Transcript Faust Lec 4 - Humanities Core Course

Tragedy, Comedy, Irony
David Pan
Humanities Core Course
Winter 2013, Lecture 4
Satire against the Catholic church.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
The mother asked the priest to have a look,
and he had scarcely heard what was afoot
when he eyed the gems with muted glee
and said: “You’ve done the proper thing!
Who conquers self will be rewarded in the end.
The church has always had an iron belly,
has swallowed states and countries now and then,
and yet it never overate.
The church alone, dear woman, can digest
ill-gotten gains without a stomachache.”
(2831-40, pp. 243-45)
Satire against the Catholic church.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
The mother asked the priest to have a look,
and he had scarcely heard what was afoot
when he eyed the gems with muted glee
and said: “You’ve done the proper thing!
Who conquers self will be rewarded in the end.
The church has always had an iron belly,
has swallowed states and countries now and then,
and yet it never overate.
The church alone, dear woman, can digest
ill-gotten gains without a stomachache.”
(2831-40, pp. 243-45)
The Catholic
Church is
hypocritical in its
condemnation of
worldly goods.
Satire of academic learning
STUDENT.
But each word, I think, should harbor some idea.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Yes, yes indeed. But don’t torment yourself too
much,
because precisely where no thought is present
a word appears in proper time.
Words are priceless in an argument.
Words are building stones of systems.
It’s splendid to believe in words;
from words you cannot rob a single letter.
(1990-2000, p. 155)
Satire of academic learning
In academic
learning, words
become a
substitute for real
ideas.
STUDENT.
But each word, I think, should harbor some idea.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Yes, yes indeed. But don’t torment yourself too
much,
because precisely where no thought is present
a word appears in proper time.
Words are priceless in an argument.
Words are building stones of systems.
It’s splendid to believe in words;
from words you cannot rob a single letter.
(1990-2000, p. 155)
Satire of bourgeois marriage
MARTHA.
The dirty thief! The robber of his children!
All our misery and dire need did not suffice
to draw his shameful life from sin.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Well spoken, and for that, you see, he’s dead.
But now, if I were in your place,
I’d spend a year in decent mourning
while angling for a new prospective swain.
MARTHA.
Oh my! To find another one quite like my first
will be no easy undertaking in this world.
He was the sweetest little pickle-herring.
But he liked too much to roam about—
foreign wine and foreign women,
and worst of all, those cursed dice. (2985-97, p. 261)
Bourgeois marriage is
not about love but
about self-interest.
17th century perspective on the witches’ sabbath:
serious or satirical?
Christian
legend
Witches
kill
children
and kiss
the devil’s
buttocks to
show their
loyalty.
Source: Herr, Michael. Zauberei, Witchcraft. 1638. Hollstein’s German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts 1400-1700, Volume
XXVI, Matthaeus Merian the Edler. Ed. Tilman Falk. Roosendaal, The Netherlands: Koninklijke van Poll, 1989. Print. 156.
STRUCTURE OF FAUST
Faust II
Act 5: Mountain gorges
Act 5: Burial
Act 5: Baucis and Philemon Story
Act 4: Counter-Emperor Story
GRETCHEN
STORY
•Gloomy Day
– Field
•Night
– Open Field
•Dungeon
Act 3: Helen Story
Faust I
WALPURGIS
NIGHT
•Walpurgis Night
•WalpurgisNight’s Dream
Act 2: Classical Walpurgis Night
GRETCHEN STORY
•A Street
•Evening
•Promenade
•The Neighbor’s
House
•A Street
•Martha’s Garden
•A Summer Cabin
•Forest and Cavern
•Gretchen’s Room
•Martha’s Garden
•At the Well
•By the Ramparts
•Night
•Cathedral
Act 1: Emperor Story
DEDICATION PRELUDE PROLOGUE FAUST STORY
IN THE
IN HEAVEN •Night
THEATER
•Before the Gate
•Faust’s Study
•Auerbach’s
Cellar in Leipzig
•Witch’s Kitchen
WITCHES (in chorus).
The witches ride to Blocksberg’s top.
The stubble is yellow, green the crop.
On top of the cackling horde
Sits Urian presiding as lord.
Over rubble and stubble they stream in blustery weather,
Witches and billy goats stinking and leaping together.
(3956-61, p. 357)
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Just look! You scarcely see the end of it.
One hundred fires burning in a row;
they dance, they chat, they cook and drink and kiss.
Can you tell me where one offers something better?
(4056-59, p. 367)
WITCHES (in chorus).
The witches ride to Blocksberg’s top.
The stubble is yellow, green the crop.
On top of the cackling horde
Sits Urian presiding as lord.
Over rubble and stubble they stream in blustery weather,
Witches and billy goats stinking and leaping together.
(3956-61, p. 357)
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Just look! You scarcely see the end of it.
One hundred fires burning in a row;
they dance, they chat, they cook and drink and kiss.
Can you tell me where one offers something better?
(4056-59, p. 367)
Focus on body and scatological
humor
Witches celebrate, free of social
constraints.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Today there is no rest for you;
the dance resumes. Let's get into the fray.
FAUST (dancing with the YOUNG WITCH):
Once I fell to pleasant dreaming:
I saw a sturdy apple tree
with two apples on it gleaming.
I climbed it, for they tempted me.
PRETTY WITCH: You want apples of a pleasing size;
You've looked for them since paradise.
I am thrilled with joy and pleasure,
For my garden holds such treasure.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Once I had a savage dream:
I saw an ancient, cloven tree
In which a giant hole did gleam:
Big as it was, it suited me.
OLD WITCH: Let me salute and welcome you;
The cloven hoof shows through your shoe!
A giant stopper will ensure
That you can fill the aperture.
(ll. 4123-43, p. 373)
MEPHISTOPHELES: Today there is no rest for you;
the dance resumes. Let's get into the fray.
FAUST (dancing with the YOUNG WITCH):
Once I fell to pleasant dreaming:
I saw a sturdy apple tree
with two apples on it gleaming.
I climbed it, for they tempted me.
PRETTY WITCH: You want apples of a pleasing size;
You've looked for them since paradise.
I am thrilled with joy and pleasure,
For my garden holds such treasure.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Once I had a savage dream:
I saw an ancient, cloven tree
In which a giant hole did gleam:
Big as it was, it suited me.
OLD WITCH: Let me salute and welcome you;
The cloven hoof shows through your shoe!
A giant stopper will ensure
That you can fill the aperture.
(ll. 4123-43, p. 373)
Operetta: Comic theater
with characters singing
their parts.
Burlesque: Takes a
serious genre and
exaggerates it to make
fun of it.
PROCTOPHANTASMIST:
Shameless mob! What on earth is this?
Has it not been proven long ago:
Spirits do not walk on solid ground?
Now you presume to dance like one of us!
PRETTY WITCH: What could he be doing at our ball?
FAUST: 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.
His chagrin grows most severe when we move forward.
PROCTOPHANTASMIST:
You are still here! Incredible, such insolence!
Clear out! We are enlightened, don't you know?
The devil's pack ignores all rules and standards.
We are so smart, but still the ghosts haunt Tegel.
How I have worked to clear the air of superstition!
But - such insolence - the folly still clings everywhere.
(ll. 4144-63, p. 375)
SATIRE
Rationalist
believes
spirits have
been
disproven.
Intellectual criticizes
rather than lives.
Enlightener believes
superstition and folly
should no longer exist.
Walpurgis Night overturns the tragedy by creating a
utopian alternative to the oppressive world of Christian
morals that condemns Margaret.
•As a space of nature, folk tradition, freedom, and fantasy, the
Walpurgis Night presents an alternative to the community’s oppression.
•Enlightenment rationalist does not recognize the validity of spiritual or
bodily concerns.
•Christian attack on witches is part of the same prejudices and fears
that drive Margaret to despair.
FAUST:
But I prefer that higher region
where even now I see a smoky, churning glow,
and crowds advancing to the Evil One;
many riddles may be answered there.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
But other riddles will be knotted.
(ll. 4037-4041, p. 365)
FAUST.
Mephisto, do you see
a pale and lovely child, far away and quite alone?
She is gliding slowly from her place;
she appears to move with fettered feet.
I must confess, it seems to me
that she resembles my dear Gretchen.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Leave that be! It bodes no good to anyone.
It is a lifeless magic shape, an idol;
it is unwise to meet it anywhere.
Its rigid stare congeals the blood of men
so that they nearly turn to stone.
You’ve heard of the Medusa, I suppose.
FAUST.
Now I see a dead girl’s eyes
which were never closed by loving hands.
That is the breast which Gretchen yielded me,
the blessed body I enjoyed.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
You are too gullible, you fool! It’s make-believe!
To all she seems their own beloved.
(4183-4200, p. 379)
FAUST.
Mephisto, do you see
a pale and lovely child, far away and quite alone?
She is gliding slowly from her place;
she appears to move with fettered feet.
I must confess, it seems to me
that she resembles my dear Gretchen.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Leave that be! It bodes no good to anyone.
It is a lifeless magic shape, an idol;
it is unwise to meet it anywhere.
Its rigid stare congeals the blood of men
so that they nearly turn to stone.
You’ve heard of the Medusa, I suppose.
FAUST.
Now I see a dead girl’s eyes
which were never closed by loving hands.
That is the breast which Gretchen yielded me,
the blessed body I enjoyed.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
You are too gullible, you fool! It’s make-believe!
To all she seems their own beloved.
(4183-4200, p. 379)
Faust is reminded of Gretchen.
But Mephistopheles turns his
attention away from her,
diverting him with the
Walpurgis-Night’s Dream.
Walpurgis Night cannot establish its view of reality and
ends up only interrupting the tragedy and distracting both
Faust and the audience from Margaret’s plight.
•The scene distracts Faust from Margaret’s plight.
•The scene diverts the audience from the tragedy.
•The scene’s alternative perspective is an aspect of
Faust’s ethic of individualism.
The Walpurgis Night is
A. A utopian alternative to the oppression of the
church.
B. A diabolical diversion from the violence
against Gretchen.
What is the role of Mephistopheles?
A. To discourage Faust from striving.
B. To urge Faust to continue striving.
Mephistopheles threatens Faust’s goals by tempting
him with empty activity.
MEPHISTOPHELES (in FAUST’s gown).
If once you scorn all science and all reason,
the highest strength that dwells in man,
and through trickery and magic arts
abet the spirit of dishonesty,
then I’ve got you unconditionally—
then destiny endowed him with a spirit
that hastens forward, unrestrained,
whose fierce and overhasty drive
leapfrogs headlong over earthly pleasures.
I’ll drag him through the savage life,
through the wasteland of mediocrity.
Let him wriggle, stiffen, wade through slime,
let food and drink be dangled by his lips
to bait his hot, insatiate appetite.
He will vainly cry for satisfaction,
and had he not by then become the devil’s,
he still would perish miserably. (1851-67, pp. 143-45)
• Mephistopheles recognizes
Faust’s preference for
striving rather than pleasure.
• He wants to make Faust’s
activity into something
meaningless and focused on
sensual satisfaction.
Gloomy Day – Field
FAUST.
Given over to evil spirits and to the unfeeling
who presume to dispense justice! And
meanwhile you soothe me with stale, insipid
diversions, hide her ever-growing anguish
from me, and let her perish without help and
without hope.
(p. 399)
Faust blames Mephistopheles for
diverting him from Margaret’s
suffering during the Walpurgis
Night.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
The blood-guilt by your hand still lies upon the
town. Avenging spirits hover over the site of
the murder, lying in wait for the returning killer.
FAUST.
That too from you? A world of murder and
death upon your monstrous head!
(pp. 401-403)
Faust blames Mephistopheles for
the murder of Valentine.
Mephistopheles…
… provides a sleeping
potion for Margaret’s
mother, but then she
dies.
… provides Margaret for
Faust, but she is cast
into misery and death.
… defends Faust
against Valentine,
who Faust kills.
… saves Faust from
prison, but Margaret is
left to be executed.
Gloomy Day—Field
FAUST.
Save her! Or else beware! The
most dreadful curse on you for
ages!
MEPHISTOPHELES.
I cannot undo the bonds of the
Avenger, nor draw back the
bolts.—Save her!—Who was it
that plunged her into ruin? I or
you?
Mephistopheles insists
that Faust made the
decisions that led to
violence.
Mephistopheles vs. Earth Spirit
FAUST.
Can you conceive what new and vital power
I draw from living in the wilderness?
If you could, I think you’d be
devilish enough to envy me my happiness.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
What supernatural delight!
To lie in nightly dew on mountain heights,
to encompass earth and heaven in a rapture
and inflate one’s being to a godlike state,
to burrow to the core, inflamed by premonition,
to feel six days of God’s creation in your bosom,
enjoy in pride and strength I know what not what,
and flooding all in loving ecstasy,
the son of earth is canceled out—
then comes the lofty intuition—
(Makes an obscene gesture)
to end in … Well, I’ll keep it to myself.
(3278-92, pp. 295-97)
Mephistopheles vs. Earth Spirit
Faust obtains a
feeling of power by
communing with
nature.
Mephistopheles
pokes fun at Faust,
treating his feeling
of power as a
conceited, selfindulgent delusion.
FAUST.
Can you conceive what new and vital power
I draw from living in the wilderness?
If you could, I think you’d be
devilish enough to envy me my happiness.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
What supernatural delight!
To lie in nightly dew on mountain heights,
to encompass earth and heaven in a rapture
and inflate one’s being to a godlike state,
to burrow to the core, inflamed by premonition,
to feel six days of God’s creation in your bosom,
enjoy in pride and strength I know what not what,
and flooding all in loving ecstasy,
the son of earth is canceled out—
then comes the lofty intuition—
(Makes an obscene gesture)
to end in … Well, I’ll keep it to myself.
(3278-92, pp. 295-97)
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Now she’s cheerful, but mostly she is sad,
now her tears are streaming down,
and then she’s calm again, it seems,
and always, always loving you.
FAUST.
You snake! You snake!
MEPHISTOPHELES (aside).
Here now! So I’ve trapped you!
FAUST.
Get away from me, you cursed fiend,
and never speak her blessed name!
Lash not again my tortured senses
to lust for her whom I adore.
(3320-29, p. 299)
Mephistopheles tempts
Faust to return to
Margaret.
In order to protect her,
Faust tries to avoid going
back to Margaret
How do we judge Faust’s hesitation?
FAUST.
And you, what led you to this chamber?
How deeply you are stirred!
Your heart is heavy, and you feel so out of place.
Wretched Faust! Who are you anyway?
Am I moving in a magic haze?
I came to seize the crassest pleasure,
and now I dissolve in dreams of love!
Are we the sports of every whim of the weather?
And should she enter at this very moment,
how you would rue your crude transgression!
Then Faust would suddenly be very small
and languish helpless at her feet.
MEPPHISTOPHELES (entering).
Quick, my friend! I see her coming down below.
FAUST.
Away from here, and never to return!
(2717-2730, p. 235)
How do we judge Faust’s hesitation?
FAUST.
And you, what led you to this chamber?
How deeply you are stirred!
Your heart is heavy, and you feel so out of place.
Wretched Faust! Who are you anyway?
Am I moving in a magic haze?
I came to seize the crassest pleasure,
and now I dissolve in dreams of love!
Are we the sports of every whim of the weather?
And should she enter at this very moment,
how you would rue your crude transgression!
Then Faust would suddenly be very small
and languish helpless at her feet.
MEPPHISTOPHELES (entering).
Quick, my friend! I see her coming down below.
FAUST.
Away from here, and never to return!
(2717-2730, p. 235)
Are Faust’s misgivings a
sign of morality or of
weakness?
Faust seems to emphasize
not just his guilt, but also
his fear of weakness.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
But come. Why all this fussing?
You’re going to your sweetheart’s chamber
and not at all to death and doom.
FAUST.
When in her arms, I need no joys of Heaven.
The warmth I seek is burning in her breast.
Do I not every moment feel her woe?
Am I not the fugitive, the homeless roamer,
an aimless, rootless, monstrous creature,
roaring like a cataract from crag to crag,
madly racing for the final precipice?
And she along the banks with childlike, simple sense,
there in her cabin on an alpine meadow,
with all the homey enterprises
encompassed by her tiny world.
And I whom God abhors,
I was not satisfied
to seize the rocks,
and crush them into pieces.
It was her life, her peace I had to ruin.
You, Satan, claimed this sacrifice!
Help, Satan, help abridge the time of fear!
What has to happen, let it happen now!
Let her fate come crashing down on mine,
let us both embrace perdition!
(3345-65, pp. 301-303)
MEPHISTOPHELES.
But come. Why all this fussing?
You’re going to your sweetheart’s chamber
and not at all to death and doom.
FAUST.
When in her arms, I need no joys of Heaven.
The warmth I seek is burning in her breast.
Do I not every moment feel her woe?
Am I not the fugitive, the homeless roamer,
an aimless, rootless, monstrous creature,
roaring like a cataract from crag to crag,
madly racing for the final precipice?
And she along the banks with childlike, simple sense,
there in her cabin on an alpine meadow,
with all the homey enterprises
encompassed by her tiny world.
And I whom God abhors,
I was not satisfied
to seize the rocks,
and crush them into pieces.
It was her life, her peace I had to ruin.
You, Satan, claimed this sacrifice!
Help, Satan, help abridge the time of fear!
What has to happen, let it happen now!
Let her fate come crashing down on mine,
let us both embrace perdition!
(3345-65, pp. 301-303)
Faust despairs because
he knows that he is in
continual movement…
…and Margaret is
someone in stasis.
He blames himself for
ruining her peace…
…but chooses to
continue on his path in
spite of the destruction
it will cause.
Goethe’s Faust I is:
A. A comedy that affirms the values of the Walpurgis
night.
B. A tragedy because Margaret dies to affirm
Christian values.
C. A tragedy because Christian values create so
much suffering for Margaret.
D. A tragedy because Faust must continue to strive in
spite of the violence he causes.
century reactions condemned Goethe’s
Faust for its anti-Christian tendencies.
th
19
from Joseph von Eichendorff’s History of
German Literature (1857)
„...Goethe summed up the idea of humanity, not
just as the cultivation of a sense of beauty
through art, but the harmonious development of
all human powers and capacities through life
itself. He does not at all want to „follow an ideal“
but to allow his feelings to develop into
capacities through struggle and play. [...] Clearly
such an absolute focus on natural development
makes all positive religion impossible, or at the
very least superfluous (1052-53).
Eichendorff sees Goethe’s Faust as
central to the development of an
individualist, humanist ethic.
But this new ethic undermines
religion.
Eichendorff, Joseph von. Werke in sechs Bänden. Ed. Wolfgang Frühwald, Brigitte Schillbach and Hartwig Schultz. Frankfurt am
Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1985-1993.
Beginning with German unification in 1871, critics
began to see Faust as a model for German
identity.
Gustav von Loeper (1871)
„Faust‘s true guilt and at the same time his true greatness
lies in the struggle against the limits of human nature“
(XIV).
Kuno Fischer (1878)
„Faust‘s pleasure lies in the fruit of his labor, the view
upon the great and blessed sphere of influence that he
has created and upon the land that he has wrung from the
elements, settled, and transformed into a human world
and into an arena for striving generations after his own
image“ (3:55-56, emphasis in original).
Loeper describes Faust’s guilt
as part of his “greatness.”
Fischer sees Faust’s ideal of
striving as the basis of
activity for future
generations.
Loeper, Gustav. Goethes Sämtliche Werke. Vol. 13. Ed. Gustav von Loeper. Berlin: Hempel, 1871. Fischer, Kuno. Goethe’s Faust.
Ueber die Entstehung und Composition des Gedichts. Stuttgart: Cotta, 1878. Cited in Karl Robert Mandelkow, Goethe im Urteil seiner
Kritiker : Dokumente zur Wirkungsgeschichte Goethes in Deutschland. 4 vols. Munich: Beck, 1989.
The individualist ethic of Goethe’s Faust reaches the peak of
its influence amongst established Goethe scholars in the Nazi
period.
Hermann August Korff
Professor, University of Leipzig (1925-1954) Visiting Professor,
Harvard University (1934)
Visiting Professor, Columbia University (1938)
“The contrast between good and evil is not thereby dissolved. Faust feels deeply
what in an elementary sense is good and what is evil. But though he always
participates in the two as he participates in the play of pleasure and pain,
elementary morality does not have final power over him. It becomes a preserved
moment within a more total ideal that has a hyper-moral character because
morality is only one value next to other values and is no longer the highest
value.”
“For that which is placed above morality is the personality, whose fulfillment is
the true goal of such a life.”
“Great personalities consume the smaller ones. That is the law of nature. And
their unethical behavior only consists in the way in which they must obey their
natural law without allowing themselves to be hindered by their still existing
moral affects.” (161-63)
Morality is subordinated to the
personality of the individual.
What seems unethical is
actually the individual’s
adherence to a natural law
without allowing moral
feelings to get in the way.
Korff, Hermann August. Faustischer Glaube: Versuch über das Problem humaner Lebenshaltung. Leipzig: J. J. Weber, 1938. My