Goethes Faust, Volume 1

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... scene, up to Wagner's exit, belongs to the oldest stratum of Faust. On its subjective side it is rooted in Goethe's youthful disgust with academic learning and in the fantastic feeling for 'nature' to which he had been led by his study of the alchemists and mystics, and by the influence of Herder. See Intr. pp. xxiii-xxxv. In beginning with a soliloquy of Faust, Goethe follows the puppet-plays (but see above, the general note upon the Prologue), which in turn follow Marlowe. In the puppet-plays, Faust's success in conjuring is always dependent on a certain book which is brought him by two or more students. In Goethe, Faust has the book of Nostradamus from the first, and nothing is said of its provenience. This book is conceived as possessing occult properties such that the mere contemplation of its symbols produces wonderful effects upon the beholder's mental state, while the appropriate 'utterance' of one of the symbols causes the corresponding spirit to appear in visible form. In 1885 the late Wilhelm Scherer published an essay (G.-J. VI., 231), in which he drew attention to, and endeavored to account for, certain logical difficulties presented by 11. 354-521. The case is in brief this: The play begins with a passage ij, 11. 354-385, in which Faust describes his trouble and states that he has devoted himself to magic in the hope of relief. His tone toward the end is one of hope and confidence, so that we naturally expect him to proceed at once with his conjuring. Instead of that, however, he breaks out into a poetic strain of repining over his past misery, his impotence, and his 'unnatural' surroundings (passage 2, 11. 386-427). He gives us the impression that he is going to escape with his book into the open air, since 'dry meditation' in the...