The Faust story is one of the all-time classics of literature. A man sells his soul to the devil for something he most desires. Marlowe's reputation stands beside Shakespeare because he wrote The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus.
It has a terrific opening. Faust in his midnight study, fed up with medieval manuscripts, decides to turn to magic. He draws diagrams on the floor, reads incantations, steps into the circle, and --- sound of thunder! Mephistopheles appears in the smoke.
The devil is one of the great theatrical roles, combining melodrama, comedy, and theology. It was played by the same actors who caused a sensation in Marlowe's Tamburlaine; who played the arch-villain in Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy; for whose acting style Shakespeare wrote the roles of Richard III and Shylock in Merchant of Venice. Mephistopheles is evil and obscene; he smells of sulfur and faeces; he also is a gentleman, debonair, clever and sophisticated. Whatever else he is, he is not dull; he has the attractiveness of norm-breaking, where the action is; not least, sexy in a time of sexual repression. He offers what Faust wants-- what Faust doesn't even know he wants-- knowledge, power, and beautiful women.
The Faust drama also has a great closing act, when the devil comes back to reclaim his payment. The problem is, what to put on stage in between. It is basically a two-character play. Marlowe has us following Faust and Mephistopheles around, playing jokes by turning invisible in taverns, bearding the Pope, a mix of low-comedy knock-about and high politics. At the end of 24 years when Mephistopheles comes for his soul, Faust hasn't gained much for it-- mainly a look at Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman of all time. There is no plot tension and no sequence, just an awareness that the last act is eventually coming.
Probably the most successful version of the Faust story is the 1950s Broadway musical Damn Yankees, about a frustrated fan who shouts he'd sell his soul to the devil if his team could ever beat the New York Yankees. This version has a concise plot, as the middle-aged fan becomes a young man and a mysterious where'd-he-come-from baseball super-star. It also has a female lead, who sings Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets... and who is in thrall to the devil because he made her the sexiest woman in the world after being the ugliest woman in Providence, Rhode Island. The middle part of the play writes itself, and the final scene comes on the last day of the season in the decisive game against those damn Yankees. But this dramatic flow is exactly what is missing in Marlowe, and later on in Goethe's extraordinarily long (10 hours) Faust.
For Marlowe, Elizabethan audiences would have enjoyed the political parodies in the slapstick scenes. Faust is supposed to be a real historical person, a monk in Wittenberg, the city where Luther launched the Reformation as a rebellion against the Pope in 1517. The Middle Ages were coming to an end, the dawning of the age of science-- which made its early appearance in magic, alchemical laboratories and occult numerology guiding the planets that became the astronomy of Kepler. From a medieval point of view, it was selling your soul to the devil to overturn theology in favor of magic, trading Heaven for life on earth. Hence the ambivalent attraction of the devil.
When Goethe rewrites the play 200 years after Marlowe, the scientific revolution is further along; the last vestiges of the Middle Ages are falling with the French Revolution overthrowing monarchy, and Napoleon spreading revolutionary reforms throughout Europe. A contemporary of Goethe was William Blake, writing The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Blake extols a anti-puritanical religion of the body, recapitulating the antinomian power of the devil. Blake's most famous art is his image of a beautiful nude Satan, and his most famous poem blends the holy and the dangerous:
Tiger tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night...
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
But Blake, like Marlowe, is a triumph of flashes and excerpts. Blake's illustrated tracts are rambling and unreadable, a jumble of maudlin and histrionic, an attempt to create a new religion in a secular age.
When Goethe publishes his Faust: eine Tragoedie in 1808, he is already established as a novelist, playwright, poet and much else. Among other things, he is the director of the court theatre at Weimar. He knows very well what is the problem with Marlowe's play: it needs a clear dramatic development between the first act and the final curtain. Goethe supplies this with a love story, but in this case a highly realistic one, with a very nasty twist. Soon after making a deal with Mephistopheles, Faust encounters a fresh, pretty girl on the street. (Mephistopheles says, on the side, that for Faust every woman is Helen of Troy.) Margarete (soon to be nicknamed Gretchen) knows not to take candy from strangers. But Faust is now 30 years younger, a good-looking gentleman; he romances her, and eventually seduces her. Then he abandons her to go off with Mephistopheles to see the world. Her brother angrily accuses her of being no more than a street whore. We learn that Gretchen is pregnant; then she is in prison, having killed or abandoned her baby (it happens off stage); and she is executed for infanticide. In Goethe's last act, angels forgive her and take her up to heaven. In the final scene, Faust is carried off to Hell, and a voice calls out from above: "Heinrich! Heinrich!" It is the first time that we hear Faust's personal name.
This is the version of Faust that gets made into an opera: by Gounod (1859) with plenty of soprano parts, Faust as a lyrical tenor and Mephistopheles as a baritone.
But Goethe is unsatisfied, and keeps on revising his Faust Tragedy until 1832, when he publishes Part II just before his own death at 83. He has been working on it his entire life as a writer. The first scene dates back to the early 1770s, when he rocketed to fame with his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, about a middle-class young man in love with an aristocratic woman; rejected by her social milieu, he commits suicide. The novel goes viral, setting off a wave of imitative suicides. The literary movement in Germany was called Sturm und Drang-- storm and strain-- later renamed the Romantic movement when it spreads to England around 1800, producing such magic incantations as Coleridge's Kubla Khan and anti-heroes like Lord Byron. By 1830, Goethe has outlived them; he is as old as Faust is in the last act of his play.
Faust Part II feels like the summing up of Goethe's life, everything he has learned and everything he wants to say. Strangely, it falls back to Marlowe's sprawling, aimless-seeming middle section. Part II by itself is 7 hours long if read on the stage. And what stage could possibly produce it? Scenes call for grand palaces, with endless rooms; for jagged mountain peaks and valleys; for battle between Emperors with enormous armies; for Helen of Troy in a palace ridden with ghouls; for castles in the sky. As a successful theatre director, Goethe must have known this. What was he thinking?
Practically speaking, Goethe does not envision the enormous sets and painted backdrops of aristocratic masques and opera. His scenes are so long because most of the dialogue consists of word-painting. He sacrifices much of the action to the description of what things look like. His characters, Faust, Mephistopheles, Helen, the ghouls, step out of character when it is their turn to describe the castle turrets rising one above the next, the streams and waterfalls tumbling rocks in a tumult, the whirlwinds and howls and cherub-voiced choirs they are hearing-- and that could hardly be produced in the most lavishly funded theatre hall. Goethe can get away with this because among his many talents, he is above all a great poet. His lines have rhythm and rhyme that pulses along; kept from being boring by changing length and meter from time to time-- punchy four-beat couplets; long stately 12-syllable alexandrines when he is trying to render ancient Greece; singing choruses; snappy word-play and dirty jokes when Mephistopheles gets the lines. Goethe keeps this up at incredible length-- some 300 pages in the German text, about 12,000 lines of verse, and as far as I can tell, never missing a beat.
This also means that whether or not this is put on a stage, it is above all a play for reading. And reading at leisure, reading the rhythm to yourself if not out loud. The poetry takes over; the plot-- and Goethe can produce some surprising twists-- does make you wonder how each episode is going to turn out. But mostly you have to go with the poetry, for the sheer pleasure of it.
It has been said that poetry is the part that disappears when it is translated. And unfortunately that is true. Most of the great world poetry--- at any rate the long narrative poems--- goes flat in translation. You have to learn some Italian to enjoy Dante's Divine Comedy; otherwise it is just a catalogue of cruel stories expressing the political and religious prejudices of the Middle Ages. Virgil's Aenead always struck me as an inferior imitation of Homer (who is good enough in plain prose translation), probably because my Latin is so poor, but also because Homer already used up the best stories.
Fortunately for English-speakers, the rhythms and rhymes of English and German are not so different; there are some excellent poetic translations of Faust (especially Bayard Taylor) that are quite wonderful in the word-painting sections. And with a moderate knowledge of German, you can read the corresponding German text out loud with even greater pleasure in the word-music. I would compare it with reading Milton's Paradise Lost.
We could count this as another one of the devil-centered stories, even if that is not what Milton intended. But he was writing just after a failed religious and political rebellion, when he was the principle recorder and spokesman for the rebels. The most interesting character in the story is Satan; the best scenes are when he is on stage. There is great word-painting; cosmic scenes like the best of Marvel Comics only done seriously; nature scenes of the pristine Garden of Eden; battle scenes between God's angels and fallen angels. There are also hundreds of pages which-- from a dramatic point of view-- are flat and boring. Like Faust, it has a great beginning; then a lot of padding--- the messenger Angels spend whole Books foretelling what the rest of the Bible is going to say, and what the reader already knows. And the war scenes lag with too much speech making, parliamentary style, no doubt the kind of thing Milton had to take down as parliamentary secretary; but even redeemed by his stately rhythms, it is tedious when it comes to moving the plot.
I suspect that Milton is what Goethe had in mind, at least stylistically, for the five long acts of Faust, Part II. It is great narrative poetry, told through the mouths of characters standing on an imaginery stage. Above all, great word-painting, combined with the top poetic virtues-- rhythm, beat, music, memorable phrase and image. Milton may be the model for Goethe's literary architecture; but Goethe's verses are crisp as Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner and the best of Byron's autobiographical narratives, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and (that other devil-is-a-gentleman) Don Juan.
Goethe must have been dissatisfied with his 1808 version, ending with the harsh tragedy of Gretchen. He wants the Faust story to say something bigger. Spengler would later label the entire history of the West as the Faustian spirit: striving for knowledge and power, no matter the cost; overthrowing God, conquering the earth. Nietzsche, too, would echo Faust; so would the creative destruction of Schumpeter's entrepreneur. The Gretchen story would have been a follow-up shocker to the Sorrows of Young Werther. Now Goethe re-titles it Part I, and sets out to re-do the whole story on a more cosmic level.
Part II looks rather like Marlowe's material, vastly expanded and treated more seriously. Look at the parallels:
Marlowe Acts I and II: alternates between Faust's study where he makes a blood contract with the devil; and low-comedy scenes among the servants who borrow Faust's magic books and get into scrapes by turning each other into apes and dogs. Goethe Part I starts off similarly alternating between Faust and lower-class scenes; after signing the pact, Faust and Mephistopheles go to a wine-celler where they play pranks on the drunks by turning themselves invisible and spooking them into beating each other. Then they visit a witch's kitchen-- inhabited by apes-- where she brews a potion to make Faust younger.
The rest of Goethe Part I is the story of Gretchen's seduction. It is interrupted near the end by Faust and Mephistopheles in a mountain wilderness-- it is Walpurgis-Night, what we would call Halloween, without trick-or-treating but souls of the dead howling in the mist, witches accosting them. It turns into a series of satirical skits, making fun of generals, merchant hucksters, and pretentious authors. There is no Walpurgis-Night in Marlowe, but the satirical interpolations are much the same. After this, Goethe takes us abruptly back to Gretchen in prison; followed by Faust carried off to Hell.
Marlowe Act III and IV: Faust and Mephistopheles fly across Europe to Rome. In disguise they witness the Pope deposing a rival. Turning themselves invisible, Faust and Mephistopheles disrupt the ceremony, fomenting quarrels among the cardinals and frightening them with fire-crackers. The travelers then visit the palace of the German Emperor, where Faust is received as a famous magician; the royals love his conjuring up images of ancient heroes-- rather like the pantomime masques then becoming fashionable entertainment. Faust provides some rollicking fun by sprouting horns on the heads of the courtiers; the Emperor calls it excellent sport, but the embarassed lords ambush Faust at night. Little do they know that Faust is wearing a false head; and when they cut it off, he rises from the dead and sprouts another head. Mephistopheles joins in with more devils throwing fireworks and chase the assassins away.
Goethe Part II doesn't take on the Pope (no longer topical in Germany), but the Emperor's palace gets an entire Act I, a mini-play well over an hour of stage time. We get a pot-pourri of scenes. Mephistopheles offers the Emperor a plan to save the regime's finances-- get everybody digging because there must be buried treasure underground. Then a series of personified allegories, talking flowers, wood-cutters, the seven Graces, drunks, faeries, astrologers, you name it; all with their own poetic verses.
Act I winds up with a thread of plot continuity when an astrologer calls up a vision of Helen of Troy. Faust is stirred to action when told that it is a play called The Rape of Helen. "I'll rescue her, and make her doubly mine!" he cries. But when he touches her spectre, it explodes and Faust falls unconscious. While he dreams, Mephistopheles is back in Faust's laboratory, growing a homunculus in a bottle (Vincent Price horror movie stuff). We're off into another peripatetic phantasmagoria, this time called "Classical Walpurgis-Night" since we are visiting ancient Greece, with its centaurs, shape-shifting Proteus, nymphs and sirens. (Now in Act II, another hour-plus mini-play.) A theme is starting to emerge: Faust is becoming voracious for women-- but the world of magic is nothing if not deceptive, and they always fade out of grasp. Act II comes to an end as the sirens sing: "Hail, Adventure rarely ended!"
Before embarking of Goethe Act III, let us switch to Marlowe Act V, Conclusion. Faust is back in Wittenberg, nearing death. Knowing his contract is about to expire, he starts getting religion again, while good angels and scholars urge him to repent. Mephistopheles pulls out his trump card: a vision of Helen of Troy. Faust is hooked:
One thing, good servant, let me crave of thee,
To glut the longing of my heart's desire,
That I have unto my paramour
That heavenly Helen which I saw of late
Whose sweet embraces may extinguish clear
Those thoughts that do dissuade me from my vow,
And keep my vow I made to Lucifer.
Here we get the lines that make Marlowe famous:
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies.
That's it. In the next scene Faust is carried down to Hell.
Now what does Goethe do with this? Helen never gets to speak a word in Marlowe, and is on stage for less than a minute. Goethe invents an entire new plot for her, taking up 90 minutes of Act III. The Trojan War is over; Helen's agrieved husband Menelaus brings her ashore at their homeland in Sparta. He tells her to go the palace, and prepare things for a great sacrifice of propitiation to the gods. Helen finds the palace ghastly quiet, having been empty all the years away at war. She encounters a ghoulish woman, anciently decrepit, descendent of a magical serpent, who tells her that the sacrificial victim to be killed is Helen herself, followed by the slaughter of her serving maids. But as the women ascend the mountain to the sacrificial place, she hears that another lord has visited from his mighty castle far up the mountain peak. She ascends further, and it is--- Faust! His realm far exceeds the Greeks in splendour-- Goethe even inserts a disquisition on architecture to show how building became more advanced with Gothic cathedral-raising techniques. Menelaus and his army try to attack, but are blown away by Faust's modern artillery. We even get a musical Ode to Joy:
Hark the music, pure and golden;
Free from fables be at last!
All your Gods, the medley olden,
Let depart! their day is past.
But now Faust, united with Helen at last, faces the facts: Helen is ancient, fading as a ghost, and disappears.
We could end here, but Goethe isn't through with the Emperor theme, so we get Act IV. The Emperor is still having financial troubles; his realms are in rebellion. Everything is political chaos. On the other hand, if he can restore peace and security, the people will be thankful. All he has to do is defeat a coalition setting up a rival Emperor, whose armies are now attacking. Emperor A's headquarters are up a mountain, guarded by hidden valleys, where his troops lie in wait to attack the invaders' flanks. The names sound like medieval history at the time of the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa who fought the allies of the Pope; but the resonance for an audience in 1832 would have been the recent venture of Napoleon and the uneasy period of Restoration, now starting a new round of revolutions. At any rate, Goethe's plot turns from one side to another: it looks like we're winning-- no, they're making a surprise counter-attack; we've taken the enemy camp-- no, we're surrounded; no, here comes the Emperor after all, handing out victory bonuses. Above all to General Faust and his advisor Mephistopheles for helping us to victory. Act IV ends satirically in the scramble for spoils.
Marlow Act V, final scene: thunder; enter devils. Faust's last words:
My God, my God, look not so fierce on me.
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while.
Ugly hell, gape not, come not, Lucifer!
I'll burn my books! Ah, Mephistopheles!
Goethe Act V: Faust in extreme old age. He is a wealthy lord, with ships full of treasure. But all he cares about is the project of his waning years: to hold back the sea with dykes, reclaiming the land for agriculture. He no longer cares about sorcery, only what can be accomplished by human thought and labor. Mephistopheles tries to tempt him; scorns him for his mundane concerns; evokes the memories of their good old days. Faust declares his final words before he dies:
The result of wisdom stamps it true:
He only earns his freedom and existence,
Who daily conquers them anew.
We are in a completely different world than Marlowe's. Even Mephistopheles recognizes he's out of date:
Once, I alone secured my prey
In all things we must feel the spite!
Transmitted custom, ancient right--
Nothing, indeed, can longer one confide in.
A poetic chorus ends on a pantheistic note:
Alles Vergängliche
Ist nur ein Gleichnis;
Das Unzulängliche,
Hier wirds Ereignis;
Das Unbeschreibliche,
Hier ist es getan;
Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan.
These are probably the most quoted words in German literature. Translated, not quite satisfactorily: Everything transitory is but a semblance; what is insufficient comes to pass; the indescribable happens here; the eternal feminine leads us higher.
Is this Idealist philosophy, in the era of Kant's followers? But Goethe mocks the likes of Fichte and Hegel. Is Goethe a materialist? Yes, but it's a materialism of the body and the mountain climber, forest and mill-stream. He is the arch-Romantic-- he launched the fashion; but also Classical, appreciative of good form and the ancient Greeks. Is he religious, or anti-religious? Goethe lived a long time, participated in and shaped all sorts of movements. He was an intellectual/artistic chameleon; perhaps too much for his own good. But the purpose of great literature isn't hero-worship; it's the experience literature gives you. I think Goethe would have agreed with that.
