FAUST by Goethe is a play that is based on a tragic myth. It is about a scholar and magician named Faust, who strikes a deal with the devil (Mephistopheles), that he should experience everything on earth, the deepest despairs and the greatest joys, in exchange for his soul. Faust is so confident that nothing in the world can rid of his angst and suffering that he agreed to serving in hell for eternity if he was wrong.
Before this wager took place, a bet was made between the Lord and the Devil, that the latter would fail to tempt one of God’s servants, Dr. Faust, to sin.
Faust represents the rationalistic ideal, that meaning in life could be found through science and technology. He devotes his life to the pursuit of knowledge, but ultimately, this leads him to despair. He contemplated suicide, and nearly drank poison that he personally prepared. Mephistopheles takes Faust on a journey, where he tries to get Faust out of his nihilist, by getting him to experience love, and finally tragedy. Goethe’s point is that the antidote to a meaningless existence can be found, not in seeking more knowledge, or in placing too much faith in words, or even in God, since words cannot define everything, and God is defined differently by everyone, but by experiencing life emotionally, creatively, and spontaneously.
Below are my favorite parts.
Reason
MEPHISTOPHELES. Lord, since you’ve stopped by here again, liking to know How all of us are doing, for which we’re grateful,And since you’ve never made me feel de trop, Well, here I am too with your other people. Excuse, I hope, my lack of eloquence,Though this whole host, I’m sure, will think I’m stupid. Coming from me, high-sounding sentiments Would only make you laugh— that is, provided Laughing is a thing Your Worship still did About suns and worlds I don’t know beans, I only see How mortals find their lives pure misery. Earth’s little god’s shaped out of the same old clay, He’s the same queer fish he was on the first day. He’d be much better off, in my opinion, without The bit of heavenly light you dealt him out. He calls it Reason, and the use he puts it to? To act more beastly than beasts ever do.Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von; Greenberg, Martin; Wilson, W. Daniel. Faust (p. 12). Yale University Press.
Education
FAUST. I’ve studied, alas, philosophy, Law and medicine, recto and verso, And how I regret it, theology also, Oh God, how hard I’ve slaved away, With what result? Poor foolish old man, I’m no whit wiser than when I began! I’ve got a Master of Arts degree, On top of that a Ph.D., For ten long years, around and about, Upstairs, downstairs, in and out, I’ve led my students by the nose With what result? that nobody knows, Or ever shall know, the tiniest crumb!Which is why I feel completely undone. Of course I’m cleverer than these stuffed shirts, These Doctors, M.A.s, scribes and priests, I’m not bothered by a doubt or a scruple, I’m not afraid of Hell or the Devil— But the consequence is, my mirth’s all gone; No longer can I fool myself I’m able to teach anyone How to be better, love true worth; I’ve got no money or property, Worldly honors or celebrity; A dog wouldn’t put up with this life! Which is why I’ve turned to magic, Seeking to know, by ways occult, 390 From ghostly mouths spells difficult,So I no longer need to sweat Painfully explaining what I don’t know anything about; So I may penetrate the power That holds the universe together, Behold the source whence all proceeds And deal no more in words, words, words. O full moon, melancholy-bright, Friend I’ve watched for, many a night,Till yourquiet-shining circle Appeared above my book-heaped table, If only you might never again Look down from above on my pain, If only I might stray at will In your mild light, high on the hill, Haunt with spirits upland hollows, Fade with you in dim-lit meadows, And soul no longer gasping in The stink of learning’s midnight oil, 410 Bathe in your dews till well again!Oh misery! Oh am I still Stuck here in this dismal prison? A musty goddamned hole in the wall Where even the golden light of heaven Can only weakly make its way through The painted panes of the gothic window; Where all about me shelves of books Rise up to the vault in stacks, Books gray with dust, worm-eaten, rotten, 420 With soot-stained paper for a curtain; Where instruments, retorts and glasses Are crammed in everywhere a space is; And squeezed in somehow with these thingsMy family’s ancient furnishings Make complete the sad confusion— Call this a world, this world you live in? Can you still wonder why your heart Should clench in your breast so anxiously? Why your every impulse is stopped short 430 By an inexplicable miserv? Instead of the living house of Nature God created man to dwell in, About you all is dust, mold, ordure, Bones of beasts and long dead men.Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von; Greenberg, Martin; Wilson, W. Daniel. Faust (pp. 16-17). Yale University Press.
Speak From the Heart
FAUST. Unless you really feel it, no, you cannot— Unless the words your lips declare are heartfelt And by their soul-born spontaneous power, Seize with delight the soul of your hearer. But no! Stick in your seats, you scholars! Paste bits and pieces together, cook up a beggar’s stew from others’ left overs Over a flame you’ve sweated to coax up From your own little heap of smoldering ashes, Filling with wonder all the jackasses, If that’s the kind of stuff your taste favors. But you’ll never get heart to cleave to heart Unless you speak from your own heart.Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von; Greenberg, Martin; Wilson, W. Daniel. Faust (pp. 21-22). Yale University Press.
Who Wants to Know the Real Truth?
FAUST. Advance yourself in an honest way, Don’t play the fool in cap and bells! Good sense, good understanding, they Are art enough, speak for themselves. When you have something serious to say, What need is there for hunting up Fancy words, high-sounding phrases? Your brilliant speeches, smartened up With bits and pieces collected out of a miscellany of commonplaces from all the languages spoken by all the races Are about as bracing as the foggy autumnal breeze Swaying the last leaves on the trees.WAGNER. Dear God, but art is long, And our life— much shorter. Often in the middle of my labor My confidence and courage falter. How hard it is to master all the stuff For dealing with each and every source, And before you’ve traveled half the course, Poor devil, you have gone and left this life.FAUST. Parchment, tell me— that’s the sacred fount You drink out of, to slake your eternal thirst? The only true refreshment that exists You get from where? Yourself— where all things start.WAGNER. But sir, it’s such a pleasure, isn’t it, To enter into another age’s spirit, To see what the sages before us thought And measure how far since we’ve got.FAUST. As far as to the stars, no doubt! Your history, why, it’s a joke; Bygone times are a seven-sealed book. What you call an age’s spirit, What is it? Nothing but your own poor spirit With the age reflected as you see it. And it’s pathetic, what’s to be seen in your mirror. One look and I head straight for the exit. A trash can, strewn attic, junk-filled cellar, At best a blood-and-thunder thriller Improved with the most high-minded sentiments Exactly suited for mouthing by marionettes.WAGNER. But this great world, the human mind and heart, They are things all want to know about.FAUST. Yes, know as the world knows knowing! Who wants to know the real truth, tell me? Those few with vision, feeling, understanding Who failed to stand guard, most unwisely, Over their tongues, speaking their minds and hearts For the mob to hear— you know what’s been their fate: They were crucified, burnt, torn to bits. But we must break off, friend, it’s getting late.Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von; Greenberg, Martin; Wilson, W. Daniel. Faust (pp. 22-23). Yale University Press
Creativity
FAUST. Me, the image of God, certain in my belief Soon, soon I’d behold the mirror of eternal truth, Whose near presence I felt, already savoring The celestial glory, stripped of my mortal clothing;Me, higher placed than the angels,dreamingbrashly With the strength I possess I couldflowfreely, Godlike creative, through Nature’s live body— Well, it had to be paid for: a single word Thundered out knocked me flat, all my vain conceit curbed. No, I can’t claim we are equals, presumptuously! Though I was strong enough to draw you down to me, Holding on to you was another matter entirely. In that exalted-humbling moment of pure delight I felt myself at once both small and great. And then you thrust me remorselessly back Into uncertainty, which is all of humanity’s fate. Who’ll tell me what to do? Not to do? Still seek out the spirits to learn what they know? Alas, what we do as much as what’s done to us, Obstructs the way stretching clearly before us. The noblest conceptions our minds ever attained Are violated more and more and profaned; When we’ve gained a bit of the good of this world for our prize,Then the better’s dismissed as delusion and lies; Those radiant sentiments, once our breath of life, Grow dim and expire in the madding crowd’s strife. Time was that hope and brave imagination Boldly reached as far as to infinity, But now misfortune piling on misfortune, A little, confined space will satisfy. It’s then, heart deep, Care builds her nest, Dithering nervously, killing joy, ruining rest, Masking herself as this, as that concern For house and home, for wife and children, Fearing fire and flood, daggers and poison; You shrink back in terror from imagined blowsOh no, I’m no god, only too well do I know it! A worm’s what I am, wriggling through the soot And finding its nourishment in it, Whom the passerby treads underfoot. These high walls, every shelf crammed, every niche, Dust is what shrinks them to a stifling cell, This moth-eaten world with its all kinds of trash, They are the reasons I feel shut up in jail. And here I’ll discover what it is that I lack? Devour thousands of books so as to learn, shall I, Mankind has always been stretched on the rack With now and then somebody, somewhere’s been happy.You, empty skull there, smirking so, I know why— What does it tell me, if not that your brain, Whirling like mine, sought the bright sun of truth, Only to wander, night-bewildered, in vain. And all this apparatus, you mock me, you laugh With your every wheel, cylinder, cog and ratchet, I stood at the door, sure that you were the key, Yet for all the bit’s cunning design I couldn’t unlatch it. Mysterious even in broad daylight, Nature lets no one part her veil, And what she keeps hidden, out of sight, All your levers and wrenches can’t make her reveal. You, ancient stuff I’ve left lying about, You’re here, and why?— my father found you useful, And you, old scrolls, have gathered soot For as long as the lamp’s smoked on this table. Much better to have squandered the little I got Than find myself sweating under the lot. It’s from our fathers, what we inherit, To possess it really, we’ve got to earn it. What you don’t use is a dead weight, What’s worthwhile is what you spontaneously create.Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von; Greenberg, Martin; Wilson, W. Daniel. Faust (pp. 25-26). Yale University Press.
Temptations
Mephistopheles makes a bet with Faust that he can take him out of his subjective misery, but Faust is confident that these attempts are futile. He knows that he will never be able to escape his subjective misery.
MEPHISTO. In that case, an agreement’s easy. Come, dare it! Come, your signature! Oh, how my tricks will tickle your fancy! I’ll show you things no man has seen before.FAUST. You poor devil, really, what have you got to offer? The mind of man in its sublime endeavor, Tell me, have you ever understood it? Oh yes indeed, you’ve bread, and when I eat it I’m hungry still; you’ve yellow gold— it’s flighty, Quicksilver-like it’s gone and my purse empty; Games o