遠東學報第二十二卷第三期
中華民國九十四年九月出版
葛瑞青與浪漫主義：哥德《浮士德》研究
Gretchen and the Romantic Attitude:
An Approach to Goethe’s Faust
孫維民 遠東技術學院通識中心
摘
要
在塑造及傳播浪漫精神方面，德國的哲學家和作家居功厥偉。法國大
革命發生之前，德國已有狂飆運動，是歐洲浪漫主義的先鋒。哥德的
《浮士德》即是浪漫主義的產物。本文檢視《浮士德》裡的女主角葛
瑞青的思想、性情和行為，並且藉此發現整部作品與浪漫主義的關連。
關鍵字: 浪漫主義，盧梭，自然人，直觀，柏拉圖，新柏拉圖主義者，
原型
Wei-min Sun, General Education Center of Far East College
ABSTRACT
German philosophers and writers play an important role in coining and
spreading the Romantic spirit. Even before the French Revolution takes
place, the “Storm and Stress” movement of the 1770s has already served
as a precursory German form of European Romanticism. Goethe’s Faust,
thus, is often regarded as an affirmation of Romanticphilosophy. The
purpose of this study is to see how Faust is related to the Romantic
attitude through the presentation of Gretchen.
Keyword: Romanticism, Rousseau, natural man, intuition, Plato,
Neoplatonists, archetype
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In the “Prologue in Heaven,” Goethe has
affirmation of the philosophy of Romanticism.
already affirmed human nature and human
But how are the two related, and to what extent?
potentiality. “Men make mistakes as long as they
Since a full discussion of this topic
strive” (77), and yet, like the trees tended by
seems impossible here, in this essay I will focus
God, the “gardener” (70), they will keep on
my discussion on Gretchen to see how this
growing and finally bear fruit. Man’s “striving”
character in Faust is connected with the
or action, the “Deed” (“Study I” 60) which Faust
Romantic attitude.
regards as the very beginning of creation, is what
From the very beginning, Goethe makes it
God values, and Faust, with his mistakes, is to
rather clear that Gretchen owns a character of
be forgiven by such a refusal to relapse into
innocence, selflessness and naturalness. Faust
inactive complacency. Faust is thus led to his
falls madly in love with Gretchen when he first
salvation because of his recognition of and
sees her, insisting that Mephistopheles gets her
constancy to the capacity of striving innate in
for him. At first Mephistopheles hesitates upon
human nature, Here, as Boyle points out,
request because the Devil also recognizes the
Goethe’s view is quite similar to Fichte’s:
powerful virtue in this young girl:
In thus identifying the heart of living
An innocent thing. Innocent? Yes!
nature with the heart of human nature
At church with nothing to confess!
Faust has advanced to a position similar to
Over that girl I have no power.
that of Goethe’s Idealist
(“In the Street I” 21-23)
contemporary, the reputedly atheist Fichte.
Later, the hostility between Gretchen and
Fichte saw the ultimate certainty of
Mephistopheles is further illustrated. After
philosophy as lying not in some mere fact
Mephistopheles and Faust have left, Gretchen
(Tatsache) that was known, but in
returns to her room and senses, with fear, the evil
which the reflecting self posited its own
contamination of the Devil:
existence. (44)
It is so sultry, so fusty here,
Undoubtedly, Goethe’s Faust is also an
And it’s not even so warm outside.
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I feel as if I don’t know what—
To overflow into all things in ecstasy;
I wish my mother would appear.
After all which your lofty intuition
I’m trembling all over from top to toe—
(He makes a gesture.)
I’m a silly girl to get frightened so.
Will end—hm—unmentionably.
(“Forest and Cavern” 66-76)
(“Gretchen’s Room” 62-67)
Gretchen’s
It is obvious that Gretchen provides a
purity,
simplicity
and
When
naturalness lead her to her tragedy as well as her
Gretchen sings “The King of Thule,” her famous
final salvation. In Gretchen, we find the
song about a king’s faithful love to his dead
representation of an ideal character upheld and
mistress, such a contrast is marked again in that
praised by the Romantics. She reminds us of
Mephistopheles regards love as mere sexual
Rousseau, who gives “natural man” and
intercourse:
childhood such unprecedented prominence in his
sharp
contrast
to
Mephistopheles.
A supernatural gratification!
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among
To lie on the mountain tops in the dark
Men and Confessions respectively. According to
and dew
Rousseau, “Man in a primitive state was
Rapturously embracing earth and heaven,
happy…and
Swelling yourself to a godhead, ferreting
confound his natural goodness” (Horton 344).
through
Humanity is essentially good when it is rid of the
The marrow of the earth with divination,
accretions of society and culture. Such an idea of
To feel in your breast the whole six days
“natural man” is obviously against the Christian
of creation,
doctrine of original sin:
learning
has
only
served
To enjoy I know not what in arrogant
Meditating on the first and simplest
might
operations of the human soul, I believe I
And then, with the Old Adam discarded
can see in them two principles which
quite,
precede the use of reason: the first
341
to
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attaches us passionately to our well-being
naivety,
intuitiveness,
integrity
and
and preservation, the second inspires
fundamental innocence (xviii).
in us a natural disinclination to see any
The simplicity and innocence of the
sentient being, and principally our
child-like Gretchen are also praised in the works
fellow human beings, perish or suffer
of other Romantic writers. In England, for
(Discourse 125).
instance, Wordsworth is famous for his belief in
As Rousseau maintains, the human soul in
the unspoiled child to perceive the truth of life
its “first and simplest operation” is good,
intuitively, and thus, as he announces in “My
because it is guided by two instincts: “love of
Heart Leaps Up,” “The Child is father of the
self” and pity. It has no desire to harm other
Man “ (7). In “Ode: Intimations of Immortality
human beings. In Faust, Gretchen seems to be an
from
embodiment of such qualities of “natural man,”
Wordsworth goes further to use other terms to
as well as of an innocent child. As Luke
address a six-year-old child:
Recollections
of
Early
Childhood,”
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
observes,
Thy Soul’s immensity;
But the new enthusiasm, inspired by
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Rousseau, was for the natural, the
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
primitive, the uneducated, and the
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
unspoiled; and nowhere were these ideals
Haunted forever by the eternal mind---
embraced with more fervour than by the
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
young Goethe and his “Storm and
On whom those truths do rest….
Stress” followers (xv).
(109-116)
The Gretchen story reflects, for one thing,
Wordsworth’s
the current sentimental enthusiasm about
unreserved
praise
of
the
innocence and intuition of the child is related to
natural simplicity. Gretchen appeals so
strongly to Faust because he is an
his
intellectual and she is not, because of her
Neoplatonists’s, assumption that the soul is
342
understanding
of
Plato’s,
or
the
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eternal and exists elsewhere before it descends
sped
into this world of mutability. The glory of the
Through many a listening chamber, cave
soul is gradually quenched when it enters the
and ruin,
darkness of matter, but the child still retains
And starlight wood, with fearful steps
some of the memories of its previous existence.
pursuing
In Wordsworth’s words, the child is still “trailing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
clouds of glory” (64), while to the adult such a
I called on poisonous names with which
glory has already “faded into the light of
our youth is fed;
common day” (77).
I was not heard—I saw them not—
When musing deeply on the lot
Among the Romantic poets in England,
Wordsworth is certainly not alone to
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are
believe such a Platonic or Neoplatonic doctrine.
wooing
Shelley’s tie with Platonism is renowned. When
All vital things that wake to bring
discussing Shelley’s “A Defence of Poetry,”
News of birds and blossoming,—
Abrams points out that “there is more of Plato
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
in the ‘Defence’ than in any earlier piece of
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in
English criticism, even though it is a Plato who
ecstasy!
(49-60)
has obviously been seen through a vista of
Neoplatonic and Renaissance commentators and
To Plato and the Neoplatonists, as well
interpreters” (126). In his poems like “Hymn to
as to Wordsworth and Shelley, it is difficult or
Intellectual Beauty,” “To a Skylark” and “The
almost impossible to find true knowledge in this
Cloud,” to mention just a few, Shelley
world of change, suffering and mortality.
also expresses a similar idea. The following lines
According
are from “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty:”
knowledge is gained only through recollection,
to
the
Platonic
doctrine,
true
that is, through the memory of the previous
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and
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existence. Such a view of the passage to
strip it of its artificial wrappings, its
knowledge is reminiscent of Rousseau’s theory
arbitrary and conventional trimmings
(Cassirer 15-16).
of “natural man,” because, as Rousseau is also
aware of, there is no way of reversing the
In Faust, Gretchen may be regarded as an
historical process and hence the impossibility of
embodiment of “natural man,” who has found
going back to nature again. In other words, it is
the source of true knowledge. This is very likely
unlikely to acquire genuine knowledge in the
the main reason that Faust is so much attracted
external
also
to her, since in all kinds of books the former has
suggests that there is one source for the true
been able to find only “the impossibility of
knowledge of man, and, like Plato and the
knowledge” (“Night” 12).
world.
However,
Rousseau
Romantics, Rousseau claims that this source can
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[5]Horton, Rod William and Vincent F. Hopper.
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