Faust: Part One

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Mephisto, the no-nonsense materialist contemptuous of poetic imagination, scoffs at Faust and recommends that he make himself over into a dramatic character—only in this manner could he hope to find fulfillment. It is a provocation directed not only at Faust but at the reader-spectator as well. And it is the Faust drama—itself a poetic battleground between poetry and anti-poetry—that continuously generates provisional answers to Mephisto’s challenge. After all, acting counter to Mephisto’s corrosive stance is our realization that Faust need not bother himself to make an “alliance with a poet.” Surely, in his case such a step would be redundant. For the public, on the other hand, Mephisto’s suggestion may be only partially ironic, because it is aware of the “as if” condition of the stage. Mephisto’s radical critique opens unsuspected avenues into our minds and nerve centers. We are compelled to measure the distance between fantasy and quotidian reality and “get inside” the process of poetic transformation.