Faust by Goethe - Literature review Example

Austin Pierce Faust – one of the masterpieces by Goethe is an epic verse drama published in two parts, the first part in 1808 and the second in 1832, which restates the German story of a man who commits his soul to the devil in return for knowledge and power (The Enlightenment, 2011). The phrase Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) was the title of a drama by Friedrich Klinger, first enacted in 1776 that was pivotal in creating a new trend among young writers in Germany during the 1770s. (Hoelzel, 1982). The European romanticism of the age leaves its impressions in many scenes of the play, showing the pathos of the inner self and human feelings. As a consequence, Goethe’s Faust contains some elements of the Sturm und Drang movement, but also contains many elements and influences from the English Romanticism movement. The story is an example of Romanticism with the reflection of ‘storm and stress’ in it as illustrated in the type of story with a focus on the expression of human emotions as manifested by the Faust’s shift in life from being a learned scholar and appreciator of knowledge to a man going in search of worldly pleasures and seeking the love of a woman. The presence of Gretchen in the story includes the element of love by showing her romantic involvement and relationship with Faust that goes beyond the limits imposed by the society and their love is seen in its intuitive form with no concern for the thoughts of people about their romantic affair. Sturm und Drang has left its impression not only in individual works of the time but all-pervasive in the country contexts, first in Italy and France with the renaissance period, underneath the “mighty line” of Marlowe, and in French and German literature also by the ending decade of the nineteenth century. In individual works, the feeling of Sturm und Drang seemed imbibed in various literary works symbolizing youthful energy. This spirit is more evident in German literature than any other literary movement of the French, Italian or English literature. Goethe was one of the geniuses of this period of Sturm und Drang (Robertson, 2011). He used Faust as a platform for introducing the elements of ‘storm and stress’ into this play by means of characters presented in the essay with their orientation toward freely expressed emotions such as Faust and Gretchen caught in the uncontrollable trap of love. However, the pursuit of intellect by Faust throws light on the individualization aspect in the play making it a characteristic of the Sturm und Drang movement. It is due to the fact that the focus of individualism is on the pursuing of a man’s goals alone without the involvement of a society in it and the same has been shown in Faust’s behavior when he thinks only about himself the moment he decides to quit the quest for knowledge of books that initially served the purpose of welfare of mankind by providing people with remedies for their ailments. The play has not focused much on the society’s demands and conventions and Goethe stayed away from a collectivistic perspective in the story that is the representative of Enlightenment perspective because of the several similar aspects of collectivist thought and Enlightenment movement. These similar aspects lie in the appreciation of thinking in terms of being a social being who has rules and regulations to obey and work for the benefit of mankind, not just for his own sake as Individualism propagates. Goethe felt it necessary to include the element of individualism in the story because of the Enlightenment’s role in causing lack of the development of human being as a spiritual and moral being who is born free and should not be confined to the shackles of society’s regulations .The ultimate focus of the play remains on the emotion, thoughts, and actions of Faust as an individual character with his unique goals and objectives such as his giving up of worldly knowledge in order to attain the superior spiritual knowledge. It was Goethe who provided recognition to the "Sturm und Drang” movement. Goethe’s excellent personality prevailed upon the movement to create an epoch in the European literature. Theatre was the leading impact behind the literary works of Goethe (Robertson par. 4). Goethe’s tragedy of Faust, a play of 1775, had occupied Goethe’s mind when he was a student. It is a projection of the first stage of Goethe’s life. One can say that this play of Goethe is the Faust of the Sturm und Drang indicating the extremeness of the movement in German literature. (Robertson, 2011). The phenomenon named as Sturm und Drang happened on the global literary platform. In individual works, the feeling of Sturm und Drang seemed imbibed in various literary works symbolizing youthful energy. This spirit is more evident in German literature than any other literary movement of the French, Italian or English literature. Goethe was one of the geniuses of this period of Sturm und Drang (Robertson, 2011). The type of story depicted in Faust is different from the works of the Enlightment period in literature in which the focus was on the human intellect and social constraints. The Sturm und Drang movement, however, marked the expression of a human side in terms of impulses and emotions as it can be seen in Goethe’s Faust that the man does not seem to be considering the societal constraints as evident in Faust’s unconcern for Gretchen’s mother who puts a pressure on him to not have an affair with her daughter, and that element of materialism is not significantly present in the story. Although the story initially seems to be a pure quest for fulfillment of human desires to get worldly pleasures and propagating that man never gets fully satisfied by what he gets in life and keeps asking for more and more yet in the end the man turns into an utterly unselfish being as shown by a major shift in Faust and Gretchen’s guilty-conscience behavior and asking for salvation from God that is being granted on them finally. The depiction of the love affair between Faust with Gretchen also throws light on the man’s height of emotions that are not suppressed under society’s considerations or fear of societal pressures. However, it has also been shown that one cannot take pleasure at the cost of being selfish and cutting others’ throats as Faust did by killing Gretchen’s brother and one has to submit to the will of God as Gretchen did by allowing herself to be punished by God by not rescuing from the prison. In the first scene of the drama there is a dialog between Faust and his “Famulus,” Wagner and another dialog between Mephistopheles and the student, wherein the young man expresses his scorn of academic ostentation. The quotes given below are from the translated version of original German text of Goethe by George Madison Priest. The dialogues illustrate the dissatisfaction of Faust with the current knowledge he has of this world and yearns for more. “Faust. Ive studied now Philosophy/And Jurisprudence, Medicine,/And even, alas! Theology All through and through with ardour keen!/Here now I stand, poor fool, and see/Im just as wise as formerly./Am called a Master, even Doctor too,/And now Ive nearly ten years through Pulled my students by their noses to and fro/And up and down, across, about,/And see theres nothing we can know!/That all but burns my heart right out.” Here is another example from the translated text of original version by Goethe in which devil lures Faust to get him all the worldly pleasures that he would get him on the condition that he gives his soul to him. “Mephistopheles. More for your senses, friend, youll gain/In this one hour than youd obtain/In a whole years monotony./All that the tender spirits sing you,/The lovely images they bring you,/Are not an empty sorcery” Later he tempts him and provides him the chance to lure Gretchen as obvious in this quote given below: “Gretchen will in a brief time be your own./This evening you will see her all alone/At Neighbour Marthas; thats a woman made/For go-between and gypsy trade.” The desire to learn the hidden knowledge seems to be, although all-pervasive as depicted in the opening lines of the monologue, but at the same time there is scorn for available learning because of its show-off to others that scholarship desires recognition. However, the finer pathos and the beauty of the love scenes related to Martha and how the two leading characters, Faust and Mephistopheles running on their black horses towards the gallows, introduces a touch of romanticism away from the purity of scholarship and knowledge. There seems to be a balance in the approach of Goethe who pictures both emotions nearer to the Sturm und Drang movement prevailing throughout the European literature of the time, but at the same moment offering a vivid and picturesque presentation of the love scenes, providing glimpses of English romanticism, which can be felt even in the Gretchen prison scene. It is also manifested in the immature and rebellious desire of Faust to gain all the sensual pleasures while he makes a deal with the devil. It makes Faust an illustrator of European Romanticism as a man full of intense emotions and strong impulses and desires as seen in the quotes from the text “I shall be forced to acknowledge, once again/not one desire has been fulfilled-not one.”It is also worth mentioning that Goethe has blended Enlightenment with Romanticism by hinting at the life of Faust that was previously that of a scholar and an alchemist who had enough with books and now wanted to spend his life on an opposite note far away from worldly knowledge and close to spirituality and Godly knowledge.So here the similarities are somewhat visible and somewhat not, as the leading trait of English romanticism were imagination at work but human feelings are beautifully expressed in English romanticism works, which are similar to the pathos and feelings expressed in the love scenes beautifully. Goethe’s masterpiece seems to be a reflection of both his time and of Sturm und Drang and English Romanticism, possibly due to the final published version being completed 60 years after it began. The idea of Romanticism has been beautifully reflected in the love scenes that are full of deep emotions and does not give regard to societal constraints that were prevalent in other texts of that time by showing the powerful force of society in its ability to tame humans through its laws. The intimacy between the two lovers is depicted in the love scenes with freely expressed emotions that marks the peak of Sturm und Drang displayed in the text by Goethe. The passionate love of Faust and Gretchen is exhibited in the quotes given below in which she raises concern about her mother that can be taken as a symbol of societal demands and pressures. “Dont incommode yourself! How can my hand be kissed by you?/It is so ugly and so rough!/What work is there that Ive not had to do?/My mothers more than strict enough.”The reason behind showing the role of society as that of a watch-keeper of man’s activities in different literary texts is due to the influence of Enlightenment that encouraged indicating the activities of people in the society and quoting them in literature that acted as a mirror for the society to represent the real social activities and situations in order to learn from them. The story of Faust is not one that is unique to Goethe, and it was already a familiar tale at the time that he wrote it. Goethe’s Faust differs significantly from these versions. There is a greater emphasis placed on the character and the morality of Faust. He is presented as a flawed character who desires knowledge, but he does not make the same bargain that the protagonists in the other versions make. Instead he makes a bet with the Devil, Mephistopheles, and as a consequence he is shown a number of pleasures and temptations. Goethe’s version also incorporates a romance with a maiden named Gretchen in the first part, although she is not present in the second part of the play (Goethe Faust Part One 1986; Goethe Faust Part Two 1986). The character of Faust has been made a unique character who has a strong wish in his heart to overcome all the worldly pleasures and knowledge he can have and in order to attain these things he does not even hesitate to make a deal with devil. He can be considered a man obsessed with a quest for knowledge and is ready to do anything to conquer the supreme knowledge. These things make him a religious man who has a noble aim; to obtain knowledge as much as he can. Goethe exhibited Romanticism by showing the strength of an individual who does not care about materialism and has aim to achieve knowledge and grows strong emotions and desires in his heart. Faust is a story of one of its kind that has loose structure with not unified integration between scenes that acts as rebel against the previous movements that stressed much on establishing unity of form. Goethe rebels against the existing movements because of the limitations they had, for instance, Enlightenment did not appreciate the intuition and role of nature in guiding humans and instead focuses on human intellect only. Likewise, Faust detests the intellectual and abstract knowledge of things that contradicts with the knowledge of passion and human emotions that is an asset for a human being and needs recognition. These things make Faust a literary work of Romanticism by Goethe with strong emphasis on freely expressed emotions. Importantly, despite the term tragedy in the subtitle, Goethe’s Faust does not bear the hallmarks of a tragedy (Brown 1986) as, unlike other interpretations of the story, Goethe’s Faust sees Faust finding redemption, despite losing half of the bet and giving in to the Devil partially (Hoelzel 1982). Goethe’s version focused more on the protagonist and on developing his character, which is a feature of Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. Romanticism manifested in calmer, more introspective writing than did Sturm und Drang, as well as making characters heroic and the isolation of the main character or hero from the rest of the environment around them. All these themes are prevalent in Goethe’s Faust, perhaps to a stronger degree than the themes of intensity and urgency that the Sturm und Drang movement was associated with. Greenfeld (323) finds the seeds of separation between the two movements. The popular leaders of the Sturm und Drang dissociated themselves from the ethics of the movement and returned to the group under the pretense of German Classicism. It was due to this twenty year period of classicism that distanced the Sturm und Drang from the early romanticism at the last of the eighteenth century, being reflected through the genius of Goethe present in Sturm und Drang. Goethe was a remarkable personality who blurred such a division of classicism and romanticism. He showed the hint of Enlightment in the story by highlighting the intellectual aspect of Faust who seems to be overwhelmed by a burden of knowledge. He had been a scholar and had spent his whole life in serving others through his knowledge. He had shown the elements of Enlightenment in himself by highlighting the collectivistic and intellectual nature of his life that was merely for the benefit of people and could not do any good to his own self. However, he has also been shown in pursuit of sensual and romantic pleasure thus depicting Sturm und Drang that is the opposite of Enlightenment principles and highlights the individualist thought and pursuing of knowledge of the heart in order to help the man in letting himself know his true self(Cabini, par 1). The quotes from the text given below show the Faust’s inclination toward romanticism with enlightenment. “Let us Plunge into Passion’s hectic dance,/balanced upon the rolling wave of Chance,/where pain is mixed with pleasure, failure with success/no man can be in action and rest” (Cabini, 2010) Such a perspective of the relationship of Goethe with both the traits of two different movements essentially blurred the basic similarity, about near total similarity of the Sturm und Drang movement and romanticism. These two rivulets flowed otherwise in the literary ocean at the same time. Such an association between romanticism and Sturm und Drang finally could not be blurred as Goethe’s Faust brought them together, but it should not promote the idea that romanticism was a creation from the possibilities of the Sturm und Drang and survived because of the Sturm und Drang movement only. It had its own identity, which was going to be felt by the age irrespective of the works of the original geniuses of the 1770s although the early romantics were impressed by its peculiar traits. Thus, differences were there to demarcate a line between the two movements, which complimented each other especially in Goethe’s Faust. The two movements actually erupted from the structural realities by using the common cultural means: Pietism and Enlightenment. Differences between romanticism and Sturm und Drang were not hidden, but these differences were not more than the differences between various Romantics or between individual Sturm und Drang, and other “original geniuses” of the 1770s. Works Cited Brown, J.K. Goethes Faust: The German Tragedy. Cornell University Press, 1986. Print, 15-2-. Cabini, N “Was Goethe’s Faust Modern?” Le Singe Da Darwin 2010. Internet. 10 November 2011. < http://nadacabani.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/was-goethe%E2%80%99s-faust-%E2%80%98modern%E2%80%99/> Goethe. Faust Part One & Part Two. Trans. Priest, George. Brooks and Coleridge. 1821. Internet. 10 November 2011. < http://www.einam.com/faust/index.html> Goethe. Faust Part One. Trans. Wayne, Philip. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986. Print, ---. Faust Part Two. Trans. Wayne, Philip. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986. Print, Greenfeld, Liah. “Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity.” Harvard University Press, 1993. 5 October 2011. < http://books.google.co.in> Hoelzel, A. "The Conclusion of Goethes Faust: Ambivalence and Ambiguity." The German Quarterly 55.1 (1982): 1-12. Print. Rasmussen, E., and Bevington, D.M. Doctor Faustus a- and B- Texts (1604, 1616): Christopher Marlowe and His Collaborator and Revisers. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993. Print, 103-199. Robertson, John George. “STURM UND DRANG.” A History of German Literature. New York: G.P. Putnams Sons, 1902. 5 October 2011. “The Enlightenment (1650–1800).” Spark Notes. 2011. 5 October 2011. “The Romantic Movement: Sturm und Drang: AD 1771-1782.” History World. 5 October 2011. Read More