'd by the magic breath your march surrounding.
Shades fondly loved appear, your train attending, And visions fair of many a

blissful day; First - love and friendship their fond accents blending, Like to
some ancient, half - expiring lay; Sorrow revives, her wail of anguish sending

Back o'er life's devious labyrinthine way, And names the dear ones, they
whom Fate bereaving Of life's fair hours, left me behind them grieving.

They hear me not my later cadence singing, The souls to whom my earlier lays
I sang; Dispersed the throng, their severed flight now winging; Mute are the

voices that responsive rang. For stranger crowds the Orphean lyre now
stringing, E'en their applause is to my heart a pang; Of old who listened to my

song, glad hearted, If yet they live, now wander widely parted.
A yearning long unfelt, each impulse swaying, To yon calm spirit - realm

uplifts my soul; In faltering cadence, as when Zephyr playing, Fans the
Aeolian harp, my numbers roll; Tear follows tear, my steadfast heart obeying

The tender impulse, loses its control; What I possess as from afar I see;
Those I have lost become realities to me.

Prologue For The Theatre
Manager. Dramatic Poet. Merryman.

Manager
Ye twain, in trouble and distress True friends whom I so oft have found, Say,

for our scheme on German ground, What prospect have we of success? Fain
would I please the public, win their thanks; They live and let live, hence it is

but meet. The posts are now erected, and the planks, And all look forward to
a festal treat. Their places taken, they, with eyebrows rais'd, Sit patiently, and

fain would be amaz'd. I know the art to hit the public taste, Yet ne'er of failure
felt so keen a dread; True, they are not accustomed to the best, But then