FAUST - Illustrated & Translated into English in the Original Meters (Literary Classics Series): Pact with the Devil – The Oldest German Legend

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Bayard Taylor and Harry Clarke

This carefully crafted ebook: "FAUST - Illustrated & Translated into English in the Original Meters (Literary Classics Series)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents.
Faust is Goethe's magnum opus and considered by many to be one of the greatest works of German literature. The story takes place in multiple settings, the first of which is heaven. Mephistopheles makes a bet with God – he says that he can lure God's favorite human being – Faust, who is striving to learn everything that can be known, away from righteous pursuits. Faust makes an arrangement with the devil – the devil will do everything that Faust wants while he is here on Earth, and in exchange Faust will serve the devil in Hell. In Faust, Goethe focuses on social phenomena such as psychology, history and politics, in addition to mystical and philosophical topics. Faust does not seek power through knowledge, but access to transcendent knowledge incomprehensible to the rational being. Here Goethe's mysticism asserts itself clearly.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German writer and statesman, best known for his tragic play, Faust. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of meters and styles, prose and verse dramas, memoirs, literary and aesthetic criticism, novels, numerous literary and scientific fragments and many more. A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. He was also an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: e-artnow
• Release date: Aug 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9788026865889

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) va néixer a Frankfurt am Main. Va començar els seus estudis de Dret a Leipzig, però els va haver d'abandonar a causa d'una malaltia durant la qual, establert a Frankfurt, es va interessar per camps tan dispars com la filosofia ocultista, l'astrologia i l'alquímia. L'any 1770 es va traslladar a Estrasburg per continuar estudiant Dret, i va ser allà on va conèixer Friederike Brion, model pels personatges femenins de les seves obres, al filòsof i crític literari Johann Gottfried Herder, responsable directe de l'abandonament per part de Goethe dels preceptes de classicisme francès per l'expressió directa de les emocions, que desembocaria en la col·laboració en Sobre l'estil i l'art alemany (1773), manifest del moviment Sturm und Drang, germen del romanticisme alemany. L'any següent va publicar Els sofriments del jove Werther, considerada com la primera novel·la representativa de la literatura moderna. El 1775 Carles August de Saxònia-Weimar-Eisenach, el va convidar a viure i treballar a la capital, un dels centres literaris i intel·lectuals d'Alemanya, el que va suposar una época crucial per al desenvolupament i la maduresa tant literària com intel·lectual de Goethe, que va viure a Weimar fins al dia de la seva mort. Allà va començar a treballar en algunes de les seves obres més famoses, com Ifigènia a Tàurida (1786) i Faust, poema dramàtic que sotmetria a canvis després de la seva estància a Itàlia entre el 1786 i el 1788 i la primera part del qual va publicar l'any 1808 (i que continuaria revisant periódicament fins poc abans de morir). També va acabar les obres dramàtiques que fundarien el classicisme alemany: Egmont (1775) i Torquato Tasso (1789). En tornar a Weimar va escriure, entre d'altres obres capitals, els poemes de Elegies romanes (1795) i Divan occidental-oriental (1819), el poema èpicHerman i Dorothea (1797), les novel·les Anys d'aprenentatge de Wilhelm Meister (1796), Les afinitats electives (1809), El anys itinerants de Wilhelm Meister (1821), el llibre Viatge a Itàlia (1816), la seva autobiografia Poesia i veritat (1811-1833), i la segona part del seu poema dramàtic Faust, publicada pòstumament l'ant 1832.

Book preview

Reviews for FAUST - Illustrated & Translated into English in the Original Meters (Literary Classics Series)

[gturkington-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

yo. evil is evil y'all.

also I'm a closet Romantic

[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.)

[jan_cornelis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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

[djh_1962 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Goethe's Faust doesn't work on the page. And doesn't work on stage in the two productions I've seen. Arguably its most successful dramatic realisation is Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust. Having read Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe I thought I would try a more modern translation from the painfully archaic Victorian version I read a long time ago. The Oxford World Classics version has a solid introduction and helpful notes by the translator, David Luke, but his verse translation if anything renders the drama even more ponderously than I recall. So read it in German, I suppose, if my German ever manages to make that an even vaguely realisable option. I cannot help but feel though there is a mythical status about this work which is not earned.

[iffland · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Unmatched!

[antao-3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

(original review, 2004)


I’m planning on spending a few weeks on Goethe’s Faust in multiple translations and as much of the German as I can manage, supplemented by hundreds of pages of notes and commentary.

I first read the book while in high school in the totally un-annotated Bayard Taylor translation from Modern Library – one of the texts I’m currently reading. I’m still pretty fond of Taylor’s version – with some exceptions generally preferring him to Walter Arndt in the Norton Critical Edition. Taylor’s a relatively local boy – born in Kenneth Square, PA where the town library carries his name.

One thing I recall from that ML edition is that a few lines were Bowdlerized with dashes. For example, this song sung by Faust and Mephistopheles with two witches:

FAUST ( dancing with the young witch)
A lovely dream once came to me;
I then beheld an apple-tree,
And there two fairest apples shone
They lured me so, I climbed thereon.
THE FAIR ONE
Apples have been desired by you,
Since first in Paradise they grew;
And I am moved with joy, to know
That such within my garden grow.
MEPHISTOPHELES ( dancing with the old one)
A dissolute dream once came to me
Therein I saw a cloven tree,
Which had a————————;
Yet,——as 'twas, I fancied it.
THE OLD ONE
I offer here my best salute
Unto the knight with cloven foot!
Let him a—————prepare,
If him—————————does not scare.

I imagined something really obscene was being masked there, but it turns out to be a double entendre only slightly more risqué than the “apples” in the first exchange. Here’s Arndt’s uncensored rendering:

FAUST [ dancing with the YOUNG ONE]
In a fair dream that once I dreamed;
An apple-tree appeared to me,
On it two pretty apples gleamed,
They beckoned me; I climbed the tree.
THE FAIR ONE
You’ve thought such apples very nice,
Since Adam’s fall in Paradise.
I’m happy to report to you,
My little orchard bears them too.
MEPHISTOPHELES [ dancing with THE OLD ONE]
In a wild dream that once I dreamed
I saw a cloven tree, it seemed,
It had a black almighty hole;
Black as it was, it pleased my soul.
THE OLD ONE
I welcome to my leafy roof
The baron with the cloven hoof!
I hope he’s brought a piston tall
To plug the mighty hole withal.




I am reminded in re-reading it how much in common Faust has with the fantasy books that were my staple reading at the time I first encountered it Tolkien, Peake, E. R. Eddison. I was reminded of this by some of the comments today about "The Buried Giant" (disclaimer I’ve not read any Ishiguro). For centuries literature and fantasy were almost synonymous – only in the 18th century did it start to require a kind of warning label.

Just about all the operas are adaptations of Faust Part 1, though Arrigo Boito, as I recall, included an episode with Helen of Troy. The dual language Anchor Books edition with Walter Kaufmann’s translation, which seems to be the most commonly available in my neck of the woods, includes only bits of Part 2 from the first and last acts. This may make sense insofar as the edition is intended for students of German, but really makes a hash out of Goethe’s intentions for the work as a whole. I’m really enjoying wrestling with the complexities of Part 2; my recent readings in Greek tragedy helps – Goethe writes a very credible pastiche of the form in the first half of Act 3. [2018 addenda: In Portuguese, our most distinguished Germanist, João Barrento, has already published his Magnum Opus, Faust’s full translation. I haven’t read it yet, but I will].

In acquiring various versions of Faust over the years I’ve been mainly interested in those that are complete – the portions editors are the most likely to cut are those that I think would gain the most from multiple viewpoints.

[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.

[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.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's a strange notion, "reviewing" a text that is one of the pillars of German national identity and has had untold hectolitres of ink spilled over it by critics in the last couple of centuries. Maybe the most appropriate question to ask in a place like this is "What does Faust I have to offer the casual modern reader?"

Two main things, I think: amazing language and a cracking good yarn.

Like Hamlet or the KJV in English, reading Faust through is a bit like joining the dots between dozens of quotations you already know. The language has a very direct appeal to the reader: you don't have to be an expert in 19th century German verse to make sense of it (though I'm sure you would get more out of it if you were). After a few pages you entirely forget what a strange notion it is to be reading a verse drama, and just enjoy the sound of the words.

The story isn't as "big" and "epic" as you might imagine. The core story of Gretchen's seduction and fall is told in a very intimate, naturalistic way, and even the big Walpurgisnacht scene is essentially a series of little cameos rather than a big spectacular.

[gbill_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Faust is Goethe’s masterpiece and the heart of his life’s work. He started thinking about it and writing it when he was bored with his studies at University and at the time he quickly cranked out “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, but by contrast he did not complete Faust (Part 1) until decades later, when he was in his fifties. He continued on with Part 2 right up until death at 82.

This is not the origin of what has been popularized in so many different ways over the centuries in “selling your soul to the devil” stories, but one of the better versions and certainly a standard reference for the others. It’s the story of not just the condition of Faust’s everlasting soul as he ponders the abyss of suicide, but the condition of man on planet Earth. Jacques Barzun summarizes it well in the introduction to this edition:

“…the torment comes from the awareness that man is at once wretched and great. He is wretched because he is a limited, mortal creature; he is great because his mind embraces the whole universe and knows its own wretchedness. No ordinary satisfaction can quench Faust’s desires; forever he sees and wants something beyond. The ultimate bliss would be to feel at one with nature, through knowledge not merely intellectual but emotional also, virtually instinctive; whereas all learning serves but to make Faust more self-conscious and isolated, till he scarcely feels that he lives. Clearly, this defines the situation of modern civilized man, whose increasing knowledge makes him more and more self-critical, anxious, beset by doubts, and hence more and more an alien in the natural world that is his only home.”

Epic and grand in scope. Man’s soul, his passions, his fate. Not quiiite as brilliant as I had hoped for from its reputation, but Part 1 is in the “must read” category.

Quotes:
On beauty:
“Often the perfect form appears
Only when ripened slowly many years.
What glitters lives an instant, then is gone;
The real for all posterity lives on.”

On living life:
“Yes, of this truth I am convinced –
This is wisdom’s ultimate word:
Only he deserves this life in freedom
Who daily earns it all anew.”

On transience:
“Here shall I satisfy my need?
What though in thousand volumes I should read
That human beings suffered everywhere,
And one perchance was happy, here or there?
Why grin, you hollow skull, except to say
That once your brain, perplexed like mine,
Yearning for Truth, pursued the light of day,
Then in the dusk went wretchedly astray?”

On the passing of youth. :-(
“Then give me back those years long past
When I could still mature and grow,
And when a spring of song welled fast
Out of my heart with ceaseless flow,
When all the world was veiled in mist,
When every bud a miracle concealed,
And when I gathered myriad flowers
Crowding the valley and the field.
Though naught was mine, I had enough in youth,
A joy in illusion, a longing for the Truth.
Give back the surge of impulse, re-create
That happiness so steeped in pain,
The power of love, the strength of hate –
Oh, give me back my youth again!”

[multifaceted_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm not sure what to think of the tone of the book over all, as I come away from it with a feeling that Faust is being condemned to the devil for seeking too much knowledge. I feel like there is also something of the old "doctor wanting to be god" joke in here, as well.

But I get the feeling that, over time, Faust will come to be one of my favorite characters, along with Voltaire's Candide and Camus' Meursault. And there is definitely something "absurdly" tragic about Goethe's character, as well.

Because, to me, Faust isn't just about someone who makes a deal with the devil to make his life better. Rather, it's about someone whose thirst for knowledge is never slaked, who seeks to know everything and what it's like to be everyone. Or, should I say, Faust seeks to be omniscient. (And I have to wonder, is that necessarily a bad thing? Would the world be worse off if we knew just what it was like to be the millionaire in his mansion, or the low class beggar in the city?) But to get back on track: at the same time, he realizes he is merely only a human, and he is burdened, depressed, and frenzied by the knowledge that he probably can never know everything--and there is something so full of humility, so pathetically human about his situation.

This leads him to not just "make a deal" with the devil, but to acquiesce to Mephistopheles as a sort of last resort. Why not, if there is no other way he can gain omniscient knowledge, anyway? Of course, Mephistopheles makes him become enamored with a woman, and this love transports Faust, and makes him finally feel like he has gained everything he's ever wanted. Where am I going with this? I don't know, because I don't quite know what Goethe was going for, either.

But Faust's words say it all the better:

"And here, poor fool! with all my lore
I stand, no wiser than before"

[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.

[miquixote · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What does Faust mean? Tough to find too many books more open to interpretation since Columbus landed on American soil. Obvious comparisons with Adam and Eve and the serpent: except the sinner/first one to bite the apple/knowledge-seeker here is a man (yup, feminists have jumped all over that one). interpretations still up for grab: is the sinner a rebel? overly ambitious? is wanting knowledge a deadly sin (ie. pride) -- should Faust be punished? ; or maybe the socialist interpretations are right and Mephistoles symbolizes dissidence -- truth seekers may just be rejecting oppression...down with the elites, closed minds and limited worldviews! Is Mephistopheles the tempter, trying to destroy Faust or is he freeing him? This book was also the center of a cultural war of interpretation in Germany between the Nazis and the spirit of the Weimar....we all know who won that battle... What Goethe was really trying to say, you'll have to decide for yourself...
The cultural war (or class war?) is far from over...so read it!

[billlund · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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

[papirofagia · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Último grande poema dos tempos modernos", no dizer de Otto Maria Carpeaux, o Fausto de Goethe está para a modernidade assim como a Divina Comédia de Dante está para a Idade Média. Repletos de referências aos mais diversos campos do saber, os dois textos representam não apenas a obra máxima de seus autores, mas a suma do conhecimento humano e das aspirações espirituais de suas épocas.
Escrito e reescrito ao longo de mais de 60 anos, o Fausto integral - compreendendo a primeira e a segunda parte - só seria concluído às vésperas da morte do autor, ocorrida em março de 1832. Já a primeira parte da tragédia (também conhecida como Fausto I), que tem como cerne o pacto de Fausto com Mefistófeles e a conseqüente "tragédia de Margarida", foi elaborada por mais de três décadas, de 1772 a 1806, sendo finalmente publicada, com aprovação de Goethe, em 1808.
É esta primeira parte - que pode ser lida também como obra independente - que aqui se publica. A presente edição, bilíngüe, traz a elogiada tradução de Jenny Klabin Segall (livre dos vários erros tipográficos que se haviam acumulado ao longo de sucessivas reedições) acompanhada por uma esclarecedora introdução do professor Marcus Vinicius Mazzari, da Universidade de São Paulo, autor também das notas e comentários.
Este volume conta ainda com o chamado "Saco de Valpúrgis" - versos bastante obscenos que deviam integrar a cena "Noite de Valpúrgis" mas que o próprio Goethe, num gesto de autocensura, deixou de fora da edição canônica de 1808, e que são agora publicados, pela primeira vez em nossa língua, em tradução literal de M. V. Mazzari.
Ilustrado com desenhos e litografias de Eugène Delacroix, considerado por Goethe o homem certo "para se aprofundar no Fausto e provavelmente criar imagens que ninguém poderia imaginar", este lançamento tem tudo para se tornar a edição de referência do Fausto I em nosso país, a ser seguido em breve pelo Fausto II, também em tradução de Jenny Klabin Segall, com apresentação e notas de M. V. Mazzari.