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 Annex 
 
 GOETHE'S "FAUST,"
 
 Stack 
 
 Annex 
 
 GOETHE'S ''FAUST: " THE PLAN AND PURPOSE 
 OF THE COMPLETED WORK.* 
 
 BEING a giant among works of poetry, Goethe's "Faust" 
 suffers the fate of almost all things gigantic, be they the work 
 of nature or of human genius. Many men of note have ad- 
 mitted that the first impression which they received from the 
 reading of "Faust" did not entirely come up to their expec- 
 tations. But have we not all heard of similar comments on St. 
 Peter's in Rome, on Beethoven's symphonies, on Raphael's 
 Sistine Madonna, on Mont Blanc, or on Niagara? There 
 are objects that transcend our powers of immediate compre- 
 hension and require a more gradual process of familiariza- 
 tion. Besides, it is a well-established fact that we generally 
 approach such objects of universal admiration with unduly 
 exaggerated expectations. As the best music demands re- 
 peated hearings before it admits us to an intimate apprecia- 
 tion of its subtlest charms, so also must the greatest works 
 of literature be read again and again, and more in a reveren- 
 tial than in a purely critical spirit, before they reveal to us 
 their innermost beauty and meaning. But whereas a work 
 of average, or even more than average, rank may hardly sus- 
 
 *This paper, as its form and tone occasionally show, was originally pre- 
 pared as an address, and as such was first delivered in November, 1898, be- 
 fore the Old Oak Club, of Nashville, Tenn. All learned references to 
 critical and expository Faust literature have been purposely omitted, and 
 it has been the author's chief aim to set forth what he considers to be the 
 general plan and purpose of the poem as a whole. In so doing he has had 
 in mind, primarily, that vast majority of thoughtful and competent readers 
 who have to confine their study to the final form given by Goethe to his 
 "Faust" drama, without being able or willing to trace in detail the various 
 changes of plan and stages of execution through which this unique work of 
 the world's literature had to pass before appearing " in vollendeter Gestalt."
 
 4 Goethe's "Faust" 
 
 tain our interest on a second or third perusal, the truly great 
 work will become the more attractive the more we grow fa- 
 miliar with it. Thus it is with Goethe's "Faust." 
 
 In this statement the great majority of the serious-minded 
 readers of "Faust" will probably concur, even if with cer- 
 tain individual modifications and reservations, if we are will- 
 ing to confine what has been said to the First Part. If, how- 
 ever, you are not prepared to admit the same, or nearly the 
 same, for the Second Part, those who are the most ardent stu- 
 dents of "Faust" will tell you it is because you have not read 
 it often enough. This much is true, many critics of sound 
 taste and judgment, especially in more recent years, have 
 claimed that the long- maligned Second Part of Goethe's 
 "Faust" has gradually acquired for them a charm and sig- 
 nificance not only equaling but even surpassing that of the 
 First Part, which all admire. As for myself, I have not ex- 
 actly reached this point yet, and hardly know whether I am 
 traveling on any very direct road leading to it; but so much 
 is sure: careful and repeated reading has filled me with a 
 growing admiration, not to say a growing sense of awe, of 
 the gigantic sweep and vast scope of the poet's plan and 
 purpose in the Second Part, even though, in mv present es- 
 timation, the artistic execution of this plan is often unsatis- 
 factory, perhaps must needs be unsatisfactory, since the very 
 design seems to transcend the boundaries of dramatic art, if 
 not of all art. 
 
 Goethe, as is well known, was but a youth of about twenty 
 years when the legend of the magician Faust, with which in 
 his childhood he had become familiar through the chapbooks 
 and the then popular puppet plays, began to interest him as 
 a promising subject for poetic treatment. We can surmise 
 that the earliest scenes were committed to writing about the 
 year 1773, and we know that when Goethe, in 1775, went to 
 Weimar, he took with him a manuscript containing the great- 
 er portion of the so-called First Part. Actually begun, then, 
 at the age of about twenty-four, the work was not complet- 
 ed till seven months before the poet's death, at the age of 
 eighty-three. It will be shown later that we have more than
 
 Goethe's "Faust." 5 
 
 one reason to regret this exceedingly slow process of devel- 
 opment. On the other hand, we should not overlook the fact 
 that the long years which elapsed between the first concep- 
 tion and the final completion of the work allowed the poet to 
 incorporate in it the best experience of an unusually long and 
 wonderfully rich life. The impetuosity of exuberant youth, 
 the self-centered strength of mature manhood, the resigned 
 wisdom of old age all have combined to shape Goethe's 
 "Faust," which, in the fullest sense of the word, deserves 
 to be called the poet's life work. 
 
 But, while Goethe worked on his "Faust" at widely differ- 
 ent periods of his life, with long intervals of inactivity in be- 
 tween, he did not delay the publication of the work till the 
 time of its final completion. Yielding to the requests of in- 
 terested friends who knew of his treatment of the subject, he 
 repeatedly published different portions of it in a more or less 
 fragmentary condition. Thus, in 1790, briefly after his re- 
 turn from Italy, where his interest in the "Faust" had been 
 renewed, he published "Faust, Ein Fragment." Eighteen 
 years later, in 1808, the First Part appeared in its entirety. 
 Then, along the years 1827-28, some detached portions of 
 the Second Part were published, especially the so-called Hele- 
 na episode, which now forms the third act of the Second 
 Part. The complete Second Part did not appear in print till 
 after the poet's death. 
 
 On account of this disrupted mode of composition and 
 publication, as well as on account of the unmistakable differ- 
 ences in tone and spirit which characterize different portions 
 of the work, it has been commonly assumed that the drama 
 as a whole, however sublime in thought and sentiment, how- 
 ever fascinating and powerful in its individual scenes, lacks 
 unity of plan and purpose. Great stress, in this connection, 
 has again and again been laid on a few evident incongruities 
 that are found in the narration of some events and in the delin- 
 eation of one ortwo of the characters. These, however, affect 
 only details, without touching any vital point in the poet's 
 unity of purpose. On the other hand, it should be well un- 
 derstood that if I am inclined to claim for "Faust" unity of
 
 6 Goethe's "Faust" 
 
 plan, I do not claim for it unity of action in the technical 
 sense in which the term is applied to the drama. There can 
 be no doubt that Goethe's "Faust" neither is nor was meant 
 to be a regular drama, but rather a vast epic built on dra- 
 matic lines. 
 
 Instead of one action or conflict, which is gradually inten- 
 sified, reaches a climax, and then speeds on to its final ca- 
 tastrophe, instead of one such action, as in an ordinary 
 drama, we have in "Faust" a succession of apparently dis- 
 connected episodes, of which at least two (the Gretchen 
 tragedy in the First Part, and the Helena episode in the 
 Second Part) attain to the scope and importance of well- 
 nigh complete dramas within the drama. With the exception 
 of Faust and Mephistopheles, the persons figuring in one 
 episode rarely reappear in another, and certainly Faust 
 and Mephistopheles are the only characters that figure in 
 the entire drama from beginning to end. It might thus 
 appear as if the individuality of Faust alone was form- 
 ing the connecting link between the various episodes, 
 between which there would thus exist not an artistically 
 organic connection, but merely a personal or biographical 
 bond. 
 
 Such, however, is not the case. All of the episodes are 
 organic parts of one consistent theme; they are not 
 loosely connected through the figure of Faust, but form 
 consecutive stages in the development of a higher action or 
 conflict, which is not, and cannot be, directly represented 
 on the stage, but which embraces all the various episodes 
 in one supreme unity of purpose. This real unity of the 
 drama is found in the conflict between God and Mephis- 
 topheles for the possession of Faust's soul. That is to say, 
 the question which the drama tries to solve, and to which 
 everything in it is made subordinate, is the question whether 
 the forces that we consider antagonistic to the divine side 
 of human nature are strong enough so to ensnare a soul so 
 richly endowed as that of Faust as to make it hopelessly 
 forget its divine calling and idealistic cravings. This con- 
 flict is clearly outlined in the prologue in heaven, where,
 
 Goethe's "Faust." 7 
 
 when the Lord speaks of Faust as his "servant," Mephis- 
 topheles sneeringly replies: 
 
 Forsooth ! he serves you after strange devices : 
 No earthly meat or drink the fool suffices : 
 His spirit's ferment far aspireth ; 
 Half conscious of his frenzied, crazed unrest, 
 The fairest stars from heaven he requireth, 
 From earth the highest raptures and the best, 
 And all the Near and Far that he'desireth 
 Fails to subdue the tumult of his breast. 
 
 THE LORD. 
 
 Though still confused his service unto Me, 
 I soon shall lead him to a clearer morning. 
 Sees not the gardener, even while buds his tree, 
 Both flower and fruit the future years adorning? 
 
 MEPHISTOPHELES. 
 
 What will you bet? There's still a chance to gain him, 
 If unto me full leave you give, 
 Gently upon my road to train him ! 
 
 THE LORD. 
 
 As long as he on earth shall live, 
 
 I make no prohibition ; 
 
 While Man's desires and aspirations stir, 
 
 He cannot help but err. * 
 
 When, thereupon, Mephistopheles expresses his confidence 
 in his ultimate victory, he is interrupted by the following 
 
 words: 
 
 THE LORD. 
 
 Enough ! What thou hast asked is granted. 
 
 Turn off this spirit from his fountain head ; 
 To trap him, let thy snares be planted, 
 
 And him, with thee, be downward led ; 
 Then stand abashed, when thou art forced to say, 
 
 A good man, through obscurest aspiration, 
 Has still an instinct of the one true way. 
 
 *The quotations are from Bayard Taylor's translation.
 
 8 Goethe's "Faust" 
 
 With other words, Mephistopheles is promised not to be 
 interfered with in his plans for Faust's spiritual ruin, while, 
 at the same time, we receive the indirect assurance that 
 Faust, though he will not be preserved from error and sin, 
 will ultimately remain victorious. 
 
 Thus we have in Faust an essentially dramatic conflict, 
 only with this marked difference from the ordinary drama, 
 that the conflict is a spiritual one, and that, hence, the two 
 antagonistic powers cannot be directly represented as dra- 
 matis -persona. It is true, the anti-divine principle appears 
 personified in the figure of Mephistopheles, one of the most 
 marvelous creations of a poet's imagination, utterly fanciful 
 and yet strikingly realistic, as interesting and fascinating as 
 he is repellent and terrible. The divine element, however, 
 the poet was unable to represent similarly. It appears con- 
 fined to Faust's own soul, as the voice of his conscience, his 
 better self. 
 
 After the character of the struggle that is to ensue has thus 
 been indicated, the drama proper begins. The first scenes, 
 answering the purpose of what we call the "exposition" of 
 a drama, acquaint us with Faust's character, his past life, 
 his present mood and surroundings. Here Faust appears 
 as the very counterpart of Mephistopheles. The latter 
 proves himself a mocking, unimpassioned spirit, of no mean 
 intellectuality, it is true, but without a trace of idealism, a 
 cold pessimist of low aims and unclean motives. Faust, on 
 the other hand, is the heaven-daring Promethean idealist 
 who is not willing to admit the reality of the intellectual lim- 
 itations inherent in man's nature. He yearns for commun- 
 ion with the spirit world, for insight into the most secret 
 fountains and subtlest processes of nature and of human 
 life. His thirst for truth and experience are not to be 
 quenched by the knowledge which he has been able to 
 gather and the inadequacy of which he keenly feels. Nei- 
 ther creed and dogma on the one hand nor the results of 
 philosophy and science on the other have satisfied him. He 
 desires to fathom the universe, to know and to experience 
 all things.
 
 Goethe's " Faust." 9 
 
 But, in considering this state of turmoil in Faust's soul, 
 we must not overlook the fact that his error and wayward- 
 ness are only relative. His striving after light and truth is 
 indeed service of the deity, for it cannot be found or served 
 except in light and truth. His error rather consists in the 
 fact that in his ideal flights he not only forgets the serious 
 limitations to which human nature is subject, but also neg- 
 lects and scorns the manifold duties and pleasures resulting 
 from our daily intercourse with our fellow-men duties and 
 pleasures which must, and in a large measure can, console 
 us for so many yearnings that are doomed to remain unful- 
 filled. Thus Faust appears indeed as we found him depict- 
 ed in the Prologue in heaven, a ''servant of God," but one 
 whose service is as yet confused and without clearness of 
 vision, and \vho, therefore, has not yet found that supreme 
 peace of soul that. to Goethe means salvation. 
 
 In its last analysis, the conflict between Faust and Meph- 
 istopheles is a strictly human one. Both Faustian and 
 Mephistophelian tendencies we all find in our own natures. 
 Like Faust, we can say of ourselves: 
 
 Two souls, alas! reside within this breast, 
 And each withdraws from and repels its brother, 
 One with tenacious organs holds in love 
 And clinging lust the world in its embraces; 
 The others tronglj sweeps, this dust above, 
 Into the high ancestral spaces. 
 
 Be it humiliating for our race or not, the fact remains 
 that all men partake more or less of that coarser, disenchant- 
 ed, coldly materialistic, frivolous nature that is the sphere 
 of Mephistopheles. We are not planned as being of angel- 
 ic purity. But it should be our constant endeavor to enno- 
 ble and purify the coarser elements within us by means of 
 our higher instincts. This is rarely accomplished without a 
 struggle, and this struggle, as has been shown above, is the 
 principal theme of Goethe's "Faust." 
 
 Let us then proceed to a brief review of the development 
 of this dramatic conflict. 
 
 Mephistopheles, we must imagine, has been hovering 
 1*
 
 io Goethe's "T^/ ttst." 
 
 around Faust like the hawk that is circling around the prey 
 which it has spied in the fields. At last, when the opportu- 
 nity seems favorable, he gains access to Faust's company, 
 succeeds in interesting him in his way of looking at life, so 
 diametrically opposed to that of Faust, and finally, when he 
 finds his victim in an opportune mood of utter despair, ready 
 to do anything that would seem to promise escape from the 
 unbearable discontent gnawing at his soul, he proposes a 
 pact, a written agreement signed with blood, through which 
 Faust's soul is eventually to come into his possession. 
 
 I say "eventually," and thereby indicate the profound 
 change which Goethe has introduced in this feature of the old 
 legend. All other treatments of the Faust legend, it is true, 
 contained a pact between Faust and the devil; but in all of 
 them, and so also in Marlow's "Doctor Faustus," the pact 
 was of such a nature that it required Mephistopheles to 
 serve Faust in all of his desires for a fixed number of years, 
 generally twenty-four, after the expiration of which period 
 Faust's soul was to be the devil's. Such a mechanical de- 
 vice, permitting of no dramatic conflict and suspense, and 
 making the ruin of a human soul dependent on the lapse of 
 a fixed number of years, could not satisfy Goethe, nor in- 
 deed any truly modern poet. 
 
 The old pact was the natural result of a mediaeval view of 
 life, according to which every effort of man to get beyond 
 the limits of traditionally sanctioned knowledge was a crime. 
 According to it, every independent searcher after truth was 
 a heretic and magician, and every heretic and magician in a 
 league with the spirit of evil, speeding along the road to ev- 
 erlasting ruin. The eighteenth century, however, was pre- 
 eminently characterized by the spirit of free inquiry. No 
 longer was it held to be a sin, but rather man's highest aim 
 and object in life, to search for the truth and to remove false 
 traditions standing in the way of its light. To such an age 
 Faust, tormented by his unsatisfied yearnings for profounder 
 knowledge, could no longer be presented as an object lesson 
 of timid moralizing, by means of which men should be im- 
 pressed with the awful fate awaiting him who might dare to
 
 Goethe s " Faust." n 
 
 move away from the traditional standards of knowledge, no 
 matter how worn and void of truth they might happen to be. 
 By such an age Faust's striving could no longer be considered 
 as in itself sinful, but rather as the brightest light of the divine 
 fire burning in. man's soul. Irrevocably to commit him to 
 the spirit of evil as punishment for this superhuman striving 
 would have been nothing short of condemning the very spirit 
 of progress and investigation that is the keynote of modern 
 culture and civilization. Faust's error that was to bring suf- 
 fering and wrongdoing into his life, as into that of others, 
 was not his striving as such, but his excessive striving, that 
 tried to disregard all limitations of human existence. 
 
 From such a point of view the pact between Faust and 
 Mephistopheles could not remain the same as in the leg- 
 end: in fact, in Goethe's conception it has become almost 
 the very opposite. In the old legend, it was Faust's striving 
 that condemned him; in Goethe's "Faust," the ultimate salva- 
 tion of Faust is made dependent on his not ceasing to strive. 
 If Mephistopheles succeeds, by the pleasures and activities 
 which he is able to furnish, so to captivate Faust as to make 
 him satisfied ?'. c., so to suppress his better nature that he 
 will cease to strive after the highest things attainable to man 
 then, but not until then, is he to belong to Mephistopheles. 
 No individual error will condemn Faust, nor, indeed, will 
 any individual act save him: but everything will depend upon 
 the spirit underlying his actions. Such is the Goethean form 
 of the pact between the two. 
 
 FAUST. 
 
 When on an idler's bed I stretch myself in quiet, 
 
 There let at once my record end! 
 
 Canst thou with lying flattery rule me, 
 
 Until, self-pleased, myself I see 
 
 Canst thou with rich enjoyment fool me, 
 
 Let that day he the last for me! 
 
 The bet I offer. 
 
 MEPHISTOPHELES. 
 Done!
 
 12 Gocthc'< 
 
 FAUST. 
 
 And heartily. 
 When thus I hail the moment flying: 
 
 "Ah, still delay, thou art so fair!" 
 Then bind me in thy bonds undying, 
 
 My final ruin then declare! 
 Then let the death-bell chime the token, 
 
 Then art thou from thy service free! 
 The clock may stop, the hand be broken, 
 
 Then Time be finished unto me. 
 
 Now the conflict between Mephistopheles and Faust's bet- 
 ter self commences. Henceforth it is not only Mephistophe- 
 les's office to do Faust's bidding, but it is moreover incum- 
 bent upon him to choose those allurements through which he 
 hopes to enslave his prospective victim. The various spheres 
 of experience through which Faust now passes form the cen- 
 tral portion of the entire drama, and allow us to distinguish 
 five distinct stages: (i) the sphere of coarse revelry, rep- 
 resented by the drinking scene in Auerbach's "Keller;" (2) 
 the sphere of womanly love, represented by the tragedy of 
 Gretchen; (3) the sphere of restless but as yet rather pur- 
 poseless activity in the circles of worldly power and social 
 distinction, represented by the scene at the emperor's court 
 in the first act in the Second Part; (4) the sphere of his- 
 torical and aesthetic pursuits, represented by the classical 
 Walpurgis Night and the Helena drama; (5) the sphere of 
 practical usefulness, resting on ethical and unselfish mo- 
 tives, represented by Faust's noble effort to wrest land from 
 the sea and to make it the abode of a free and happy peo- 
 ple. After that follow the concluding scenes of the Second 
 Part that depict the struggle of devilish and angelic hosts 
 for Faust's soul, and its final entrance into heaven. 
 
 Even this brief enumeration of the five principal stages of 
 the action one might well call them the five acts of a vast 
 dramatic composition establishes, or at least suggests, one 
 important fact. The spheres in which we encounter Faust 
 and Mephistopheles represent an ascending scale, if judged 
 r>om the standpoint of their intrinsic value to human life.
 
 Goethe's " Faust .'' 13 
 
 The first stage, the scene in Atierbach's "Keller," exhibits a 
 wanton waste of human energy; while the last scene, by the 
 seashore, represents one of the highest aims of human life: 
 unceasing, well-defined activity aiming to produce, within 
 the limits of what is feasible, the greatest possible good to 
 multitudes of others. From this it further follows that, while 
 at first the influence of Mephistopheles over Faust is increas- 
 ing and leads the latter deeper and deeper into sin, with the 
 beginning of the Second Part, however, Mephistopheles's 
 influence commences to wane. He still must do Faust's bid- 
 ding, but the latter more and more assumes the leadership, 
 and suggests the aims of their joint activity. 
 
 Let us now examine somewhat more in detail the five prin- 
 cipal stages, or episodes, of the drama, and in so doing, we 
 shall especially try to determine in what spirit Faust enters 
 upon each of these typical spheres of experience and in what 
 spirit he again emerges from each of them. After the pact 
 has been made, Mephistopheles, in answer to Faust's ques- 
 tion, "Now, whither shall we go?" replies: "As best it 
 pleases thee. The little world, and then the great, we'll 
 see." This programme is strictly carried out. The first 
 two episodes the student's scene in the wine vault, as well 
 as the entire Gretchen drama constitute the experiences in 
 the narrower world of personal relations; the last three the 
 scenes at court, the Helena drama, and the active life at the 
 seashore constitute the experiences of the broader world of 
 activity in government, art and science, and cultural labor. 
 Mephistopheles of course begins at the bottom round of the 
 ladder. He would fain win Faust at the lowest price, with 
 the least outlay of exertion on his part. He, therefore, first 
 tries to lure him into a life of vulgar and soulless revelry. 
 But it is characteristic that during the entire scene in Auer- 
 bach's "Keller" Faust remains a passive spectator. He speaks 
 only twice, first, on joining the company, "Fair greeting, 
 gentlemen !" and not very much later, "To leave them is 
 my inclination." The first attempt of Mephistopheles has 
 been a flat failure. Far from satisfying Faust, he has not 
 even succeeded in interesting him.
 
 14 Goethe's. " Faust." 
 
 His next scheme is more deeply laid. Faust's sensual na- 
 ture, that has been utterly neglected in his previous life, is 
 skillfully aroused by Mephistopheles in the scene in the 
 witch's kitchen, so that when he first meets pure and lovely 
 Gretchen, he, as Mephistopheles himself says, 
 
 talks like Jack Rake, 
 
 Who every flower for himself would take, 
 And fancies there are no favors more, 
 Nor honors, save for him, in store. 
 
 He brutally says: 
 
 And if that image of delight 
 
 Rest not within mine arms to-night, 
 
 At midnight is our contract broken. 
 
 Mephistopheles has a good chance for success this time. 
 But his purpose is again to be foiled. According to his 
 plan, Faust is henceforth to lead the life of a libertine, whom 
 he will drag through dust and mire from one victim to an- 
 other. 
 
 The Gretchen tragedy is undoubtedly not only the most 
 powerful part of the Faust drama, but to the great majority 
 of readers it even is the real center of interest, that which 
 "Faust" first suggests and stands for. The exquisite delicacy 
 of some of its opening scenes, as well as the terrible pathos 
 of its final catastrophe, of which an English critic has said 
 that, its tragic intensity has never been paralleled and can 
 never be exceeded, make it a complete drama in itself, the 
 interst in which has induced the poet to develop it far be- 
 yond the proportions which it should have as only one of the 
 episodes of the larger drama. The chief point of interest 
 from our present point of view is the consummate skill with 
 which the poet makes Gretchen's purity and loveliness trans- 
 form Faust's libertinism into truly impassioned love, much 
 to Mephistopheles's dismay, who again sees his prey slipping 
 from his hand. This change of sentiment on the part of 
 Faust does not save Gretchen, but, in a sense, it does save 
 Faust, at least from immediate ruin. When Faust's true 
 love for Gretchen awakens, he flees from her, for he sees
 
 Goethe's "Faust" 15 
 
 and knows that, with all his love for her and hers for him, he 
 is utterly unable to procure her that happiness which she de- 
 serves. The chasm between the two is too great to be 
 bridged over, even by love. Faust says of himself: 
 
 I am the fugitive, all houseless roaming, 
 
 The monster without aim or rest, 
 That like a cataract, down rocks and gorges foaming, 
 
 Leaps, maddened, into the abyss's breast! 
 And sidewards she, with young, un wakened senses, 
 
 Within her cabin on the Alpine field. 
 
 But Mephistopheles, who, in his blind eagerness, cannot 
 give up his game as lost, succeeds again in lulling Faust's 
 conscience to rest. Faust returns to Gretchen, and an awful 
 vista of sin engendering sin opens before our eyes. Gretch- 
 en, all confidence and love, falls. Her mother dies from the 
 effects of the sleeping draught administered to her. Gretch- 
 en's brother attacks his sister's lover, and, in the ensuing 
 combat, is killed. Faust must flee to escape the hands of 
 justice, while Gretchen, crazed with the awful consciousness 
 of her sin, drowns her child and is cast into prison. These 
 awful results of his first wrong plunge Faust deeper and 
 deeper into sin, but at the same time reawaken his con- 
 science and the determination to right his wrong as much as 
 possible, even though it be at the risk of life and liberty. 
 Thus a spiritual disposition is engendered in Faust, which is 
 far from the one which Mephistopheles desired to produce, 
 in fact a state of soul that must needs help a man, in whom 
 all good has not died out, to regain "the right road," from 
 which he has strayed. Mephistopheles has again failed. 
 Faust comes out of this awful experience heavily laden with 
 guilt, but unquestionably a better man than when he first saw 
 Gretchen. 
 
 Here ends the First Part, and even from this brief out- 
 line it must be apparent that the drama could not possibly 
 end here, where most readers drop it. We are in the midst 
 of a conflict, not at its end. If it were the real ending, only 
 one of two issues is possible. Either Faust has won. But 
 this, despite all of his repentance, is not to be thought of
 
 /6 Goethe's "Faust" 
 
 while he is still in the very midst of the awful consequences 
 of his wrongdoings. Or Mephistopheles has won. Then 
 "the Lord" has lost, and the spirit of the drama would be 
 a pessimism too terrible to think out to its last consequences. 
 It needs no proof that Goethe, the serene optimist, could 
 never have considered such a solution. As a matter of 
 fact, the division between Parts I. and II. is merely acci- 
 dental and outward, not essential or organic. Only the sec- 
 ond act of the vast five-act drama has closed; the third act 
 begins with the Second Part. 
 
 In tracing the hero's career through the Second Part, I 
 shall endeavor to give a brief running account of the prin- 
 cipal events themselves, for I cannot presuppose for it the 
 same general acquaintance with the story of the plot as 
 everybody possesses for the First Part. On the other hand, 
 the Second Part, about twice as long as the first, teems with 
 such a mass of detail that only the most significant elements 
 can be referred to. 
 
 In the opening scene we find Ariel and his elfs minister- 
 ing to Faust, who lies in unconscious sleep; in other words, 
 the good and gentle influences of life gradually heal Faust's 
 broken spirit. Then the third great episode of the drama 
 begins. Faust is introduced to the emperor's court. In 
 various scenes we find him engaged in a life of busy activ- 
 ity. He is no longer solely seeking selfish enjoyment. He 
 is exerting himself. But there is a lack of purpose and 
 conviction in all of his doing. According to a distinction 
 dear to Goethe, Faust appears now gcscakftig) and not thd- 
 tig i. e., busy but not truly active. He resembles a man 
 who delights in using his powers and testing his strength, 
 but who is not sufficiently clarified in his purposes to devote 
 his energies to the service of high and worthy ideals. In 
 fact, Faust still allows Mephistopheles to conduct matters 
 pretty much as he pleases, and Mephistopheles sees to it 
 that the activities in which they engage shall ultimately re- 
 sr.lt in harm, or, at least, be of no value. 
 
 The scenes of court life, relating to government and to pleas- 
 ure, are varied and full of life, but only one fact is of spe-
 
 Goethe's "Faust" 17 
 
 cial significance for the further development of the plot. 
 The emperor has heard of, and during some carnival fes- 
 tivities has himself experienced, Faust's magic skill. As a 
 supreme test he therefore asks that Faust conjure up, for 
 the court's entertainment, the shades of Paris and of Helen. 
 Mephistopheles, when asked by Faust for assistance, must 
 admit that, as the devil of northern cloudlands, he possesses 
 no power over the sunny forms of southern climes. The 
 beautiful cannot be the sphere of the spirit of evil and mean- 
 ness, for Goethe firmly believed in the ennobling and up- 
 lifting influences of the beautiful. Thus Faust is forced to 
 act for himself, independently, and he undertakes the enter- 
 prise, even though at the risk of losing his life in it. 
 
 Here, I believe, lies the turning point in the drama consid- 
 ered as a whole. So far Mephistopheles has suggested 
 what has been undertaken; this time the suggestion comes 
 from a neutral source, the emperor; henceforth it will be 
 Faust himself who will set up his own goal for his activity. 
 Thus far Mephistopheles has accomplished everything, in- 
 viting Faust merely to passive enjoyment; this time, howev- 
 er, Faust acts without Mephistopheles; soon we shall see 
 Mephistopheles forced to employ his energies in pursuance 
 of Faust's self-chosen aims. 
 
 Paris and Helen appear as shades, and are admired and 
 criticised by the court in a soulless manner. Only Faust is 
 really struck with the sublimity of Helen's beauty, so much, 
 in fact, that during the next, the fourth, episode the effort 
 to win her becomes the controlling influence of his life i. e., 
 he enters the sign of the aesthetic ideal. For his search for 
 Helen, and his final wooing and wedding of her, we must 
 not interpret as a return to the sphere of sexual love, as por- 
 trayed in the Gretchen tragedy. Helen, in our drama, is 
 not so much the ideally beautiful Grecian, as rather the 
 Grecian ideal of beauty in art and life, and thus, in a meas- 
 ure, an incarnation of some of the highest human achieve- 
 ments of the past. In search of it and in communion with it, 
 Faust is therefore actuated by a truly lofty and noble aim 
 in life, although not yet by the loftiest and noblest.
 
 i8 Goethe 's "Faust" 
 
 Two of the most famous and, in many respects, most 
 beautiful portions of the Second Part are devoted to the por- 
 trayal of the sphere into which we have now entered namely, 
 the so-called classical Walpurgis Night, and the Helena 
 drama proper. 
 
 The classical Walpurgis Night has been developed as an 
 elaborate Grecian counterpart of the mythical Walpurgis 
 Night festival on top of the Brocken mountain, as it is por- 
 trayed in the First Part. The invention as a whole, is 
 Goethe's, while the various elements of it have been freely 
 taken from old Grecian fables and myths. The under- 
 standing and appreciation of the whole requires a fairly ex- 
 tensive familiarity with even minor and remote, details of 
 Grecian folklore so that for most readers an intelligent 
 study of at least this portion of the Second Part is impos- 
 sible without a running commentary. The scene has been 
 developed to its present proportions largely for its own sake 
 and interest, but its organic relation to what precedes and 
 follows is distinct. Faust, haunted by the picture of Helen, 
 is bent upon finding means for winning her back from Hades, 
 and information as to the most efficacious mode of procedure 
 might be gathered at this annual spirit-reunion on the plain 
 of Pharsalus, in Thessaly. For here, where in 48 B.C. the 
 famous battle between Caesar and Pompey was fought, the 
 memory of this epoch-making event is renewed annually (so 
 Goethe will have us believe) by a gathering of spirits in the 
 neighborhood of the battlefield during the night following 
 the anniversary of the battle. It certainly is a supersti- 
 tion of the folklore of many peoples that great and decisive 
 battles, as, e. g-., the battle of Marathon between the Athe- 
 nians and Persians, and the battle of the Romans and Ger- 
 mans against the Huns on the Catalaunian Plain, were each 
 year fought over and over again by spirits in the air. Since 
 thus on the Pharsalian battlefield all of the principal charac- 
 ters of Greek legend are going to assemble, Faust hopes to 
 be able to find among them some news of Helen. And, in- 
 deed, after a series of inquiries and varied adventures, the 
 famous sorceress, Manto, ultimately shows Faust the entrance
 
 Goethe's "Faust" 19 
 
 to the lower world beneath Mount Olympus, where he is to 
 plead with Persephone for Helen's return to the upper re- 
 gions. A noble scene, which was to depict Faust's expe- 
 rience in Hades, and thus was to form the connecting link 
 between the classical Walpurgis Night and the Helena 
 drama proper, the poet unfortunately never wrote. At any 
 rate, Faust's suit must be supposed to have been successful, 
 for in the third act Helen appears in the world of man. 
 
 The scene shifts to Sparta, to a place in front of the pal- 
 ace of Menelaus. He^en herself, surrounded by her reti- 
 nue of Spartan women, imagines that she is just returning 
 home from Troy, sent ahead by her husband to make all 
 necessary preparations for an elaborate sacrifice. Mephis- 
 topheles appears, disguised in the ugly shape of one of the 
 Graiae or Phorcyads, the three sisters dwelling in utter dark- 
 ness and possessing only one eye and one tooth in common, 
 who to the Greek imagination were the acme of everything 
 horrible and repulsive. This form he, the lover of every- 
 thing ugly, has borrowed from the Phorcyads during the clas- 
 sical Walpurgis Night, while his victim, Faust, hardly his vic- 
 tim any longer, has been in search of the sublime beauty of 
 Helen. Mephistopheles pretends to be an old stewardess at 
 Menelaus's palace, and tells Helen that she herself is to be the 
 victim to be slain at the sacrifice, for which her enraged hus- 
 band has ordered her to prepare. But he promises her easy 
 delivery from certain death if she will but place herself un- 
 der the protection of his master, who, during Menelaus's ab- 
 sence, has acquired power and land in the mountain districts 
 to the north. Helen, thoroughly frightened, gives her con- 
 sent, and, by magic, she is transported to Faust's strong- 
 hold, which is represented as a Gothic castle of the Middle 
 Ages. Faust greets her with profound respect and admira- 
 tion, offers his protection, and wins her love. The offspring 
 of this union of Faust and Helen is a supernatural child, 
 Euphorion, who, driven by his ethereal nature, tries by all 
 means to rise above the level of his surroundings, climbing 
 and flying upwards, but suddenly falling dead at his parents' 
 feet. In the figure of Euphorion Goethe offered a delicate
 
 20 Goethe's "Faust" 
 
 tribute to the memory of Lord Byron, whose premature 
 death at Missolonghi had occurred but shortly before the 
 time when the Helena drama was elaborated, and whose po- 
 etic genius Goethe greatly admired. Euphorion, dying, en- 
 treats Helen not to leave him alone in the realm of darkness. 
 She, irresistibly drawn on by her son's prayer, vanishes, 
 leaving Faust again alone. 
 
 This time Faust has enjoyed true happiness, the recollec- 
 tion of which is free from the sting of remorse. But even 
 it, being only temporary, did not furnish a lasting and never- 
 failing source of satisfaction. 
 
 But before we, like Faust, leave the sphere of the aesthetic 
 ideal, I should like to call attention to one more feature of 
 this portion of the drama, which evidently is symbolic and 
 largely even allegorical in its nature, and severely taxes the 
 imagination of even the most willing and best-prepared 
 reader. 
 
 Aside from the personal compliment to Byron, the figure 
 of Euphorion, more broadly interpreted, would seem to rep- 
 resent modern romanticism in general. As Euphorion is 
 the offspring of the Helen of the ancients and of Faust, who, 
 in these scenes, appears as one of those baronial knights of 
 the Middle Ages, who actually established themselves in va- 
 rious parts of Greece in connection with the fourth crusade 
 of 1202, so was modern romanticism, in some measure, the 
 result of a fusion of the spirit of ancient and Renaissance art 
 with the spirit of the romantic literature of the Middle Ages. 
 Thus understood, the poet's plan seems to have been to place 
 before us a kaleidoscopic vision of the whole development 
 of the art and culture of the past, from the days of the glory 
 of Greek art down to the poet's own time. 
 
 Such a plan is probably too bold and vast for artistic treat- 
 ment, especially for treatment in dramatic form. To admit, 
 therefore, that from an artistic standpoint, Goethe's treat- 
 ment of it is hardly quite satisfactory is no serious reproach 
 on his poetic genius. Like Faust himself, he seems to have 
 attempted the impossible. But the attempt itself should not 
 be ascribed to a wanton desire of doing something perhaps
 
 Goethe's "Faust" 21 
 
 never attempted before ; for it is a necessary and logical part 
 of the whole plan. If Faust is to exhaust all the experiences 
 of man, the question had to be answered whether there was 
 not, perhaps, something in the achievements of the past tha* 
 could have granted the longed-for satisfaction. The poet's 
 answer to this quest is a negative one. The past, no matter 
 how beautiful, cannot be the fulfillment of the needs and de- 
 sires of the present. It can and should furnish stimulants 
 and materials toward the mastery of the problems of the 
 present, but it cannot itself offer their solution. 
 
 And so we follow Faust to the last sphere of his experi- 
 ence. Carried back from Greece to Germany on their 
 magic cloak, Faust and Mephistopheles pass over plains, 
 rivers, and seas. When Mephistopheles asks whether, in all 
 they have seen, there was nothing that evoked in Faust the 
 desire to devote his energies to it, the latter, remembering 
 the sight of the waves of the sea lashing a waste and deso- 
 late shore, exclaims: 
 
 FAUST. 
 
 The sea sweeps on, in thousand quarters flowing, 
 
 Itself unfruitful, barrenness bestowing ; 
 
 It breaks and swells, and rolls, and overwhelms 
 
 The desert stretch of desolated realms. 
 
 There endless waves hold sway, in strength erected 
 
 And then withdrawn and nothing is effected. 
 
 If aught could drive me to despair, 'twere, truly, , 
 
 The aimless force of elements unruly. 
 
 Then dared my mind its dreams to over-soar : 
 
 Here would I fight subdue this fierce uproar ! 
 
 And possible 'tis! Howe'er the tides may fill, 
 
 They gently foam around the steadfast hill ; 
 
 A moderate height resists and drives asunder, 
 
 A moderate depth allures and leads them on, 
 
 So, swiftly, plans within my mind were drawn : 
 
 Let that high joy be mine for evermore, 
 
 To shut the lordly Ocean from the shore, 
 
 The watery waste to limit and to bar, 
 
 And push it back upon itself afar ! 
 
 From step to step I settled how to fight it : 
 
 Such is my wish : dare thou to expedite it !
 
 22 Goethe's "Faust" 
 
 Mephistopheles is willing, for the terms of the pact de- 
 mand that he should be. As a reward for valuable assist- 
 ance which they render the emperor in his war against a 
 powerful rival, Faust receives the desolate and undesirable 
 seashore as a fief. Here he spends the rest of his life, 
 building dikes, digging canals, constructing harbors, send- 
 ing out his ships over all the seas. Constantly he fights 
 against the renewed encroachments of the water, and there- 
 by turns a useless, uninhabited stretch of land into a culti- 
 vated district, a fit abode for free and labor-loving men to 
 live and prosper in. He has at last discovered the blessing 
 that dwells in strenuous exertion and unceasing labor, pro- 
 vided it be prompted by noble motives and directed toward 
 worthy ends. He no longer labors for himself alone; he 
 works for the benefit of others, and therein seeks and finds 
 his ow r n joy and prosperity. He creates values where before 
 him there were none; he carries the stir of human labor and 
 the voices of human joy and human sorrow into places filled 
 before by the monotonous roar of the unfeeling elements. 
 The over-exalted dreamer and reckless and regardless ego- 
 tist has changed at last into a culture hero, who has experi- 
 enced the saving grace of strenuous devotion to duty in the 
 service of mankind. 
 
 Finally, in this unceasing but serene activity in the interests 
 of human culture and progress, in his watchful care not only 
 for the welfare of his fellow-men, but even of coming gen- 
 erations, Faust seems to have found that continued peace 
 of soul for which he has been yearning so long, and which 
 nothing else had been able to furnish him. It is true, he is 
 blind, bowed down by care and extreme old age; but he is 
 none the less eagerly bent on performing the duties of each 
 day. Thus he much reminds us of the poet himself, who 
 penned the last lines of the drama as an octogenarian, and 
 was not willing to pause or rest until this supreme work of 
 his life should be completed. 
 
 In this spirit Faust exclaims: 
 
 Yea, to this thought I cling, with virtue rife, 
 Wisdom's last fruit, profoundly true:
 
 Goethe's "Faust" 23 
 
 Freedom alone he earns as well as life, 
 
 Who day by day must conquer them anew. 
 
 His ideal striving has not left him to the last. For even 
 now it is not so much the pleasure at what he has already 
 achieved, as rather the anticipation of what he still hopes to 
 accomplish in the future, that makes him say: 
 
 Then to the moment might I say : 
 Linger awhile, thou art so fair. 
 
 With such words on his lips and such thoughts in his soul, 
 he dies, clear in his conception of his relation to the world, 
 sure of his purpose, pure in his motives, a redeemed man. 
 
 He professes no creed, but his convictions are borne by 
 the loftiest principles. But, even though in anticipation of 
 still greater bliss in the future, he has spoken the fatal 
 word to the fleeting moment: "Linger awhile, thou art so 
 fair." So, technically, mechanically, Mephistopheles might 
 claim, and does claim, to have won his wager. But the an- 
 gelic hosts that come to carry Faust's soul into eternity con- 
 vince him, despite his impotent rage, that he is deceived. 
 Nothing that he has given Faust causes the latter to speak 
 the important words. Faust has won the wager. He is 
 saved. 
 
 In the last act of the drama one more point might demand 
 some elucidation. Mephistopheles to the last remains in 
 Faust's company, who even uses him for the consummation 
 of his high purposes. To a mediaeval mind this fact alone 
 would even to the last condemn Faust as ensnared in sin. 
 This, however, is far from Goethe's much profounder con- 
 ception of the relation between the two. Even though Meph- 
 istopheles represents the coarser, more vulgar tendencies 
 of human nature, he still represents energy. This fdrce is 
 not to be thrown aside, not to be destroyed; it is to be sub- 
 dued, to be forced to do the bidding of the higher spiritual 
 nature. That, according to Goethe, is the true solution of 
 the conflict each man is waging. When, at the end of his 
 career, Faust, though unintentionally, causes the death of the
 
 24 Goethe's "Faust" 
 
 good old couple, Philemon and Baucis, and the destruction 
 of their property, I believe the poet does not only wish to 
 emphasize the fact that the individual must not stand in the 
 way of the common progress and benefit, but rather to show 
 that the subjugation of our lower impulses is never com- 
 pletely accomplished. Even with the wisest and best of men 
 their coarser instincts will occasionally escape the control of 
 their higher nature. Again, it is not the individual act that 
 condemns or saves, but rather the spirit from which the deed 
 flows, that adds to our credit or guilt. Of this the chorus 
 of angels assure us as they carry Faust's immortal part aloft: 
 
 The noble spirit now is free, 
 
 And saved from evil scheming : 
 
 Whoe'er aspires unweariedly 
 Is not beyond redeeming.
 
 
 
 

 
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