Goethe's Faust Summary
The narrative of Faust begins in Heaven. While angels worship The Lord for his creation, Mephistopheles, the
Devil, complains about the state of affairs in the world. Mankind is corrupt, he claims, and he revels in the evil
and disaster that he is able to cause. Mephistopheles makes a bet with The Lord that he will be able to turn one
of his servants, Dr. Faust, over to sin and evil. The Lord agrees, claiming that Faust will remain a loyal follower.
The play introduces Faust while he sits in his study in despair over his life. He has been a scholar and an
alchemist, and he feels as though he has come to the end of all knowledge. Books and chemistry can no longer
define his life for him, and he longs to live a life in harmony with Nature and with the universe. He summons a
Spirit to come and be with him, but this only reinforces the fact that he is human and not spirit and therefore
cannot share the Spirit’s higher knowledge. In his despair, Faust brews a poison to commit suicide. Just as he is
about to take the poison, a chorus of angels appears announcing Easter day and stops him from completing the
act.
Faust walks outside his town with Wagner, a fellow scholar. Faust describes his passion for nature and for a
higher mode of life, but Wagner cannot fathom it. The townspeople celebrate Easter, and although Faust feels
that he should be with them, he cannot shake his despair at his current situation. The townspeople crowd
around Faust, cheering him because as a young man he and his father helped the people with medicine during a
time of plague. Faust, however, feels that he probably did more harm than good with his crude medicines. As
Wagner and Faust return home to their studies, they meet a black dog on the road that follows Faust back to his
room.
In his study, Faust attempts to find new inspiration by reading the Gospel of John. He begins his own translation
of the work, but the barking dog interrupts him. Soon, the dog transforms, and Mephistopheles appears where
the dog once was. Faust and Mephistopheles begin a conversation about Faust's work and despair at his current
situation in life. To show Faust a taste of his power, Mephistopheles summons a group of spirits that take Faust
on a hallucinatory journey while Faust falls asleep. Mephistopheles leaves the study with a promise to return and
show Faust more.
When Faust awakens, Mephistopheles returns, this time with a wager. Faust continues discussing his inability to
find a satisfying higher power, and Mephistopheles makes him an offer. The Devil promises to serve Faust and to
give Faust a moment of transcendence, a moment in which he hopes to stay forever. If Mephistopheles succeeds,
Faust must then be his servant for the rest of eternity in hell. Faust takes the wager, believing that the Devil can
never give him such a moment. Mephistopheles tells Faust to prepare for their journey, and while Faust does so,
the Devil poses as the doctor as one of Faust’s new students arrives for a lesson. The Devil and the Student talk
of the student's future learning endeavors, and Mephistopheles tempts him into a more libertine lifestyle. The
Student leaves, preparing to abandon his study to pursue women.
Mephistopheles takes Faust first to Auerbach's Cellar, a drinking tavern. He tries to convince Faust that the men
there have found their true pleasure; they are men who enjoy their lives in the tavern. Faust is unconvinced,
however, by their crude cares and simple lives. Mephistopheles plays tricks on the men. He drills holes in the
side of one of the tables and pours wine out of the holes. As soon as one of the men spills his wine, however,
flames jump out from the spilled liquid. As they try to come after Mephistopheles and kill him, the Devil
transports them into an alternate reality while he and Faust make their escape.
Faust and the Devil then travel to a witch's cave where they encounter two apes brewing a potion in a cauldron.
The beasts begin to have fun with Mephistopheles and pretend that he is a king while they are his servants.
When the witch returns, she initially does not recognize the Devil but soon sees that he is her master.
Mephistopheles makes the witch give a small bit of her potion to Faust, who drinks it. Outside on a street, Faust
meets a young girl with whom he immediately falls in love. Margaret, or Gretchen for short, avoids his advances
but cannot help and think about the older, noble stranger she met on the road that day.
Faust and Mephistopheles sneak into Gretchen’s room. In her room, Faust realizes that the feelings he has for
the girl go beyond simple sexual desire. His feelings are complex, and he longs to be near her. At seeing her bed,
he reveres nature for creating such a beautiful creature. When Gretchen returns, they quickly exit, but
Mephistopheles leaves behind a box of jewels. When Gretchen finds the jewels, she cannot believe that they are
for her, yet she also cannot help but put them on and admire them. Faust orders Mephistopheles to have the
two of them meet.
Gretchen visits her neighbor, Martha, to fret over her mother's actions. Her mother, upon seeing Gretchen’s
jewels, promptly took them to a priest, who could tell that they were from an evil source. Later, Gretchen found
another box of jewels, and Martha encourages her not to tell her mother this time. They answer a knock at the
door and discover Mephistopheles disguised as a traveler. He weaves a story for Martha, telling her that her
husband has died on his long travels. Martha is both heartbroken and angry at the stories of her husband's
licentious life. To put the matter to rest, Martha asks Mephistopheles and another witness to come and legally
attest to her husband’s death. The Devil agrees to bring someone, as long as Gretchen will also be present.
That evening in Martha's garden, Gretchen and Faust meet formally for the first time. Faust charms her and
courts her. She tells him of her hard life and of how she nursed her sick infant sister until her sister died.
Gretchen has no other family except her brother, who is away at war, and her mother. Mephistopheles and
Martha also flirt, with the Devil playing a coy game of seduction with her. Meanwhile, when Faust professes his
love for Gretchen, she plays a game of “He loves me/He loves me not” with a flower. She lands on “he loves me”
and runs to her room. Faust follows her to a summer cabin, where they say goodbye.
Faust, fearing that he will corrupt the girl with his feelings, runs away to the forest, where he lives for a time in a
cave. He thanks the Spirit of Nature for giving him such feelings, for now he has a moment and an understanding
of life that he does not want to lose. Mephistopheles finds Faust and derides his foolish behavior, hiding from the
woman that he loves. He tells Faust that Faust must find this girl, for she pines away for him day and night. Faust,
his passion overtaking him, agrees that he must go.
Faust returns to Gretchen, and one night in her room, they discuss his feelings on religion. Gretchen is a faithful
Christian, and she knows that neither she nor her mother could accept a man that does not believe the same.
Faust tries to convince the girl that he also believes and worships God, but she does not quite believe him. Faust
convinces her to allow him to give her mother a sleeping potion, and they consummate their relationship. Soon,
Gretchen learns that she is pregnant by Faust. One day, while drawing water from the town well, she hears the
girls’ gossip about another girl who had sexual relations and became pregnant. The girl was forced to kill her
baby and now lives as a beggar and outcast. Gretchen fears that she will share the girl’s fate. Gretchen prays to
the Virgin Mary that the Lord will have mercy upon her.
Faust comes to Gretchen's house to see her and meets Gretchen's brother, Valentine. Valentine has heard of her
sister's licentious behavior and has come to exact revenge on the man who impregnated her. He and Faust begin
to argue and fight, and Faust plunges a dagger into Valentine’s heart. As he lies dying, Gretchen comes to
comfort her brother, but he accosts her as a whore and tells her that she will be damned for her actions.
Gretchen runs to the Cathedral to pray, and an Evil Spirit visits her, securing her damnation.
Faust leaves Gretchen to attend Walpurgis Night with the Devil. Walpurgis Night is the one night of the year
when all the witches, evil beings, and magic creatures of the world gather on Brocken Mountain. Faust witnesses
the revelry of the creatures and begins to dance with one of the witches. Over a fire, Mephistopheles and Faust
converse with a group of artists and politicians about the state of the world. Faust sees a vision of Lilith, the
mythical first wife of Adam, who threatens to enchant him. He also sees a vision of Medusa, who
Mephistopheles warns will seduce Faust and bring no good. As the night ends, Faust sees a small stage set up on
the mountain and goes to attend the show.
The play is entitled “Walpurgis Night's Dream” and is a take on Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream.”
The play tells the story of the golden wedding between King Oberon and his wife Titania. Attend the wedding is a
panoply of characters, including politicians, artists, figures from mythology, philosophers, and even objects that
have come to life. They represent different strains of thought, philosophies, or artistic viewpoints on life. The
entire play-within-a-play reflects on the varied academic and intellectual interests of Modernism.
In a gloomy field, Faust learns of Gretchen’s fate. She killed their infant child and was as a result arrested. He falls
into a new kind of despair and curses Mephistopheles for creating this unhappy and unholy affair.
Mephistopheles reminds him that it was he, Faust, who made the pact. Faust orders the Devil to take him to
Gretchen's jail so that he can free her. Mephistopheles brings horses, and they ride towards the village, although
the Devil warns Faust that both the authorities and avenging spirits are in the town, ready to take their
vengeance on Faust for murdering Valentine.
Faust sneaks into the jail and finds Gretchen. She has devolved into insanity, and she does not recognize Faust,
instead mistaking him for her executioner. Faust pleads for her to escape with him, but her own sense of guilt
and shame, as well as the prospect of the despairing life that she will live outside of the jail, prevents her from
escape. As Gretchen surrenders her soul to the judgment of God, Mephistopheles enters to tell Faust that they
must leave or be caught by the authorities and suffer the same fate of execution. Faust and Mephistopheles flee
from Gretchen's cell as she cries out his name.
Goethe's Faust Study Guide
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is one of the greatest works of German literature in the modern age and
one of the greatest epic poems in Western literature. Faust consumed much of Goethe's thought and work
throughout his entire life. He outlined the first sketches of the Faust story as a young student of law and did not
complete the play's final act until a year before his death, approximately sixty years after he first began.
Goethe's play comes from popular legends that circulated throughout Europe from the sixteenth century
onward. Scholars believe that a man named Faust -- probably a doctor or spiritualist -- did actually exist in
sixteenth century Germany. He even receives a mention from Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant
Reformation, as a "conjurer and necromancer" who dabbled in the devil's work. The real Faust probably dabbled
in alchemy and made a living as a traveling magician, providing spectacle to audiences of medieval Europe.
Faust's legend grew much more popular than the real man ever was while alive. Some of the earliest works to
benefit from Gutenberg's movable type were Faust chapbooks, or cheap pamphlets accessible to the common
classes, that began to appear in the late sixteenth century. This Faust inevitably sold his soul to the Devil for the
gifts of magic and wealth. His life, however, was doomed from the start, and he always ended as the victim of the
Devil's game. His life became both a source of entertainment and a cautionary tale for those that would stray
from the bounds of religion and morality.
Goethe's Faust, however, tells a much grander and more philosophical tale. Goethe wrote the play in order to
explore the themes of philosophy, religion, politics, culture, and literature, as well as what these meant in the
context of an enlightened age. In this story, Faust is not a magician but is, instead, an academic who has reached
the limits of learning and knowledge. He seeks a fuller life and to know about nature and the universe. Through a
wager with the Devil, he hopes to take advantage of a life beyond his study and see the answers that the
universe might provide to him.
Goethe's style in the play is as prolific as the themes he engages. Goethe moves freely from uniform verse to
irregular patterns of poetry to songs and hymns to free verse to Shakespearean blank verse and even to the
simplest rhymes and meters. The play moves from scenes of intense sorrow to scenes of comic hilarity. Goethe's
play tests the limits of modern forms of literature and the way that these forms might describe the human
condition.
Faust is, in the end, a tragedy. This tragic context is seen most clearly through the love story between Faust and
Gretchen. Faust plays a complicated role in the relationship. On the one hand, he is the tempter who lures the
pure virgin from the religion and morality of her simple lifestyle. On the other hand, Faust sees for the first time
that his subjective self is nothing in the face of an eternal love. However, even this realization cannot save him
from his pact with the Devil. Faust, representing the modern human being, always drives himself to damnation,
held back from the moment of true enlightenment.
Goethe's Faust has, along with Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, become the standard telling of the Faust
legend in modern literature. In the centuries after Goethe's death, scholars and writers have remained fascinated
with Goethe's retelling of the legend and the themes that he presents through the work. Novels, plays, and even
pieces of popular culture have paid homage to Goethe's work, and the Faust legend continues to be one of the
most well recognized stories of the modern era.
Goethe's Faust Character List
Raphael
Raphael is one of the Lord's angels. He appears in the "Prologue in Heaven." He sings of the majesty of God's
creation and the cycles of the sun.
Gabriel
Gabriel is one of the Lord's angels. He appears in the "Prologue in Heaven" and sings of God's creation and the
cycles of day and night.
Michael
Michael is one of the Lord's angels. He appears in the "Prologue in Heaven" and sings of God's creation and the
cycles of storms and weather.
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles is the play's antagonist. He plays both the parts of tempter and devil, as well as those of court
jester and comedian. Mephistopheles makes a deal with the Lord to tempt Faust, and Faust wagers that
Mephistopheles will not be able to show him an eternal moment that would ever satisfy his thirst for knowledge.
Through a series of tricks and deceits, Mephistopheles confounds Faust's quest for love and eventually secures
his damnation and eternal suffering as the Devil's servant.
The Lord
The Lord appears in the "Prologue in Heaven." The Lord makes a deal with Mephistopheles for Faust's soul and
allows the devil to tempt Faust in order to prove that he will remain faithful to God.
Faust
Faust is the play’s protagonist. He is a scholar and alchemist falls into despair because he feels as though he has
exhausted the limits of his knowledge. He feels that he will only become complete if he can fuse his life with
nature and the universe. In order to find this higher knowledge, Faust makes a wager with the devil
Mephistopheles. Faust soon finds his eternal moment in his love for a young girl, Gretchen, whom he then
tempts away from her religious and moral life. Faust's relationship ends in tragedy with Gretchen killing their
child and falling into madness. Faust thus becomes damned never to experience the true knowledge of love that
he seeks.
Earth Spirit
The Earth Spirit is one of the main spirits of the play. It appears to Faust in his study and represents the goodness
of the higher powers of nature and the universe.
Wagner
Wagner is Faust's companion in the first third of the play. Wagner is a scholar who sees no reason to venture
outside of books and learning into the realms of the natural and spiritual as Faust desires. Wagner represents the
academic context that Faust desperately seeks to escape.
Manager
The Manager appears in the scene "Prelude in the Theater." He represents the practical side of art and drama as
he goads the Dramatic Poet and the Comic Clown into performing the Faust story in a way that draws in an
audience and entertains them while enlightening them as well.
Poet
The Poet appears in the scene "Prelude in the Theater." The Poet represents the artistic side of the theater. He is
more concerned with the artistic autonomy and authenticity of the drama than with the entertainment value or
practical staging of the work of the theater.
Comedian
The Comedian, or Clown, appears in the scene "Prelude in the Theater." The Comedian represents the
entertainment value of drama. The Comedian's argument is that theater should take people away from their
everyday worlds and present them with spectacle and passion.
Gretchen
Gretchen is a peasant girl with whom Faust falls madly in love. Gretchen represents the religious and moral
society of common German life against which Faust is compared. Their relationship is destined for tragedy from
the start as Faust tempts Gretchen away from her moral life. After bearing his child, she commits infanticide, for
which she goes to prison and is executed for her crimes.
Martha
Martha is Gretchen's neighbor who provides the means by which Mephistopheles is able to concoct Faust and
Gretchen's love affair. Mephistopheles weaves a lie about the death of Martha's husband in order to bring the
two together, and Martha facilitates Gretchen's fantasies of love with Faust.
Valentine
Valentine is Gretchen's brother and a soldier returning home from war. He receives word of his sister's sexual
indiscretion, and when he meets Faust, they fight. Faust fatally wounds Valentine, and as he dies, Valentine
insults and damns his sister for her indiscretion. His blasphemy represents the violent fissure of modern society
from the religious and social spheres of Christendom.
Student
The Student appears in Faust's study to learn under Faust's tutelage. Mephistopheles impersonates Faust and
tempts the student into a libertine life. The Student shows how easily one can be tempted away from the dull life
of academics and learning.
Witch
The Witch first appears in her cavern, brewing a concoction that initiates Faust's burning passion for Gretchen.
Frosch
Frosch is a character in the scene "Auerbach's Cellar." He is in love with a girl that refuses to reciprocate and
represents the first year student's naivete.
Brander
Brander is a character in the scene "Auerbach's Cellar." Brander teases Frosch about his love affair. He displays
the disillusionment of sophomore students in the academic environment.
Altmayer
Altmayer is a character in the scene "Auerbach's Cellar." He represents the older or former students of a
university.
Siebel
Siebel is the bartender in "Auerbach's Cellar."
Age of Enlightenment
A philosophical and cultural movement in the Modern Era that appealed to rational thought, reason, and
democratic societies.
alchemist
A person who deals in chemical and rare substances in order to seek the true nature of life.
Brocken Mountain
The scene of Walpurgis Night.
cauldron
A boiling pot, usually associated with witchcraft or alchemy.
confession
A Catholic ritual in which a person tells all their sins to a priest in order to gain absolution.
equine
Of or relating to horses.
fops
Foolish men or women. A derogatory term.
Job
A character in the Bible whose soul is wagered by God and Satan. Goethe based his "Prelude in Heaven" on the
Book of Job.
Leipzig
A city in Germany; called a "little Paris."
libertine
A person with loose or ambivalent morals, especially concerning women.
Lilith
A figure from Rabbinic literature and legend, believed to be Adam's first wife. Lilith has strange powers over
men.
Linden Tree
A tree under which townspeople gather for song and dance.
Lord of Flies
A name for the Devil.
macrocosm
A drawing that attempts to place all concepts of the universe in a compact form.
Magister
Latin for "master." A name that Faust was called by others.
malediction
The act of calling down a curse that brings evil.
Mammon
Wealth personified. Mammon is regarded as an evil influence.
Martin Luther
A sixteenth century Protestant Reformer. Began the Protestant Reformation in Germany with his 95 Theses.
Mater Dolorosa
"Our Lady of Sorrows." A visual representation or icon of the Virgin Mary.
Medusa
A woman from Greek mythology. She had snakes for hair and could turn men into stone with her look.
metaphysics
The philosophical study of being and knowing.
Microcosm
A replication in miniature.
Nature
A spiritual sense of the "real" world. This is often a non-materialistic view of what constitutes the world and the
human condition.
Nordic
Of or relating to the people of Scandinavia.
Padua
A city in Italy.
pedant
A person who pays more attention to rules and regulations than a situation merits.
pentagram
A drawing of a star with five points. The pentagram is associated with witchcraft, magic, and devil worship.
plague
A disease that swept over Europe during the middle ages, killing over a third of the population.
Prater
A famous public park in Vienna.
Proctophantasmist
A word made up by Goethe that means, approximately, "buttock ghost-imaginer." The name was meant to
portray one of Goethe's intellectual rivals.
Promenade
A leisurely walk taken for conversation.
quid pro quo
Something for something; that which a party receives in return for something he does or gives or promises.
Rationalism
A view that appeals to reason as a source of knowledge.
Reformation
The Protestant Reformation, a split in the Christian church in which groups broke off from the Catholic Church to
start their own sects and churches.
Saint Anthony
The patron saint of loving wives and brides.
serf
The lowest social class in the feudal system.
sieve
A utensil of wire mesh or closely perforated metal.
Sign
A word or object that signifies a concept or thing.
Signified
A concept or thing pointed to by a sign.
sophist
A person skilled in elaborate or deviant argumentation; also referring to a group of Greek philosophers.
specter
A ghost or spirit.
Strasbourg
A city in Germany, where Goethe attended university.
Sturm und Drang
German for "Storm and Stress." A literary and philosophical movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries that sought to elevate human emotion over rationalism.
The Fatherland
A name for the country of Germany.
The Snake
A name for Satan taken from the Book of Genesis.
theology
The study of God.
Thule
A legendary kingdom in Europe. Gretchen sings a song of the King of Thule.
vial
A glass container that holds liquid. Usually used in chemistry.
wager
A bet made between two people.
Walpurgis Night
A night of revelry in which all of the earth's witches, sorcerers, and evil spirits come together on the Brocken
Mountain.
Goethe's Faust Themes
The Enlightenment Tradition
The Age of Enlightenment was a broad movement of intellectual culture and philosophy that arguably began
with René Descartes' philosophical work Discourse on Method and culminated in the revolutionary works and
actions of the eighteenth century such as the American and French Revolutions. While the Enlightenment
included a vast array of thought, one of its central intellectual themes was that of reason and the role that
reason played in science and the arts.
As a poet and artist of the Enlightenment age, Goethe’s literature argued against the shift towards radical
rationalism. Faust is the culmination of this argument. As a man of the Enlightenment, Faust seeks to escape the
extreme rationalism of his academic and medical life, but Goethe shows this tradition ultimately cannot satisfy
without emotion and art.
Science and Spirituality
Faust is a scholar and a man of science who feels that he has reached the limits of what rational thought can
contribute to his life. One of the concepts of Enlightenment thought was that humanity would eventually perfect
itself through the advancement of knowledge and technology. Faust argues against this line of thinking. Faust
attempts to perfect himself through learning and science, yet he finds that at the end of his intellectual journey,
he has destroyed his faith and his reason to live.
What Faust strives for is a taste of the spiritual, either in his own life or in a life beyond. His life of science and
medicine and the vast array of knowledge that he has collected keeps him from this spiritual state. He conjures
spirits yet cannot join their world. He soon discovers that his own nature contains a spiritual dimension, that of
love, which he finds in his relationship with the young girl, Gretchen. Goethe argues that love and tragedy can
conquer the tyranny of extreme science and rationalism.
Signifier and Signified
Goethe’s literary and theological argument in Faust concerns the disconnect between the signifier and the
signified. When Faust attempts to explain his spiritual beliefs to a skeptical Gretchen, he tells her that he can find
no name for what it is he believes. Some might call it God, while others call it Nature or Love. Because Faust is
not able to truly name what he believes, Gretchen is likewise unable to believe in Faust’s spirituality. This is the
result of the disconnection between words and the concepts or objects that they signify. Goethe is asking a
deeply philosophical and theological question: if humanity cannot adequately name God, does God actually exist
for humanity? Faust’s own subjective experience of this problem destroys his faith and leads him to an extreme
nihilism and the verge of suicide at the play’s beginning.
The Nature of Life and Death
Faust is a man who must confront his own existential crisis. The questions that he ponders as a scholar and
doctor have destroyed his faith and his belief in the progress of humanity, and his extreme nihilism lead him to
the verge of suicide. The question that Faust must answer is whether life is worth more than the peace that
death offers.
Goethe creates an extreme example of the logic of philosophical rationalism. Rational thought alone can never
perfect or complete humanity, Goethe argues, because human knowledge has fundamental limits when it comes
to the spiritual world. Humanity simply cannot name or understand that which is higher than it. Therefore,
humanity would only have the question of whether life should be continued or simply ended. This point is a
critique of Modernism and a theme that runs through much of Modern philosophy even into the twentieth
century.
The Romantic Tradition
Goethe's Faust, while not strictly a piece of Romantic literature, nonetheless displays characteristics of the genre.
Faust's extended speeches on the qualities of Nature and the reasons that he cannot be a part of it show
Goethe's faith in the spiritual qualities of the world that the Romantic tradition elevated. In an important scene,
Faust returns from his walk through nature with Wagner to his study and, for the only time in the play's first half,
feels a satisfied spirit within him. By contrast, his removal from the natural world and entry into the world of
rational thought kills this spirit.
Goethe sees in Nature the true spiritual and moral foundations of humanity. Humanity's depraved condition
comes not from some innate sinfulness, but from a disconnection with the spiritual and divine aspects of Nature.
Only a return to these true qualities of the world leads to completeness for the individual.
Moral Ambivalence
One of the consequences of Modernism, according to Goethe, is that if modern rationalism destroys the need
for religion or social constraints, then this creates a moral vacuum in the human condition. Faust's condition is
not only one of intellectual despair, but also one in which his character is transformed into a morally ambivalent
libertine, as in his love affair with Gretchen. Gretchen, who is morally pure before meeting Faust, is tempted into
a life of immorality just as Mephistopheles tempts Faust. When Gretchen accepts Faust's declarations of his postChristian faith, she loses the moral qualities of her previous life. Faust destroys Gretchen's faith and moral
support through his own moral ambivalence. Goethe argues that such a condition can only lead to tragedy, just
as it does for both Faust and Gretchen.
Subjectivity
Goethe characterizes the modern world as one in which meaning revolves not around the action of the collective
but around the introspection and imagination of the subjective self. While the classical epic poem always
portrays action emanating from a great hero, all action in Faust depends on Faust's own subjective experience.
Faust falls into existential despair through his own subjectivity. Likewise, he cannot understand his own chance at
salvation through his love of Gretchen outside of his own subjective experience. Goethe characterizes the
separation that occurs between people who are unable to speak in similar languages of faith or love because of
their own subjective selfishness. This leads to tragedy for both characters since, as Goethe suggests, they can
never truly capture the love of the other. The turn toward the subjective is therefore a turn towards tragedy.
Goethe's Faust Quotes and Analysis
Alas, I have studied philosophy, / the law as well as medicine, / and to my sorrow, theology; / studied them well
with ardent zeal, / yet here I am, a wretched fool, / no wiser than I was before."
Faust, 31
These lines introduce Faust’s character. He sits in his study and laments that although he has studied all of the
world's great knowledge, he feels no wiser from it. These words set up the central motivation of the play, Faust's
desire to transcend human knowledge in order to gain divine knowledge. The situation is also a metaphor for
what Goethe sees as the conundrum of Modernism, in which mankind relies on strict rationalism instead of
striving for a deeper and more divine knowledge to understand the world.
"Oh my, but art is long / and our life is fleeting."
Faust, 47
This quote, spoken by Wagner, is a translation of the Latin ars longa, vita brevis. Wagner, who represents the
rationalist tradition, is expressing the idea that all knowledge should come from the classical Greek works of
philosophy since one's life is too short to construct entire new systems of philosophy. Faust represents the
opposite position, as he hopes to build a new way of learning through his own subjective experience of nature
and the divine.
THE LORD
Is nothing ever right on the earth?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, my Lord, I find it there, as always, thoroughly / revolting. / I pity men in all their misery / and actually hate to
plague the wretches.
Faust, 25
This dialogue between God and the Devil expresses the latter's attitude toward humanity. Later in this scene,
God allows Mephistopheles to tempt his servant, which echoes the Book of Job from the Hebrew Bible. The bet
between God and the Devil is God's attempt to prove that some of humanity remains faithful to religion and
morality. However, as this quote shows, Mephistopheles sees the world as so depraved that even his own
temptations cannot equal the suffering and misery that mankind brings upon itself.
The time has come to prove by deeds / that man will not quake before the pit where fantasy / condemns itself to
tortures of its own creation / when he advances to the narrow passageway / about whose mouth infernal flames
are blazing. / Approach the brink serenely and accept the risk / of melting into nothingness.
Faust, 57
Faust gives this speech as he holds a cup of poison, ready to drink it and commit suicide. This expresses Faust's
post-Christian nature. He rejects the ideas of heaven and hell as nothing more than fantasies that humanity has
created for itself. Instead, Faust replaces ideas of religion with utter nihilism, ready to take his own life since he
believes the action will have no eternal consequences.
It is written: "In the beginning was the Word!" / Even now I balk. Can no one help? / I truly cannot rate the word
so high. / I must translate it otherwise.
Faust, 97
Faust expresses two ideas in this line. First is the idea of a reformulation of religion for the modern era. Faust
wavers between rejecting religion as superstition and believing that one can salvage religion in face of extreme
rationalism. The second idea expressed is the relation between the signifier and the signified. Faust cannot find
understanding within the Word (alluding to both scripture and the actual word), demonstrating that the thing
signified by a word can never be completely described by that word.
If you should ever find me lolling on a bed of ease, / let me done for on the spot! / If you ever lure me with your
lying flatteries, / and I find satisfaction in myself, / if you bamboozle me with pleasure, / then let this be my final
day! / This bet I offer you!
Faust, 131
These lines form the play's most critical moment. Mephistopheles has wagered Faust that he will be able to give
Faust a moment in this life in which Faust will leave his subjective despair. Faust mistakenly feels assured that he
will never find such a moment and agrees to the bet. This excerpt demonstrates Faust’s belief that all human
endeavors lead to nothing and that happiness and morality are not possible in the modern world.
To grasp the gist of medicine is easy; / you study through the great and little world, / in order in the end to let
things be / exactly as the Lord desires.
Faust, 157
Mephistopheles says these words to a student in order to tempt the student to abandon all learning and live
outside of its limitations and restrictions. According to the Devil, learning only imposes morals on humanity
while causing nothing but unhappiness. Instead, this student should abandon morals and live a libertine and
subjectively hedonistic life, even if such a life leads towards damnation.
MEPHISTOPHELES
And then you'll speak of faith and love eternal, / of a single, overpowering urge- / will that flow so easily from
your heart?
FAUST
Enough, I say it will.
Faust, 269
This conversation between Faust and Mephistopheles is the decisive moment when Faust admits that he has lost
his wager. Faust did not believe that he could find an experience of completeness in his own life, yet he did
through his love for Gretchen. Goethe thus argues that emotion can overcome strictly rational thought to
provide humanity a way out of its existential crisis.
Fill your heart to overflowing, / and when you feel profoundest bliss, / then call it what you will: / Good fortune!
Heart! Love! or God! / I have no name for it! / Feeling is all; / the name is sound and smoke, / beclouding
Heaven's glow.
Faust, 311
This attempt by Faust to explain his spiritual beliefs to Gretchen is an expression of the idea that human words
and systems of thought or theology have no real way to express the nature of the divine. This disconnection of
signifier from signified has caused Faust's own existential crisis as well as humanity's move from a Christian to a
post-Christian society. Faust attempts to recreate his own system of belief but does not find sustaining faith until
he experiences his love for Gretchen.
You may find him anywhere, my dear. / When others dance, he's got to criticize, / and if he fails to criticize a step,
/ that step might just as well have not been taken.
Faust, 375
These lines, spoken by Faust as he dances with a witch on Walpurgis Night, sum up Goethe's distaste for the
rationalist philosophers who criticize the belief that emotion is a truer expression of humanity’s capacities than is
reason. Goethe’s school of thought, called Sturm und Drang (German for “Storm and Stress”), sought to elevate
the place of emotion in the modern world. Whereas the rationalist school of thought relied upon classical
learning and texts as the foundation of knowledge, the Sturm und Drang school argued that truth must be found
in the emotional storms of life.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1749 –
1832
Read poems by this poet
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, on August 28, 1749, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
was tutored extensively in languages as a child. Goethe’s father, a lawyer,
prioritized his son’s education, enabling him to engage in many literary and
cultural pursuits. Goethe was fascinated by writers such as Homer and Ovid,
and committed whole passages of these texts to heart.
Goethe’s love for poetry persisted through his legal training, and he
anonymously released Annette, his first collection of poems, in 1770. By the
time he completed his studies, he had composed a satirical crime comedy,
fallen in love with folk poetry, and developed a deep affinity for Shakespeare,
the figure responsible for what he termed his “personal awakening.”
Throughout the 1770s, Goethe practiced a unique, progressive version of law
across Germany, while maintaining a side career as an editor, playwright, and
poet. He wrote his first widely-read novel, the loosely-autobiographical,
joyfully-romantic tragedy, The Sorrows of Young Werther, in 1774, at the age of
twenty-four. The book was an instant international success. Napoleon
Bonaparte called it one of the greatest works of European Literature. It sparked
the phenomenon “Werther-Fieber” (“Werther Fever”), in which young men
throughout Europe began dressing like the tragic protagonist, and brought
Goethe to the court of Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach,
where he would become an important advisor. In later years, Goethe
expressed his disgust with the novel and the romantic genre out of which it
emerged; however, its effect on Goethe’s career and public image were
undeniable.
Goethe met the poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller in 1794, beginning a
collaborative relationship that would result in a creative success for both
artists. The two transformed the Weimar Theatre into a national treasure, and
their cumulative writings form the heart of German literature, having also been
adapted by many composers such as Mozart and Beethoven. Goethe wrote
extensively during this period, including his Roman Elegies, a seductive twentyfour-poem cycle about his trip to Italy, but it was not until after Schiller’s death
in 1805 that he produced his most famous work, Faust, about a duel with the
devil in the search for transcendent knowledge. The epic poem-as-play has
been adapted into an opera and is still performed throughout the world.
Despite his success and influence as a poet, Goethe expressed that he took no
pride in his literary accomplishments, and believed instead that his work as a
philosopher and scientist—in particular his theories about color—would be his
true legacy. However, his writings—emotive, far-reaching, prophetic, and
formal—stimulated generations of Western literature and thought. Randall
Jarrell, who translated Faust from his poet laureate’s office at the Library of
Congress, called him his “own favorite daemon, dear good great
Goethe.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, deeply influenced by Goethe’s merging of
science and art, called Goethe the “surpassing intellect of modern times,” and
said of his life:
Such was his capacity, that the magazines of the world’s ancient or modern
wealth, which arts and intercourse and skepticism could command,—he
wanted them all. Had there been twice so much, he could have used it as well.
Geologist, mechanic, merchant, chemist, king, radical, painter, composer,—
all worked for him, and a thousand men seemed to look through his eyes. He
learned as readily as other men breathe. Of all the men of this time, not one
has seemed so much at home in it as he. He was not afraid to live.
The Literature of Weimar Classicism
Simon Richter
2005
Purchase
New essays providing an account of the shaping beliefs, preoccupations,
motifs, and values of Weimar Classicism.
In Germany, Weimar Classicism (roughly the period from Goethe's return to Germany from Italy in 1788 to the death
of his friend and collaborator Schiller in 1805) is widely regarded as an apogee of literary art. But outside of Germany,
Goethe is considered a Romantic, and the notion of Weimar Classicism as a distinct period is viewed with skepticism.
This volume of new essays regards the question of literary period as a red herring: Weimar Classicism is best
understood as a project that involved the ambitious attempt not only to imagine but also to achieve a new quality of
wholeness in human life and culture at a time when fragmentation, division, and alienation appeared to be the norm. By
not succumbing to the myth of Weimar and its literary giants, but being willing to explore the phenomenon as a
complex cultural system with a unique signature, this book provides an account of its shaping beliefs, preoccupations,
motifs, and values. Contributions from leading German, British, and North American scholars open up multiple
interdisciplinary perspectives on the period. Essays on the novel, poetry, drama, and theater are joined by accounts of
politics, philosophy, visual culture, women writers, and science. The reader is introduced to the full panoply of cultural
life in Weimar, its accomplishments as well as its excesses and follies. Emancipatory and doctrinaire by turns, the
project of Weimar Classicism is best approached as a complex whole.
Contributors: Dieter Borchmeyer, Charles Grair, Gail Hart, Thomas Saine, Jane Brown, Cyrus Hamlin, Roger
Stephenson, Elisabeth Krimmer, Helmut Pfotenhauer, Benjamin Bennett, Astrida Orle Tantillo, W. Daniel Wilson.