Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Part I

By Carl Mueller

As much poem as it is play, Goethe's Faust is the spiritual quest of a soul determined to explore the very nature of Reality, a revolutionary work that refuses to accept limitations, but, like Romanicism itself, embraces all, the Natural World of everyday life, as well as the Great World of universal experience, the macrocosm as well as the microcosm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Smith and Kraus Inc
• Release date: Apr 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9781943511341

Carl Mueller

Carl R. Mueller has since 1967 been professor in the Department of Theater at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he ahs taught theater history, criticism, dramatic literature, and playwriting, as well as having directed. He was educated at Northwestern University, where he received a B.S. in English. After work in graduate English at the University of California, Berkeley, he received his M.A. in playwriting at UCLA, where he also completed his Ph.D. in theater history and criticism. In addition, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin in 1960-1961. A translator for more than forty years, he has translated and published works by Büchner, Brecht, Wedekind, Hauptmann, Hofmannsthal, and Hebbel, to name a few. His published translation of von Horváth's Tales from the Vienna Woods was given its London West End premiere in July 1999. For Smith and Kraus, he has translated volumes of plays by Schnitzler, Strindberg, Pirandello, Kleist, and Wedekind, as well as Goethe's Faust, Parts I and II. In addition to translating the complete plays of Euripides and Aeschylus for Smith and Kraus, he has also co-translated the plays of Sophokles. His translations have been performed in every English-speaking country and have appeared on BBC-TV.

Book preview

FAUST

PART ONE

I DEDICATION

You come, hovering forms, as in youth’s day

You once appeared to my so muddled gaze.

Shall I now hold you fast, shall I essay

To turn again to that so-muddied daze?

You throng around me! Good! Rule as you may,

As from the mists you rise out of that haze;

The magic air about you stirs my breast

With youthful tumult and divine unrest.

You bring with you visions of happy days,

And many a dear loved shadow ascends to view;

Like some faint haunting old forgotten lays,

Love, first love, friendship come back with you;

My heart looks back at life’s bewildered maze,

And pains long laid to rest arise anew

And name those loved ones lost before their day,

Swept, while life was beautiful, away.

It saddens me to think they will not hear

These songs to whom my earliest songs I sang;

They are all gone, those gathered friends so dear,

Echoes hushed that once responsive rang;

My sorrows now fall only on the stranger’s ear,

Whose praises to my heart are a bitter pang,

And all who once heard my song, and flattered,

If still alive, around the world are scattered.

A yearning fills my soul, unknown so long,

To that sad spirit world again to go;

Like an Aeolian harp, my whispered song

Now trembles in the air in accents low;

A shudder thrills me as old memories throng,

The stern heart melts, tears fast on teardrops flow;

What I possess seems far, far off to me,

And what once was becomes reality.

II PRELUDE IN THE THEATER

The DIRECTOR.

The THEATER POET.

The JESTER.

DIRECTOR:

Very well now, friends, I want the truth.

It’s the least I can expect. After all,

this isn’t the first storm we’ve weathered together.

Tell me now,

what can we expect of this German tour?

I admit,

what I want most is to please the masses,

because as far as they’re concerned

it’s live and let live.

The tent’s up, the floorboards laid,

and now it’s for us to show them a good time.

They’re sitting out there now,

wide-eyed, eyebrows raised,

patiently waiting to be wonder struck.

I know what the public wants,

and I know how to give it to them,

but I’ve never been so embarrassed

as I am at this moment.

It’s true,

what they’re served up on our stages

is pretty awful stuff, but, by God,

they’ve devoured whole hordes of books.

So how do we concoct something fresh and new?

Perhaps even something important

that will also amuse them.

I admit, there’s nothing I like better

than a crowd bumping and jostling its way

in a mighty surge through our narrow gate to Paradise,

up to the box office,

even before four, and like starving

men rushing the baker’s door,

all but breaking their necks to get a

Reviews for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Part I

[ffortuna_6 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Found this very boring and couldn't make it further than about a quarter, but I think it may have just been an uninspiring translation. (George Madison Priest.)

[benkline · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an abridged version of the massive play. This was abridged, cut, and translated into English for a BBC radio adaption in the 1940s.

The play itself is meant to be a closet drama - ie. its meant to be read and not exactly played and acted out on a stage in front of an audience.

It is a tremendous play and a massive and tremendous piece of work/literature. I have trouble though deciding on **** or ***1/2, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and go with ****. It's a bit deep with the satire, going into Greek mythologies (esp. in Part II) and it draws from a number of sources, some German, some classical Greek/Roman, some Shakespearean, and English. It's a hard play to wra your head around as the verse isn't aptly descriptive of the events and a large amount of 'reading between the lines' needs to be done. Overall it is a highly recommended work that should be read for no other reason than to at least acknowledge how Goethe is a great writer and to feel some sort of semblance of culture emanating from the work.

[jan_cornelis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Faust 1 I really liked.
Faust 2 seems like a showoff of knowledge.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Titanenwerk, maar niet helemaal samenhangend: diverse stijlen, diverse invalshoeken; eerder losse commentaren bij huidige en vroegere cultuur. Moza?ekachtige structuur, wirwar van symbolische taferelen en soms ronduit een spektakelstuk vol special effects. Uiteraard is er de impressionante en in essentie tragische figuur van Faust zelf, de mens die ten onder gaat aan zijn drang om meer te weten, meer te kunnen. Pareltjes zijn volgende fragmenten: de Walpurgisnacht (een waterval van beelden en sc?nes in de meest uiteenlopende versvormen), het Homunculus verhaal (sprankelend en aangrijpend), het Philemon en baucis-verhaal.Ronduit zwak: het Gretchenverhaal (Gretchen is te onbeduidend als figuur), het Helenaverhaal (ook zij is letterlijk niet van lijf en leden), Euphorion (te kort uitgewerkt), en ook het slot (iets te hemels, beklijft helemaal niet zoals bij Dante)

[srboone · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

No denying the beauty of the language in this, the iconic "sell your soul to the devil" story, but it seemed lightweight for it's subject. This modern verse translation of Part I is the only verse translation to be perfomed in the modern theater--which speaks highly of it's readability.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust begins with a prologue set in Heaven. The scene is modeled on the opening of the Book of Job in the Old Testament. While the angels Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael praise the Lord, Mephistopheles mocks human beings as failed creations because reason makes them worse than brutes. God tells Mephistopheles that he will illuminate his servant Faust. Mephistopheles wagers with god that he can corrupt Faust instead. With the assent of god Mephistopheles goes into action.

In the next scene, Faust appears in acute despair because his intellectual studies have left him ignorant and without worldly gain and fame. In order to discover the inner secrets and creative powers of nature, he turns to black magic. Thus, he conjures up the Earth Spirit, the embodiment of the forces of nature. However, the Earth Spirit mocks Faust’s futile attempts to understand him. As he despairs of understanding nature, he prepares to poison himself.
At that moment, church bells and choral songs announcing that “Christ is arisen” distract Faust from killing himself. Celestial music charms Faust out of his dark and gloomy study for a walk in the countryside on a beautiful spring day in companionship with his fellow human beings. Observing the springtime renewal of life in nature, Faust experiences ecstasy. At this moment, Faust yearns for his soul to soar into celestial spheres.

This Easter walk foreshadows Faust’s ultimate spiritual resurrection. However, he must first undergo a pilgrimage through the vicissitudes and depths of human life. In a famous moment he proclaims that "two souls are dwelling in my breast". It is in this battle within himself that he becomes emblematic of modern man. As he battles Mephistopheles offers him a wager for his everlasting soul that will provide him a fleeting moment of satisfaction in this world. Mephistopheles commands a witch to restore Faust’s youth so that he is vulnerable to sensuous temptations. When Faust sees the beautiful young girl Margaret, he falls into lust and commands Mephistopheles to procure her. Mephistopheles devises a deadly scheme for seduction. Faust convinces Margaret, who is only fourteen years old, to give her mother a sleeping potion, prepared by Mephistopheles, so that they can make love. Mephistopheles makes poison instead; the mother never awakens.

Unwittingly, Margaret has murdered her mother. Furthermore, she is pregnant by Faust and alone. When Faust comes to visit Margaret, he finds her brother, Valentine, ready to kill him for violating his sister. Mephistopheles performs trickery so that Faust is able to stab Valentine in a duel. Dying, Valentine curses Margaret before the entire village as a harlot. Even at church, Margaret suffers extreme anguish as an evil spirit pursues her.

In contrast, Faust escapes to a witches’ sabbath on Walpurgis Night. He indulges in orgiastic revelry and debauchery with satanic creatures and a beautiful witch until an apparition of Margaret haunts him. Faust goes looking for Margaret and finds her, in a dungeon, insane and babbling. At this moment, Faust realizes that he has sinned against innocence and love for a mere moment of sensual pleasure. Even though it is the very morning of her execution, Margaret refuses to escape with Faust and Mephistopheles. Instead, she throws herself into the hands of God. As Faust flees with Mephistopheles, a voice from above proclaims, “She is saved!”

Goethe will continue his drama with a second part, but the narrative from this first section has become one of the markers for the beginning of the modern era of human culture. I have previously written about some of the ideas in this drama in my discussion of "Active vs. Reactive Man". Translated by many over the two centuries since its original publication it has become a touchstone for the study of the development of the human spirit. It has also inspired other artists to create operas and novels based on the characters from Goethe's drama.

[haidji-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Goethe is an amazing writer.
Faust despairs and wants the death because he can not understand the truth.
Dissatisfied with knowing all there is to know about everything, Faust sells his soul to the devil to learn, experience and understand more.

It's classic, it's brilliant and full of wisdom and eternal truths.

[apachama · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The first half was excellent. The Gretchen tragedy was incredibly disturbing and dramatic. However, I was bored by the second halfs descent into what seemed like a series of unrelated scenes. By the end of the long digression into Greek myth, I was bored by the whole thing and no longer even cared what happened to Faust

[carolfoasia_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While I do not care for Goethe, I do like MacDonald's rhyming translation. It makes it much better to get through it! Did this for Part II so that the Kindle could read the rhyming to me with the text to speech feature.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although it's been staged, Goethe's Faust is described as a "dramatic poem" and at least in the translation I've read (Walter Kaufman for Part One) reads much more to me like Milton than Shakespeare. Indeed, there are to my ear echoes of Milton--and The Book of Job for that matter--in the Prologue where God and the devil Mephistopheles have a discussion that results in putting the soul of Faust into play. A lot of the of the plot and even some lines were familiar to me from classical music. Operas by Gounod and Boito, an oratorio by Berlioz and German lied by Schubert and Schumann among other works were adapted from from Goethe. I really got a kick out of recognizing the inspiration for Gounod's "Jewel Song" and Schubert's "Gretchen at her Spinning Wheel." Most of those adaptations only deal with Part One of the two part work, and for good reason. Part One was mostly a joy to read. The language is often striking and gorgeous and only one small segment made me go huh? (The Walpurgis Night's Dream with the Wedding of Oberon and Titania, which didn't seem to contribute to the plot or theme.) Mephistopheles first shows up by Faust's side as a poodle, and he helps a lot in cutting a lot of Faust's often high-flown language with his acid sarcasm, and I actually found a lot of humor in the first part of the poem--such as the scene where Martha flirted with Mephistopheles. If I were rating just Part One, I'd give Faust five stars for an amazing read. Part Two is a different matter altogether. In the book featuring the Kaufman translation, only the first scene and the last Act of Part Two is included. In the introduction Kaufman defends this saying it is his "hope that those who who would like to enjoy Goethe's Faust--as opposed to those who want to be able to say that they have read it, all of it" should find his edition to their liking. Well, I'm stubborn--and I did want to read all of it. Among the reasons Faust was listed in Good Reading's "100 Significant Books." Faust isn't just a classic--it's a formative, incredibly influential classic, and I've found in tackling those you aren't just entertained--you're educated. So, I read Part Two in another edition and translation. And found Kaufman is right. Part Two isn't enjoyable. It seems almost an entirely different work without the Gretchen element and with long static, weird set pieces that include Faust involving himself with Helen of Troy. Indeed, Faust disappears for long stretches in this part--so much of which seemed bizarre. I didn't like Part Two much at all. And not just as a reader wanting to be entertained. If there's one thing I've learned about myself reading the classics, it is that I like a sense of unity and structure, and have held it against works such as Moby Dick, War and Peace and Les Miserables when they seem to go off the rails in self-indulgent pedantry and digressions. I adore Dante, and Dante is erudite--and his philosophy very much opposed to mine. But I'm awed by the structure of The Divine Comedy. Nothing, but nothing is superfluous--down to the rhyming scheme and the number of Cantos. I can't say the same of Faust, particularly Part Two. For me Part Two is just one big huh?? and incredibly tedious. Maybe I'm missing something, but no, I can't say I got a lot out of Part Two, thus why this is winding up with a much lower rating than if I were reviewing Part One alone.

[schmerguls · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this in January 1952 and said on Jan 20: Decided to read Faust despite the unfavorable atmosphere for reading presented by barracks life. It is almost stiflng in its beauty, and I wish I had a dead silent room to simply surrender my mind to it. The translation I am reading is Bayard Taylor's, which is in verse form, and quite literal--so that verbs are often at the end of sentences. As an example of clear beauty, romantic and untouched by sarcasm and cynicism I give you this from Scene 2 of the first Part:
"Then would I see Eternal Evening gild
The silent world beneath me glowing,
On fire each mountain-peak,
with peace and valley filled,
The silver brook to golden rivers flowing..."
I finished the first part on Jan 21, and said the second part is allergorical and I am afraid I shall get nothing from it, because conditons for studying are not good--or maybe it's just that I am not good at divining deeper, subtle meanings of things. I finished the book on Jan 23 and said: Finished Faust--got little out of the second Part.

[jpsnow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Goethe packs a lot of original truth into this very sensual work. In particular, his observations about society, learning, and, of course, religion, are thought provoking. The style and plot are also unique and impressive, especially in the interaction between Faust and Mepistopheles and Margaret.

[billlund · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Obviously a classic, but the second scene between the archangles, God and Mephistofoles is pure music.