Faust: A Tragedy (original: Faust: Eine Tragodie) was written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe (1749-1832) is generally regarded as the greatest of German writers, the writer so significant that the Romantic period in Germany is known as “the Age of Goethe.” Goethe was a poet, a novelist, a dramatist, a critic and theorist of literature and art, and even a scientist. Faust is regarded as Goethe's greatest work.

There was a real Faust, Johann Georg Faust (1466-c. 1539), a wandering German alchemist and magician about whom much has been written over the centuries, little with any basis in fact.¹ His legend grew after his death because of his claims to mastery of magic, which the Lutherans took seriously, leading to stories that he had sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for advanced knowledge. Anecdotes began to be told about a “Johannes Faustus,” and eventually he became a figure of folklore, a man who wandered around Europe with two familiars, a horse and a dog, and was strangled by the Devil when his time was up.

Faust begins in Heaven, where three of the archangels are singing the praises of God. Mephistopheles appears and is less encouraging about mankind. God brings up the subject of Faust and tells Mephistopheles that Faust will continue to serve Him no matter what. Mephistopheles gets God to agree to a wager: that Mephistopheles can get Faust to stray from the path of righteousness. Mephistopheles, knowing that Faust is miserable, thinks he can succeed in tempting Faust. Faust is actually deeply dissatisfied with his life. He has acquired as much knowledge as he can, but realizes that in the scope of the universe he is meaningless. He goes walking among the commoners with his student Wagner, and during the walk Faust tells Wagner about the conflict in his soul, about his clashing desires for earthly matters and for his desire to understand and embrace higher truths which he can never experience while he is earth-bound. Faust wants to learn the meaning of existence. Mephistopheles, seeing that Faust is vulnerable, appears to him as a black poodle, which Faust takes home. Mephistopheles reveals himself to Faust, but the latter is unimpressed and is not tempted by Mephistopheles' arguments. Mephistopheles leaves, but when he returns Faust is more receptive to his words, realizing that he has nothing to show for all his philosophical struggles. Faust is more interested in enjoying his life, so when Mephistopheles tempts him with sensual pleasures, Faust partially gives in. He does not sell his soul outright, however. What he agrees to is a wager with Mephistopheles: that if he, Faust, could ever declare himself, in the midst of pleasures, to be at peace, or if Mephistopheles could ever make Faust self-satisfied through flattery, or if Faust should ever experience a moment so sublime that he wants it to last forever, then Mephistopheles can have Faust.

Mephistopheles and Faust begin by going to a local tavern and drinking with some college boys. This does not sway Faust, so Mephistopheles decides to use women. He brings Faust to an old witch, who brews him a potion which makes him young again. Back in the city Faust encounters the beautiful and innocent maiden Margaret (or Gretchen, depending on the translation). Faust is smitten. Faust tries to woo her by magically giving her chests of jewels, but these gifts go awry. (Margaret's mother keeps finding them and giving them to the Church). Faust meets up with Margaret and chats with her and she falls in love with him. She gives herself to him. But one night, when Margaret is waiting for Faust to visit, her brother Valentine, who knows about her affair with Faust, waits outside Margaret’s house for Faust. Faust arrives, Valentine and he quarrel, and Faust runs Valentine through with his sword. Valentine dies, but not before calling Margaret a slut.

Mephistopheles and Faust flee the city for the mountains, and Mephistopheles shows Faust more scenes of debauchery. Back in the city, Margaret kills her child by Faust and is imprisoned for her crime, sentenced to death. Faust resists Mephistopheles' temptations, encouraged by the thought of Margaret, but also realizes that human love can’t satisfy him, and Mephistopheles' plan, that Faust would want the moment of the fulfillment of his love for Margaret to last forever, is foiled. But Faust still feels sorry for Margaret and returns to see her. She refuses to leave jail and flee with Faust and Mephistopheles, and although she is judged guilty by her jailors she is judged innocent by God and is saved.

That ends Part 1 of Faust, which was written from 1773 to 1801. Part 1 is substantially different from Part 2, which was written over the last 30 years of Goethe's life, and is different that some editions of Faust only include Part 1. Part 2 has the long Classic Antiquity section, in which Faust and Mephistopheles, after creating the spirit Homunculus, travel to ancient Greece. Faust falls in love with Helen of Troy, but ultimately he realizes that his enjoyment of her is, like the rest of his experiences, transitory, thus thwarting Mephistopheles' plans yet again. Faust returns to his homeland, deciding that he now must achieve something physical, something useful to humanity. He foregoes his magical powers so that he can accomplish his goals with only the abilities nature granted to him. Faust takes over a large strip of swamp land and makes it habitable, letting thousands of people live and flourish there. At the end of his life, as an old and blind man, Faust realizes that he has made a good land for many people, and wishes for that moment of realization to linger forever, thus letting Mephistopheles claim his soul, but because Mephistopheles' wager with the Almighty was that Faust wouldn't stray from the path of righteousness, God takes Faust's soul up to Heaven.

It is a fair assessment to say that Faust, like many works in the literary canon, is more esteemed by critics than read by the hoi polloi. Most critics will loudly sing the praises of Faust, but even within the critical community there are dissenters, brave men and women who will admit that English translations of Faust do not do it justice, that they are boring and worse, and that the poetry of Goethe's language is lost in translation. But in 1995 the playwright Howard Brenton condensed Faust into a six hour long production for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The result was the first English language Faust which allows English readers to understand and appreciate it as Goethe deserves.

Faust presents something of a special dilemma for translators. It is a poem written over two hundred years ago in German for Germans by a talented poet. So translators have to overcome not just the ordinary problems presented in translating foreign language material, but also the more difficult problems of making the language understandable to a modern audience while at the same time capturing the poetry and texture of Goethe's language. The traditional dilemma for translators is being faithful to the original language while also expressing the spirit of the work. Only Brenton succeeded at both in translating Faust. He restores the flow of the dialogue, the humor, and the moments of wit. Brenton includes vivid, striking imagery and memorable turns of phrase, which may or may not be literal translations of Goethe but which certainly express Goethe’s intention. Earlier translations had a disjointed feel; Brenton’s does not. The dialogue and characterization are compressed in the theatrical rather than novelistic way, so that characterization and glimpses of Faust’s interior life come from his dialogue. It is an unnatural construction, especially for those used to reading novels and short stories, and it can be off putting. This is a natural drawback of reading plays rather than watching them–so much of what is enjoyable from a play comes from the performance and the interpretation individual actors put on the words they say–but Faust is deliberately written to be unperformable. Brenton made it performable, and reshaped the dialogue and monologues so that far more of Faust’s and Mephistopheles’ personalities are revealed.

In Brenton’s hands Faust becomes an interesting and even involving read, with scenes which, on stage at least, would be striking. There are aspects of Faust which the critics appreciate but which will leave most readers cold: the way that Goethe contrasts Neo-Platonism and Romanticism, the alchemical and religious symbolism, the use of the themes of sexual temptation and the Eternal Feminine. Most readers can admire those aspects of Faust, but their enjoyment of the poem won’t be increased by those elements. What will are the wit and humor which Brenton added, and the colloquial phrasing, something purists undoubtedly complain of but which makes the poem easier to enjoy.

Faust is a rich work and has produced a wide range of interpretations over the centuries. It has a number of themes: the ephemeral nature of emotions and happiness, the necessity for continual striving, and the inability of knowledge alone to satisfy the human soul. Historically the poem was responsible for a new portrayal of the devil. Mephistopheles was neither the brutish, crude monstrosity of Christian legend nor the Miltonian fallen angel, but a creature of the modern day, a sarcastic, sardonic gentleman. Eugene Delacroix’s lithographs helped cement this image in the literary and popular imagination.

Faust himself is not at all what the average modern reader will expect, with or without a knowledge of the Faust legend. Goethe’s Faust is not a doomed, defiant genius of Romanticism or a hubristic madman in the Victor Frankenstein (see: Frankenstein) mold. He is neither evil nor insane. He is a scientist and philosopher, extraordinary only in his dissatisfaction with his life. He is also surprisingly uninteresting. Goethe’s Faust is much less full of life than Mephistopheles, much less involving, and the modern reader is likely to find Faust rather tedious. In part this is due to the passing of time. Goethe’s concerns, as voiced through Faust, spoke to his contemporary audience: the quest for transcendent knowledge, the desire for immanence, the striving to overcome the limitations of human knowledge, the dissatisfaction with life as it is and the yearning for a higher type of existence–all of these resonated with Goethe’s audience and made his reputation. But the modern reader is not likely to emotionally identify with these feelings, and to read Faust endlessly wrangle with these questions quickly grows tiresome.

Print: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe and Howard Brenton, Faust Parts One and Two. London: Nick Hern Books, 2000.

¹ Leo Ruickbie’s Faustus: The Life and Times of a Renaissance Magician (Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2011) would seem to be the best recent work to consult to find out what was real and what was not about Johann Georg Faust’s life and legend.