Faust - Preliminaries

[Everyman]

This thread is for information preparatory to reading Faust -- translations, background, resources, but no discussion of the text until the first section's discussion is posted, and NO SPOILERS!

[Everyman]

Gutenberg has a number of files which may be of interest. I'm not going to link to them all: just go to Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ and search for Faust.

They have two translations into English, one by Bayard Taylor and one I can't find the translator of, but both are only of Part 1. They have several files in German, but I don't know of which sections. They also have two files of Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.

[Genni]

I bought a copy of Faust last year at our local used book store. The translator is Walter Kaufmann and, as I pulled it out for our read, I realized it only has selections from part two. Ugh! I suppose I will be supplementing with an unabridged copy from the library.

[Everyman]

As to other on-line translations, the Anna Swanwick translation of Part 1 from the Harvard Classics series is available from Bartleby.com, at
http://www.bartleby.com/19/1/

There's also a translation at Poetry-in-translation of Parts 1 and 2, translated by Tony Kline, at
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PI...

Here is a digitized copy of a translation by John Anster
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id...

And another by Frank Claudy,
Part 1: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id...

Enough for now!

[Everyman]

I have no idea what makes a good translation of Faust. I happen to have three: a translation by Philip Wayne in the Great Books of the Western World series, a translation by Anna Swanwick in the Harvard Classics series, and the Norton Critical Edition translated by Walter Arndt. Then I have looked very (very!) briefly at several online translations.

They are amazingly different, which I think is because they are all trying to translate poetry into poetry, so they can't just do a literal translation but have to find language that works in terms of meter and, if they are going for it, rhyme.

The first four lines in Faust's study, for example, read:

Philosophy have I digested,
The whole of Law and Medicine,
From each its secrets I have wrested,
Theology, alas, thrown in.
-- Philip Wayne

I have, alas! Philosophy,
Medicine, Jurisprudence too,
And to my cost Theology,
With ardent labour, studied through.
-- Anna Swanwick

I have pursued, alas, philosophy,
Jurisprudence, and medicine,
And, help me God, theology,
With fervent zeal through thick and thin.
-- Walter Arndt

Then, from Gutenberg's Harry Clark translation:
I've studied now Philosophy
And Jurisprudence, Medicine,—
And even, alas! Theology,—
From end to end, with labor keen;

They all have the same basic elements, but presented in very different voices and emphases. Which is closest to the German? I have no idea.

[Markus]

Here's the german:
"Habe nun, ach! Philosophie,
Juristerey und Medicin,
Und leider auch Theologie!
Durchaus studirt, mit heißem Bemühn."
I would say the second by Anna Swanwick is nearest to the original and it also doesn't sound too bad in English.

For your interest, the next two verses
"Da steh’ ich nun, ich armer Thor!
Und bin so klug als wie zuvor;"
have become a well-known proverb in german, as so many of Goethes's writings have.

[Tiffany]

Librivox.org has a dramatised version of Faust (Part 1 and 2); I haven't started listening to it yet so I'm not sure about the quality, but I hope it's good after what I've been through to get it...

I'm not sure if the Great Firewall of China just doesn't like Faust or if The Fates don't think I should read it (capitalisation on The Fates, just in case they are watching and I need to get back into Their Good Graces). But I am glad that we decide on the books so early since it's taken me several weeks to simply download one copy of the audio book and I'm still working on a copy of ebook with part 2... (Seriously, I've had to call my bank at one point to get this far.)

Okay, I'm done ranting now...

[Jan]

I am very excited to be reading Faust. Will try very hard to keep up this time!

Jan

[Rachel]

I was pleased to see you're reading Faust--I've got a used copy (a Norton edition--I love all the extras!), and it's great to have a reason to plunge into it. As I'm also working on my German at the moment, it's especially fortuitous. Looking forward to it!

[Jan]

Rachel,

I'm working on my German too! Are you using Duolingo? It's wonderful.

Jan

[Everyman]

Love all these people who read or are studying German -- I look forward to your helping us with passages that seem a bit obscure in poetic translation.

[Everyman]

Markus wrote: "Here's the german:...I would say the second by Anna Swanwick is nearest to the original and it also doesn't sound too bad in English."

Thanks for that. I think hers does read more easily than some. Just sorry she only did Part 1.

[Genni]

Tiffany wrote: "Librivox.org has a dramatised version of Faust (Part 1 and 2); I haven't started listening to it yet so I'm not sure about the quality, but I hope it's good after what I've been through to get it....."

Lol. Tiffany, I can relate. I have spent quite a bit of time living in different parts of Asia. It CAN be crazy! Good luck. :-)

[Rachel]

Jan, I am using Duolingo among other things--I love that program. If you're competitive we should follow each other and see if we'll work harder. :)

[Jan]

I LOVE a good smack-down, Rachel! But first, let me ask you this--HOW GOOD ARE YOU?????

I need to know before I agree to a smack-down with you. :)

Jan

[Chris]

Got my book today and hope to be able to keep up and contribute to the conversation.

[Selina]

My copy of Faust a Tragedy in Two parts with the Urfaust, is a translation by John R Williams, published by Wordsworth Classics. I look forward to reading it.

[Penny]

I've wanted to read faust for a long time!

But I'm confuse is the free kindle edition not complete?

[Everyman]

I don't know about the free Kindle edition, but if they're just copies of the Gutenberg file, which Amazon tends to do, yes, it's only Part 1 (which we cover in the first three weeks) but NOT part 2 (which we cover in the final five weeks).

You can download a Kindle version of both parts from this link:
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PI...

[Lily]

http://collections.lacma.org/node/236701

Here is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art entry for "Faust in His Studio" by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (Holland, Amsterdam, 1606-1669). An etching with drypoint and burin.

(This is the first illustration in the edition @19. If you are uncertain about doing the download, this version can be obtained from Amazon for $0.99.)

[Penny]

Everyman wrote: "I don't know about the free Kindle edition, but if they're just copies of the Gutenberg file, which Amazon tends to do, yes, it's only Part 1 (which we cover in the first three weeks) but NOT part ..."

Thank you :)

[Nemo]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a translation of Part II?

(I'm not yet convinced that Part II is worth reading, to be honest. )

[Pip]

Nemo wrote: "Does anyone have a recommendation for a translation of Part II?

(I'm not yet convinced that Part II is worth reading, to be honest. )"

I "did" Faust when I studied German at university; we were supposed to study both parts, but I think even my tutor lost interest in Part Two, and I can't honestly remember a single thing about it :-/

[Penny]

What?!
Is this like the divine comedy that "can" be read separately?

[Nemo]

Penny wrote: "What?!
Is this like the divine comedy that "can" be read separately?"

Divine Comedy is like a three-part journey, though the parts can be read separately, they can be best understood as parts of a whole, as the poet originally conceived it.

Is it the same with Faust? I have my doubts.

[Mishek]

I heard the same about Part II - it's allegedly quite inferior to Part I . But I haven't read it so I'm willing to give it a try.

[Tristram]

Hello everyone,

I have just introduced myself in your introduction thread and would like to thank Everyman for pointing out to me that you are going to read Goethe's Faust in this group. I read the first part of the tragedy when I was at school - actually not in class because our teacher was more inclined to modern German literature, unluckily - and I never read the second part up to now. Like Mishek I have heard that the second part is inferior to Part I, and I hope that I can tell you right now, without spoiling anything, that Part I can also be read on its own. It makes sense in itself.

I was quite intrigued with the different translation samples Everyman gave here because translating Goethe is probably as tricky as translating Shakespeare or Dickens. If you want my tuppence, I would also prefer Anna Swanwick's translation because it closely follows the syntax of the original and it sticks to the words Goethe used. For example, "ardently" is very close to "mit heißem Bemühen", whereas Arndt's "through thick and thin" sounds too colloquial and is, to my mind, no apt rendition of "durchaus".

The second best sample is, in my opinion, that by Harry Clark, who is also quite close to the syntax and very close to the words.

Philip Wayne's translation is very free, e.g. "to digest" is not "to study" and the bit about wresting secrets from the various fields of study is not mentioned explicitly in the original.

I hope I'll find the time to stick with your weekly threads, my main focus still being on the Pickwick Club, and please don't think it rude if I don't contribute too regularly. It will not be due to a lack of interest but of time.

[Everyman]

Nemo wrote: "(I'm not yet convinced that Part II is worth reading, to be honest. )"

Rufus Fears, in his lecture series for the Teaching Company "Books that have made History" devotes two lectures to Faust (one to each part). His opinion is that Part 21 is the more powerful, more interesting part.

Harold Bloom, in The Western Canon, titles Chapter 9 "Goethe's Faust, Part Two: The Countercanonical Poem." I haven't read the chapter yet, but he spends little time in Part 1 and much on Part 2.

Clifton Fadiman, in The Lifetime Reading Plan says "Goethe is often called "the last Universal Man...He invented German literature and then dominated it for half a century." Of Faust itself,and I hope this isn't considered a spoiler, he writes "Part 1 is the simpler and less profound of the two...[it] deals with an individual soul, the seeker Faust...Part 2 deals with the 'great world,' not of the individual Faust but of Western man. It is really a kind of historical phantasmagoria..."

If these don't inspire you to at least try Part 2, well, I doubt I can say anything that would.

[Everyman]

Penny wrote: "What?!
Is this like the divine comedy that "can" be read separately?"

Well, yes, it certainly can. And often is, as we see from the fact that the Harvard Classics include only Part 1 (but the Great Books of the Western World includes both parts).

Perhaps a closer comparison than The Divine Comedy, which I believe was originally planned as a complete work, is Don Quixote's two parts, both of which we read here.

[Penny]

OK, thanks everyone.

Now I'm more intimidated, LOL, I can never keep up with the discussions and it's been years since I tried.

My first language is Spanish and I don't think I've ever heard of anyone only reading one part of Don Quijote unless they don't finish the book.

[Everyman]

Penny wrote: "My first language is Spanish and I don't think I've ever heard of anyone only reading one part of Don Quijote unless they don't finish the book. "

I the US, many colleges which "do" DQ only Part 1 because of time constraints.

[Nemo]

Everyman wrote: "Part 1 is the simpler and less profound of the two...[it] deals with an individual soul, the seeker Faust...Part 2 deals with the 'great world,' not of the individual Faust but of Western man. It is really a kind of historical phantasmagoria."

This speaks to the problem I have with Faust somewhat.

I find the Faust of Part I not profound or powerful at all, but rather pitiable. If Goethe cannot create, artistically, an individual soul that is profound and interesting, it is unlikely that his notion of the "Western man" would be of any great interest, for the individual is a microcosm of the "great world".

Did Fears, Bloom or Fadiman recommend some translations of Part 2?

[Mary]

I'm curious -- have any of you read Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus?

[Lily]

Mary wrote: "I'm curious -- have any of you read Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus?" [~1589-'93]

I have not, nor have I read Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus (1947) I don't know what other "Faust" books might provide particularly interesting compare/contrasts. Can you give us some thoughts as to where from your question comes, Mary? Is there some particular comparison or usefulness of Marlowe for us here?

The Mann Doctor Faustus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_...

Useful (at least to me): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_...

Goethe's Faust seems dated with writing beginning as early as 1791, completing Part II ~1831, just before his death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe%...

I may partly have answered my question to you in phrasing this post, Mary. I haven't yet found commentary on the possible influence of Marlowe on Goethe. But I think I had presumed Goethe preceded Marlowe! Know history! Know chronology! ;-0

[Lily]

Nemo wrote: "...I find the Faust of Part I not profound or powerful at all, but rather pitiable. If Goethe cannot create, artistically, an individual soul that is profound and interesting,..."

Nemo, does that suggest you would disagree with the following:

"Walter Kaufmann asserts that 'Goethe created a character [i.e. Faust] who was accepted by his people as their ideal prototype.'[3]

"Although today many of the classical and Central European themes may be hard for the modern reader to grasp, the work remains a resonant parable on scientific learning and religion, passion and seduction, independence and love, as well as other subjects. In poetic terms, Goethe places science and power in the context of a morally interested metaphysics. Faust is a scientific empiricist who is forced to confront questions of good and evil, God and the devil, sexuality and mortality."

Excerpt of "Influence" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe%...

[Susan]

Mary, I read Marlowe's Doctor Faustus years ago. So far, Goethe's take seems quite different, especially the humor. There's no way (for me anyhow) to compare the beauty of Marlowe's language to Goethe's since I don't know German....

[PB]

I'm going to use the Modern Library College Edition of Faust, translated by Bayard Taylor. I didn't realize that it only has Part 1... I have to look and see whether I have part 2 somewhere in my boxes of books in our basement. It will be a long day.

[PB]

I am now reading the introduction by one Victor Lange and learned that Goethe completed Faust in July 1831, only 8 months before his death, though he started it earlier in his life.

[PB]

Goethe about Faust (May 6, 1827, conversation with Eckermann):

"They come and ask what idea I meant to embody in my Faust; as if I knew myself, and could inform them. From heaven, through the world, to hell, would indeed be something; but this is no idea, only a course of action. And further: that the devil loses the wager, and that a man continually struggling from difficult errors towards something better, should be redeemed, is an effective - and, to many, a good enlightening - thougt; but it is no idea at the foundation of the whole, or of every individual scene. It would have been a fine thing indeed if I had strung so rich, varied, and highly diversified a life as I have brought to view in Faust upon the slender string of one pervading idea."

[Nemo]

Lily wrote: "the work remains a resonant parable on scientific learning and religion, passion and seduction, independence and love, as well as other subjects"

Many of the themes in Faust Part I are paralleled in Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris. Some have suggested that Faust is the prototype for the Archdeacon Frollo. Neither of them is an "ideal", at least not in the sense I understand the word.

[Chris]

I also have been reading Kaufmann's introduction to his translation. I thought this edition had both parts I & 2 but he mentions that he only included the first scene & the last act of part 2. Guess will have to look elsewhere for the full part 2!

[Everyman]

Nemo wrote: "Did Fears, Bloom or Fadiman recommend some translations of Part 2? "

Fears recommends the Arndt translation (Norton). Bloom I haven't read through yet. Fadiman doesn't, and in any case it's an older book so wouldn't have information on more recent translations. (The classics don't change, but translations of them do.)

[Everyman]

Mary wrote: "I'm curious -- have any of you read Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus?"

I've downloaded the Gutenberg edition, but haven't read it yet. Hope to soon.

[Everyman]

Lily wrote: But I think I had presumed Goethe preceded Marlowe! Know history! Know chronology! ;-0 "

My understanding of the brief chronology is that more scholars than not consider the origin of the legend to be Dr. Johann Faust, a German alchemist and magician. A chapbook, "Historia von D. Johann Fausten," was published in Germany in 1587 and translated into English in 1592. (There were a variety of works apparently based on or adapted from the chapbook; no copyright protection in that day and age!)

Marlowe is believed to have used the English translation of the chapbook for his 1604 play "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus." The basic story was also widely used as a puppet entertainment in the 1600s, in pre-TV entertainments.

Goethe apparently read the chapbook, though I've read differing views on whether it or Marlowe (or something else) was most instrumental in his interpretation of the legend.

The story has had a continued life. As Lily noted, Thomas Mann wrote a work with the title Doktor Faustus about a Faust-like character. The popular short story "The Devil and Daniel Webster" was also a reworking of the Faust legend. There have been other derivative works, operas, symphonies, plays, books, movies (the an imdb search lists over 40 works with the title Faust or Doctor Faustus, the most recent being a 2015 version in German, in post-production as of April 20). It's obviously a compelling story!

[Everyman]

Peachy wrote: "I am now reading the introduction by one Victor Lange and learned that Goethe completed Faust in July 1831, only 8 months before his death, though he started it earlier in his life."

He published the two parts quite a long time apart (as did Cervantes with Don Quixote). Part 1 was published in 1808, though begun much earlier. Part 2, as you note, was published in 1831.

[Kathy]

Christopher wrote: "I have downloaded David Luke's translation (Oxford World's Classics) and it is tremendously readable. There's a lengthy introduction by Luke that goes into the origins of Faust, Goethe's lengthy pr..."

That's the version I'm using as well, on my Kindle. I'm finding it very readable.

[Genni]

My introduction had a little tid bit that really interested me and put the historical Faust in context. He was apparently a contemporary of Martin Luther! For some reason, that really stuck me. I suppose because Luther kind of IS the Reformation, and here is Faust, under his nose, making pacts with the devil. :-) I also assumed that the legend of Faust went back much further. Like Lily said, know chronology!

Anyway, if anyone is interested, this is from Kaufman:

"According to Melanchthon, Luther's friend, Faust studied magic at the University of Cracow, in Poland. In those days, magic was also taught at the Univesities of Salamanca and Toledo. There are reports that Faust disparaged Jesus' miracles and boasted that, whatever Christ had done, he, too, could do as often as he wished. Needless to add, Luther and Melanchthon regarded Faust with horror and contempt."

[Wendel]

Wikipedia has a page on Johann Georg Faust (and a rather different one in German) - but the legend may of course be older than the name it is now associated with.

[Genni]

Wendel wrote: "Wikipedia has a page on Johann Georg Faust (and a rather different one in German) - but the legend may of course be older than the name it is now associated with."

I have not read enough to know much about types, especially across wide spans of literature, but Faust did also remind me of our protagonist from "The Golden Ass", in general. The fascination with magic and such...

[Wendel]

We have no resource page, so I'll use this thread for a few links.

Here is a link to the Faust movie by Franz Murnau: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbtTM... (1 h 45 m - I'll watch it after finishing the book).

And here is an hour of classical Faust music: http://www.capradio.org/46155