Goethe's Personal Relationship with his “Faust”
Rudolf
Steiner Lecture given in Prague, 12 June 1918
Translated
by Hanna von Maltitz
Goethe's “Faust” undoubtedly belongs to one of
those works in world literature to which one can, decade after
decade, return to and find within it ever again, something new.
This ever fresh insight may bring about the belief that we can
benefit fundamentally ever more from the work than had been
obtained on a previous occasion. Maturing with age this
experience is indeed possible involving other works of world
literature — however, with Goethe's “Faust”
one has the impression, that ever new experiences of
life are needed, as are offered by approaching age, in
order to fully absorb certain secrets and inner aspects found
within these works.
Discoveries made by delving ever deeper into Goethe's
“Faust,” within the work itself, prompting a
decisive wish to turn to Goethe's biography, to explore his
life ever anew, because through the observation of Goethe's
“Faust” one realizes that these rightful insights
will enlighten this work. An objection is only natural that
such a reference of the poet to his work begs incompletion. One
may say a work of art must be grasped, as it stands,
independent of the personality of its creator. One can also put
aside some more or less pedantic tendencies and through the
observation of Goethe's relation to his work hold him to it,
that out of such a flood of power something higher must appear,
more significant than each impression and suchlike. These are
the thoughts from which this theme of today's lecture has
grown.
I
wish to speak now about the personal relationship of Goethe to
his “Faust,” not in the narrow personal sense but
regarding the relationship of the spiritual character of Goethe
to his “Faust.” One could easily come to the
conclusion, that by studying these relationships of Goethe's
personality to his “Faust” — what Goethe
mentioned about himself, regarding his life, his striving, his
manner and way, his attitude to knowledge and questions about
art — that these details could be particularly useful.
Yet as one enters deeper and deeper into Goethe's life, one
notices this is actually not so. Here exactly lie difficulties
within the observation regarding Goethe's spiritual character.
On the other hand there is something which penetrates not only
into peculiarities of Goethe, but within one's soul life
itself. One goes along with the idea of being convinced,
through Goethe's statements, as expressed in letters directed
to one or other individual, that these are useless in relation
to the consideration just mentioned. One discovers, on looking
at the way Goethe considered himself, that one can't really get
the key to exactly that which had depth in the most meaningful
work of Goethe, in “Faust.” When clearly stated
riddles need truthful answers out of Goethe's work, from
observation of his life, about that which lived in his soul,
which he expressed in his work and particularly in his
“Faust,” one realises that there was something so
huge, so all-encompassing and with expansive enlightenment that
Goethe himself, in his personal consciousness, within his
knowledge, couldn't grasp what really was working in his soul.
If not so much misuse of the expression “unconscious
— subconscious” has been used during the last
decades, I wish to apply it to Goethe with the eminent sense
that that which is found within Goethe's creation, streams so
gradually into our soul, that it becomes larger than all which
Goethe can utter about it prosaically.
Exactly that which I express now, applies in a particular
degree to the relationship of Goethe to his
“Faust.” I can't allow myself, due to a time
constraint, to closely discuss Goethe's relationship within the
folk tradition in which appears the “Puppet Show”
and such-like. I wish to restrict myself to the discussion
regarding the relationship of Goethe to his “Faust”
itself.
Before all else, it is necessary to enter into Faust as boldly
as possible. Precisely out of Faust himself the insight is
revealed related to Goethe and his “Faust.” What is
most admirably Goetheanistic within this which is revealed
through a lengthy observation of Goethe within it? What is
Goethean in “Faust”? When looking at Faust —
we see from the Prologue a tendency which doesn't exist at
first — starting with the Monologue: “Philosophy
— I have digested ...” the contemplation of
“Faust,” then one usually gets involved in the
following: within this lives Goethe's attitude against outer
knowledge, against the drive for external knowledge. One sees
the larger reference within the opening which leads Faust
towards despair in the power of his four faculties and so on;
it is noticeable then, how Faust, doubtful in the power of all
four faculties, gropes towards magic, and so forth. However,
working at length with “Faust,” one doesn't get the
feeling that already within this Monologue specific
Goetheanistic ideas are presented. That begins at a specific
point. In this rebellion against the four faculties, this grope
towards magic, Goethe opposes the Faust-tradition; it was not
in this which Goethe's soul, in essence, wanted to reveal
himself through Faust. The part of Goethe's soul revealing
itself for the first time in “Faust,” encounters an
opposition, where Faust, after he opened the Nostradamus book
and the sign of the macrocosm, turns away towards the other
sign which brings him to conjuring up of the Earth Spirit. Here
unfolds, as Goethe writes this scene in his
“Faust,” that which lives in Goethe's soul in a
quite unique form, the world riddle. What is this, however?
Goethe allows his Faust to open up a book on magic, called the
Book of Nostradamus, at the sign of the macrocosm —
expressing the connection between humanity and the almighty
world powers. The sign of the macrocosm expresses the world as
three-fold; that the earthly and heavenly separations are
threefold, and that within the threefold world stands the
occult connection with the threefold human being of body soul
and spirit.
Upon this relationship Goethe arrived momentarily in his life.
It dawned on him in such a way, that he allowed Faust to strive
towards the revelation, and through the images of these signs,
find the connection between humanity and the entire world.
During this time Goethe was not tempted to consider that
something acquired in this manner from spiritual knowledge, was
satisfactory. Deeply, decisively we heard Goethe's words as he
turned away from the sign of the macrocosm: “What
spectacle! But oh! Only a spectacle, no more!” Within
this lies Goethe's entire withdrawal during the seventies of
the 18th century, from what was generally recognised
as the connection of humanity with the entire world, the
universe. Goethe believed he had reached clarity in the thought
that everything within imagination — acquired through
ideas — was nothing other than a mirror-image of reality.
Thus Faust turned away from the symbol and its revelation to
another sign, which directed him to reveal the Earth Spirit.
Look closely now within the depths of Goethe to understand why
he turned away from the macrocosm and towards the microcosm.
Goethe already belonged to the world view of those who didn't
in the ordinary sense relate to the history of specific
knowledge, constructed from an accumulation of ideas about the
laws of nature and of humanity. No, in fact Goethe didn't
strive in this sense for knowledge, he strived for knowledge in
so far as the result of this knowledge would empower the human
soul, in order that each human being's striving in his
becoming, may result in crystallization. Goethe also belonged
to those in spirit who, to a certain sense, I might say, in
order not to be misunderstood, harbour a particular
nervousness, a fear for that which is taken up by the soul in
the form of conceptual knowledge. By this is meant: whoever has
really struggled once with conceptual knowledge, with an idea
through which one in reality can penetrate into the world,
would know how unsatisfactory the result can be, that one can't
thus, through this idea, express everything which has been thus
penetrated and which had been revealed in the depths. One wants
to always, when one has acquired knowledge, say to oneself:
yes, you have brought about this or that in your thoughts, you
know however, what lives in the soul and is revealed from the
depth of the soul world is only partly incorporated in these
ideas. There is a worry that something had been lost along the
way between life and this knowledge. One has a constricted
feeling in this situation. Once a conceptual idea is taken up,
there is the possibility to regain, later, through the spirit,
that which had been lost. One must doubt, when one has once had
an idea which was not fully expressed, to once again bring it
into a lively representation. This worry lay in Goethe's soul.
With this he was always occupied — with world riddles
rather than expressing riddles in a pure and strong way and
thereby giving a superficial elucidation and satisfaction. He
had a shyness, a respect for knowledge. He said to himself:
that which you entreat as knowledge to the human soul, can only
be a spectacle, only a spectacle ... oh, only a spectacle!
— thus Goethe turned away from that which the universe
revealed to him, and allowed himself to turn to the sign which
is not revealed by the universe but that which rises from the
depths of the soul itself.
Thus Goethe allows Faust to doubt that within the immense
universe he may perceive the manifestation of reality, and thus
turns him to search for a revelation from the depths. Goethe's
Faust encounters the Earth Spirit in such a form as it appears
in the hidden depths of the human being, in the subsoil of the
human soul as the case may be. Approaching the great All, we
approach the spirit of revelation, and so we come to that which
lives in the soul's depths, and arrive closer to spiritual
revelation. In this moment however we discover the danger which
accompanies every approach to knowledge. This danger within the
striving human being's soul during earthly life is what Goethe
now confronts and this he mystifies into his
“Faust.” Before Goethe's Faust stands the direct
revelation of his individual inner being. Faust has to turn
away from it. That which lives in consciousness, which
expresses itself clearly within Faust's soul, cannot grasp what
lies in the depths of his very own being. For most of humanity,
that which is unknown, that in us which we could lightly deny,
scares Faust and he falls back, dazed. He has to turn away.
“Not you? Who then? I, replica of the image of God! Not
even you!” The Spirit responds: “You match the
spirit you comprehend, not me!” Who then is this spirit
Faust understands? Towards whom must Faust turn at this
moment?
Right here is one of the dramatic moments in Goethe's
“Faust.” One need relinquish all revelations of
ideas which one usually seeks to interpret “Faust”;
one needs to look at the drama, at the artistic elements
themselves, at the presentation. Giving oneself over to this
without comment, explanations or considerations, one steps into
this place of a real mighty opposition. Who is his match? Here
Wagner steps in. “You match the spirit ...” —
which spirit? Wagner matches him. That is the dramatic knot.
One is not allowed to see the traditional interpretation which
is always given, where Faust is presented as the higher
striving, spiritual idealist and Wagner hobbles in on the stage
as insignificant, even gesturing a bit in Faust's manner.
Wagner may be allowed to appear as Faust's mask, because it is
self-knowledge which Goethe wants to represent: You are no more
than what resides in Wagner's soul. Whoever explores the
dialogue between the two, discovers a certain philistine air in
Wagner; he has a locked personality, a character which has
brought a conclusion to his striving. One only sees him once as
unabashed, which happens in this scene when Faust meets Wagner
and reveals that he doesn't go searching for rain worms and
suchlike. In this scene, considered as dramatic, artistic and
not philistine, self knowledge appears to Faust. What was it
then ultimately, which Goethe made his Faust recoil from, and
to what did he turn?
Goethe's soul stands in a time, when this scene was written,
during the seventies, when a duality existed between —
which I wish to phrase as — “world knowledge”
and “self knowledge.” Faust turns away from world
knowledge as he does from the sign of the macrocosm. Goethe
didn't desire world knowledge. He believed everything can be
found within self knowledge acquired through striving for a
worthy existence. This is the route to self knowledge. In this
Faust-Wagner scene we encounter in Goethe's striving something
quite extraordinary, bringing self knowledge of human
fulfilment into expression and to revelation. When both
impulses, world knowledge and self-knowledge are considered, it
must be pointed out that in both, specific human dangers are
connected.
With world knowledge it is thus: trying to penetrate ever more
into world knowledge, demanding human imaginative capabilities
to penetrate ever more into what is offered in a spiritual
sense perception, one arrives at a percept which can be called
the “temptation of illusion.”
There exists for instance in human culture, and Goethe felt it,
such diversity in world knowledge, that it offered, through the
tangling of its laws, an illusion, (which the Indians term
Maya) ever accompanying us in life, insofar as it forces itself
into life and so places the personality in the wide world. We
are, in our search for a relationship to things, subject to
illusion. Only through this, that we strain with all our all
power to protect our consciousness, disallowing it to be
charmed, as Faust does after his oath with the Earth Spirit
— only in this way can we work our way through illusion.
It can appear to one with the deepest discernment in this form
before the soul, as Goethe describes later, calling it the
Mephistophelean force. Danger in this world knowledge exists in
such a secretive way precisely so we don't notice it, in all
our worldly thoughts and every experience, in simple
indications of life, emotionally intertwined, that it finally
does not originate within us. Closer observation shows that,
that which is so emotionally inter-mixed does not come from
within us, but from other forces. What the human being can
conclude in the illusion of a Mephistophelean danger comes down
to the so-called intermixing of instinct, of a kind of willing
and of desire into this outer knowledge. We often believe we
have objective knowledge, but we only have it when we admit to
giving in to no illusion, that the aforementioned is mixed into
outer knowledge.
When we, however, try to throw out all we have as knowledge,
derived from feeling, willing, from passion, the remainder is
what Goethe allows Faust to call: “A spectacle! Oh, only
a spectacle!” No one needs to search for other ways to
discover reality. What we are led to believe is suffused with
illusion. As Faust stands before the sign which calls his soul
to awaken to such a observation of the world, where everything
connected to the will and passion is thrown out, he finds a
mere spectacle, a show. This he doesn't want. He wants to dive
into self knowledge. He believes the human being can be driven
down to the core of the world. Here another danger threatens.
While illusion acts as a threat towards world knowledge, due to
us delving into the depths of the soul, so another threat finds
us in as much as so-called knowledge leads us to wishes,
feelings, affectations, towards world riddles, yet they do not
allow separation from wishes and will.
It
keeps pace with our constitution. We seek in us, through a
false mysticism, the everlasting and only find the most recent
with a vague mix of the everlasting within it. Acknowledging
that, we know that every moment we dive into ourselves, we are
confronted with a vision threatened by a void, appearing more
as a facade than mere fantasy, which merely drives us into
wasted error. Goethe was well known regarding these secrets of
human existence, that we, when we don't constantly correct
ourselves with common sense and dive into the mystical and
encounter deep contemplation, we may get involved in visions.
We don't need disease to be a visionary, we enter into a life
which becomes a visionary life when it turns ill.
Thus these two elements which are found in life stand out in
another way. Goethe didn't proclaim it. It stood before his
soul, when we keep everything in mind, which appears as
illusion in world knowledge. What does it come to when one
considers these illusionary things in a philistine or pedantic
manner? To what are we continuously led, away from reality?
This illusion is linked with everything which we grasped during
our quite normal development. Not continuously coming to terms
with the danger of illusion in our soul-life, we may not be
defeated by that underlying development which we allow in
growing, sprouting, prospering not only during child
development, but also in mature development. This however
connects to that which, from the age of thirty five, indicates
the descending human existence.
This backward directed development is connected to all which
lives in our soul. We couldn't become wise or clever through
life's experiences if we didn't develop from birth, that which
during the descending development brings in an extraordinary
existence. We actually live from forces which direct us towards
death, not towards growth. We die from birth onwards, and at
the moment of death everything is drawn together which worked
through our entire life. It works in such a way that that which
develops forwards carries that which withdraws, bringing our
soul qualities to the fore. If the Mephistophelean, the life of
illusions, weren't bedded into world knowledge, we couldn't
develop as human beings; these descending forces couldn't live
in us. Through this illusion, everything is connected to that
which we bring as disturbances into the world, which leads some
individuals to destruction and which is connected to the
origins of our forces.
It's different with elements arising out of self-knowledge. As
we descend into our inner soul, we certainly reach into the
spiritual part of our being. We seize hold of ourselves in our
personal kernel which connects to the kernel of the world
where, in an unconscious way, we forcefully experience will
forces and desires living within us. As a result we can develop
a specific influence on those around us; we just tend not to
study this properly. This disturbance influencing our
contemporaries, those we are living with, causing impairment,
originates in fact from the descending forces, out of which we
could only have grown, if we had grasped them in a proper,
spiritual manner. These forces are Luciferic. It is
extraordinary that Goethe had within his feelings this duality,
the Ahrimanic-Mephistophelean and the Luciferic. Originating
within a western spiritual development and western tradition he
did not manage to make a clear distinction between the
Mephistophelean and the Luciferic. Out of this Goethe
unfortunately created the single Mephistopheles. When
commentators frequently emphasized that Mephistopheles was an
actual character, Goethe continued to sense, subconsciously,
that Mephistopheles had to be presented as a duality, as
ahrimanic and luciferic. Therefore it is a given that, the
moment Faust must turn away from the Earth Spirit, where he
doesn't show himself mature in his knowledge, that which moves
within his own soul, be it in the soul of man as a whole,
Mephistopheles appears as Lucifer to Faust. This results in the
merger linking our wishes, feelings and desires within our
depths. This follows in other words in the totally wonderful,
magnificent, vivid tragedy of Margaret. It also makes it
possible for Faust to explore the connection between wishes and
will; it results in the most part to that which we go through
in the first part of Goethe's “Faust.” Here we
experience everything which appears as a luciferic element.
However, everything originates from what Goethe actually
explored during the seventies and eighties as carrier of human
knowledge: people didn't want to know anything about the
relationship between themselves and the wider world. However,
the feeling remained in him, prompting him to find a
solution.
It
is interesting that everything which turns towards the
luciferic element, results in dissatisfaction. We can only
reach satisfaction when we try to find the relationship with
the luciferic on the one side and ahrimanic on the other side
of the Mephistophelean, which rises from world knowledge. It is
interesting that from the beginning of the combination of
Mephistopheles with Faust, Goethe left this unresolved. He felt
that there had to live a deeper level which flowed between
Mephistopheles and Faust, which he however didn't know through
his everyday consciousness. Later he wanted to bring it out in
a disputing scene. That is the ahrimanic character which lived
in Mephistopheles and came to expression when Mephistopheles
installed himself and argued about world riddles. In this very
discussion, actually, lives illusion. In this way Goethe wanted
to introduce something which had brought out another element
before his spiritual eye.
Now
we observe something extraordinary in Goethe's personal
development. He had treated Mephistopheles as an individual
character, bringing Faust to a poetic expression. In 1790 he
offered “Faust” as a fragment. Schiller stimulated
him to continue and what is remarkable, is the manner in which
Goethe declined. He saw himself as old, finished and done,
couldn't go any further. What actually happened there? The
personal relationship Goethe had to his “Faust”
became something quite different.
This change can only be understood through insight into the
world view Goethe had built for himself during the nineties.
What did this knowledge of nature become? It was much spoken
about; here and there even justice was done but really
penetrating the moving target was hardly achieved. In essence,
Goethe wanted to build a bridge, with the help of the knowledge
of nature, between self knowledge and world knowledge. When one
looks at Goethe's method of nature observation, one discovers
that singular results and their discoveries are hardly the main
issue. The manner and method, how thoughts unfold, is
what matters. How was this? It was so, that Goethe searched for
a complete different kind of comprehension and types of ideas
to which we are accustomed. When we don't want to focus on this
point, we will never understand Goethe's nature observation.
Right into the colour teachings we can't understand Goethe, if
we fail to focus on what Goethe wanted. He wanted to reach such
concepts with his metaphysical teachings, which did not follow
one imagination to another, from one idea to the next idea in
an outer way, no, by contrast, he wanted us to dive into the
reality itself in order for the idea to unfold itself in our
soul life, which is actually sufficiently unselfish to share in
world experience at the same time. He wanted, in this way, to
reach, though his nature observation, what really lies behind
reality; he wanted to join self knowledge and world knowledge.
Goethe couldn't, because of that which scientifically
confronted him, deepen a satisfactory nature observational
method, according to him; he had to bring forth a world view
from within his being; this he had to achieve honestly and only
then the possibility would be given to connect self knowledge
with world knowledge. Earlier he had believed that through self
knowledge something could be accomplished. But only, diving so
deeply down into self knowledge, that the depth of the world is
understood in the same manner as we understand Goethe's nature
ideas, then the bridge can be built, to find the illusionary
element of the world.
So
Goethe was stimulated by Schiller to take “Faust”
up again.
Here self knowledge could come to its full right. However, now
it was one-sided and had to be linked to world knowledge, to
the macrocosm. Faust had to turn again to the sign of the
macrocosm, from which he had turned away earlier. It had to be
placed within the universe of good and evil forces. The forward
and backward moving forces had to take up the striving of Faust
from the fields of world knowledge. This was what came to him
as a necessity. Mephistopheles had to accept the ahrimanic
character. That is why Goethe developed his Mephistopheles more
and more in this manner. That is why there's such a
contradiction in this characterization. Goethe placed Faust in
the universe through writing the Prologue in Heaven. The good
and the evil forces are at war, and Faust stands in the middle
of it.
Occult scientific development had not advanced to such a degree
that Goethe could be clear about this. From his single
Mephistopheles he could not have created two characters. In his
sub-consciousness however, they lived. From this Goethe became
ill during the nineties. This is what made Faust so difficult,
so heavy. Frequently the second part of “Faust” is
left unrecognised, while within this second part only allegory
is looked for. When really searching for insight, the second
part presents nothing more full of life, nothing more direct
and more lively than all the characters! Why do they appear as
allegorical? We, as single individuals, place ourselves in the
world with our life's work and our individual ideas — we
are urged to withdraw somewhat from this reality as an
abstraction — but this is what we should surely learn
from, in the present! We live in a present time, in which we
should ponder the relationship of human beings who are so taken
with reality, giving us the most fruitful illusions. Right
within ideas, be it in social or political fields, lives
abstractions, the allegorical. We live with them. It is the
very manner in which the Mephistophelean element enters into
our worldly experience in our own lives.
This is depicted vividly and with endless humour in the Emperor
scene of the second part, where outer associations of reality
with illusion are presented in a grandiose and humoristic way:
stupidity and cleverness, as they appear side-by-side in life.
In a wonderful, clear way they come to meet us. We then see how
Faust, in the thorough way in which he has positioned himself
in the world where illusionary elements exist and where they
combine with stupidity, he finds it necessary to once again
delve down into his own soul.
Now
self knowledge is expressed in a yet higher sense. It links to
the moment when Faust bows to the mothers with: “The
mother! Mother! It sounds so wondrous!” Quite wonderful
it sounds when we shift into our own depths, as Faust delves
into himself. Now Goethe needs to give Mephistopheles, while he
has two figures within him — Lucifer and Mephistopheles
— a kind of minor role. In order to understand him fully,
Faust sinks down into the worlds where Lucifer's power grips
one in loneliness. That which he had experienced in the depth
of soul, lived out in a dream, he goes through in such a way
that we see: from it flows whatever he has brought up from the
depths of his soul and out of self knowledge, and now self
knowledge within world knowledge is transformed. There had to
be something here regarding science, which links to
self-awareness. That which we discover in the depths of our
souls, numbs us, only allows us to dream, when we can't bring
it out of our depths.
Had
we had the chance in Goethe's time, or do we have an
opportunity in our time, to develop such spiritual knowledge?
What Faust took from the mothers, no, that wouldn't have made
it. Human knowledge appeared to be an artificial product,
understood like a mechanism. No Homunculus bulges forth out of
lively reality. Now comes that towards which Goethe strives for
within the entire depth of his soul. That which has grown out
of world knowledge, must now unite itself with self knowledge.
They had to become so blended together that they become one.
This is what Goethe achieved: his wonderful knowledge of
nature, biological and other metamorphosis-knowledge, brought
together in a bond, equally including what Faust brought from
the mothers on the one side, and on the other side, what could
be given to him in his time as outer world knowledge.
Through this striving Goethe steered into the Greek era. His
quest wasn't towards a one-sided spiritual abstraction or life
abstraction — but to the consummation of the soul. This
exact perfection, living in the Greek soul, cannot be restored,
yet some vestige must have been left which can be won again,
something similar to Hellenism which can be experienced again
in later times. In Italy Goethe had experienced this in Greek
art. He regarded the Greek artist as one who had solved
nature's mysteries. As he observed the Greek civilization,
perfection dawned on him. In his time they hadn't reached as
far as solving the split between world knowledge and self
knowledge. Faust had to, through that which incorporates an
inner becoming within Hellenism, take up this power and use
this to amalgamate self- and world knowledge. Now Goethe tried,
towards the end of the second part of his “Faust,”
to depict, as much as modern art allowed at that time, Faust as
he appears amid all that had been brought from the mothers,
towards that which the great universe revealed to humanity.
Precisely from this basis, because he wasn't split within his
consciousness in the depth of his soul, he had to — what
he justifies in his way — adapt traditional form. He
places Faust into the traditional form of the Christian church,
in order to, after he had brought forth the deep elements in
his soul derived from the mothers, direct him again towards
that which he had turned away from in the beginning: the
possible revelation in the sign of the macrocosm. We see Goethe
at the close overcome what he as younger man had rejected:
one-sided self knowledge. Faust is introduced into the
universe, in the steams of the world-all, into secrets, where
the ahrimanic world combines with the physical.
This is the great tableau at the closing of
“Faust,” where Goethe strove to introduce Faust
into the macrocosm. We can't understand Goethe's
“Faust” when we fail to have this insight into the
work which had accompanied Goethe during nearly sixty years of
his life and had shared his own destiny, but in a higher form,
as is usually meant. Goethe had as a younger man turned to mere
self knowledge and refused to be bothered by world knowledge.
His struggles with nature's manifestations and nature's powers
expressed in his nature observation, led Faust into the wide
world. At the end Faust stood there, saying: “A
spectacle, oh, but not only a spectacle, but an element which
man lives through and through into which every human life flows
in all the streaming which courses through the macrocosm,
through the universe!” — Faust turns back to that
which the sign of the macrocosm had wanted to reveal to
him.
It
looks bad when we only quote “Faust” in one or the
other facet. We have to admit, Goethe had conquered what he had
mixed up in his youth. I don't believe that Goethe, due to a
gradual contradiction in his advancing age, belittled that part
of “Faust” which he created in his youth. Precisely
as a result of this, he stands there largely because he is so
honest in his personal relationship to “Faust”
while he shows how he had struggled and strived to find the
way, from self knowledge to world knowledge.
Whosoever participates in these steps, really penetrating into
the single elements in which “Faust” lives, will
judge him differently.
To
descend into his own soul, Faust again turned to Bible
translating. He didn't stick to the traditional translation:
“In the beginning was the Word,” but tried: Sense,
power, deed. “In the beginning was the deed!” Just
this manner of translation invites Mephistopheles to enter; he
is the diminutive of superficiality in which Faust, at this
point of his development arrives at the trivial: “In the
beginning was the Deed” from the deeper: “In the
beginning was the Word.” However, through this, because
Faust finds himself within all the illusions of world
knowledge, through this he can overcome Mephistopheles. It is a
great work in world literature which allows us to lay our eyes
on a relationship so close to the bone.
“Faust” has become no lesser work of art. It is
more accomplished through the fact that great power flowed into
a single soul, a person of the highest ranks, who strives and
struggles with the spiritual riddles of mankind. This I believe
anyway, that in Goethe's “Faust” stands a work
towards which mankind must return, repeatedly.
It
made an extraordinary impression on me when I read a critique
written in English, translated from a French work by a
Spaniard, a harsh criticism, exercised on Goethe's
“Faust” from the standpoint of taking everything
within it as that which must be combated against within by
central European people. I believe, that all man's weaknesses,
all that which doesn't allow one to get along, wherever one is,
be recognised, that in Goethe's “Faust” not only
the central Europeans but the entire world has appeared in a
work, containing specific meaning, which shouldn't only be
given to mankind, but is continuously being sought by mankind.
While Goethe's own search is so closely connected with the
search in mankind, I also believe that Goethe, through his
“Faust” has given mankind a most precious gift,
because the greatest good is that towards which mankind should
come, because when you really understand yourself, you have to
search for this good, without end.
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