IV Goethe and “Faust”
Faust the biography of Goethe—The three monologues in the first Part—Faust’s pessimism—The brain-fatigue which finds a remedy in love—The romance with Marguerite and its unhappy ending
“Goethe was Faust, Faust Goethe,” said the biographer of the great poet (Bielschowsky, vol. ii, p. 645). Most people admit that in Faust Goethe gave his autobiography on a more detailed scale than in Werther. Why then should I follow my analysis of Goethe himself, which was based on exact facts, with an analysis of Faust? I do so because in addition to the biographical details in Faust, there are many ideas which illuminate the poet’s conception of life. Goethe’s life explains Faust, and Faust explains the soul of its author. And I am convinced that an accurate study of so great a man is of high importance in the investigation of human nature.
The two Parts of Faust correspond with two distinct periods in Goethe’s life. In the first Part, Faust was pessimistic, in the second optimistic. Although many of the high problems that occupy humanity are raised and discussed in Faust, love is the centre on which the drama turns.
In the first Part, conceived and for the most part written during his youth, the chief theme is the love of a young man for a pretty and attractive girl towards whom the hero acts in a fashion opposed to conventional morality. As in most of his principal works, Goethe has made an episode in his own life the basis of Faust. It is the well-known story of Frederique, the daughter of a clergyman, for whom the brilliant young author conceived a violent passion and who returned his affection with a deeper and more enduring feeling. Goethe was alarmed at the possibility of definitely settling his future, and deserted the poor victim of love in an unfortunate state. Later on, he confessed to the Baroness von Stein that he had abandoned Frederique at a time when his desertion was likely to cause the death of the poor girl. “I had wounded to the quick,” he wrote (Bielschowsky, vol. i, p. 135), “the best heart in the world, and I had to repent of it long and almost unendurably.” As an atonement, he made Frederique the heroine of “Goetz” and of “Clavigo,” but not thinking these worthy of her, he immortalised her as the Marguerite of Faust.
A learned doctor, skilled in all human knowledge, but who had found no satisfaction in his studies, found consolation in the beauty and charm of a young girl with whom he fell passionately in love. It will be interesting to trace the psychological process which induced him to leave the scene of his scientific studies for the streets and resorts where he found Marguerite.
Although Faust was represented as an old man, who had had time enough to absorb all human learning, his image bears the stamp of green youth. “Discontented with all his knowledge, he wished to know the secret entrails of the world, to be a witness of the centre of all activity, to unveil the principle of life.”199 These are the demands of a young man seeking to resolve the most intricate problems at one stroke. The speech in question dates from the period of Werther, when Goethe was twenty-five years old, and for that reason leaves no very serious impression.200 The second monologue, which ends with the attempt to take poison, is later, and is absent in the edition of 1790 (Fragment). It was revised when Goethe had reached his fiftieth year, and displays a riper maturity. Although lacking exactness, it depicts in an interesting fashion the miseries of life.
Some alien substance more and more is cleaving
To all the mind conceives of grand and fair;
When this world’s Good is won by our achieving,
The Better, then, is named a cheat and snare.
The fine emotions, whence our lives we mould,
Lie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.
If hopeful Fancy once, in daring flight,
Her longings to the Infinite expanded,
Yet now a narrow space contents her quite,
Since Time’s wild wave so many a fortune stranded.
Care at the bottom of the heart is lurking;
Her secret pangs in silence working,
She, restless, rocks herself, disturbing joy and rest;
In newer masks her face is ever drest,
By turns as house and land, as wife and child, presented,—
As water, fire, as poison, steel;
We dread the blows we never feel,
And what we never lose is yet by us lamented.201
Fear of the evils which lie in wait for us and against which we can make no provision render life insupportable. Faust’s frame of mind as described in these lines recalls Schopenhauer, who was always afraid of something; fear, sometimes of thieves, sometimes of diseases, tormented him. He would never go to a barber’s to be shaved, and always carried his own drinking cup with him.
“Is it not better to end such a life, and to kill oneself, even if it mean annihilation?” asked Faust. He took up the poisoned goblet and put it to his lips, but, arrested by singing and the sound of bells outside, he refrained, and life laid hold of him. Not religious faith, however, but memories of childhood, “the happy sports of youth and the gay festivals of spring” were the agencies that recalled Faust to the earth. He went out of doors, mingled with the crowd, tried to amuse himself amongst men, and savoured the beauty of the new-born spring, but all these could not make him forget the evil of life. He met his pupil, talked with him, and again displayed his pessimism.
O happy he, who still renews
The hope, from Error’s deeps to rise for ever!
That which one does not know, one needs to use;
And what one knows, one uses never.202
Then follows the celebrated monologue of Faust over which so many commentators have lost their heads and wasted oceans of ink.
Two souls, alas! reside within my breast,
And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.
One with tenacious organs holds in love
And clinging lust the world in its embraces;
The other strongly sweeps, this dust above,
Into the high ancestral spaces.203
On this passage has been built up a whole theory of “double natures” with which has been incorporated the dualism of Manicheism, the two natures of Christ and what not besides.204
There exists in literature no better expression of human disharmony than this monologue “of the two souls.” It portrays the unbalanced condition so frequent in youth and is a valuable indication of the real youth of Faust.
On his return to his study, Faust again revealed his pessimism.
But ah! I feel, though will thereto be stronger,
Contentment flows from out my breast no longer.
Why must the stream so soon run dry and fail us,
And burning thirst again assail us?
Therein I’ve borne so much probation!205
It is at this point that Faust addresses the Spirit “that denies” and that is called “sin” and “evil.” This spirit invokes before his eyes “the fairest images of dreams,” that is to say, a woman’s body in its beautiful nudity. Faust declares himself
Too old to play with passion,
Too young to be without desire.206
Pursued by desire
... when night descends, how anxiously
Upon my couch of sleep I lay me.
There, also, comes no rest to me;
But some wild dream is sent to fray me.207
So that
Death is desired, and Life a thing unblest.
O fortunate, for whom, when victory glances,
The bloody laurels on the brow he bindeth!
Whom, after rapid, maddening dances,
In clasping maiden-arms he findeth!208
Faust thus reached the ecstasy of passion. Soon afterwards in the Witches’ kitchen, he saw in a mirror a “heavenly form” and cried:—
O lend me, Love, the swiftest of thy pinions,
And bear me to her beauteous field.
A woman’s form, in beauty shining!
Can woman, then, so lovely be?
And must I find her body, there reclining;
Of all the heavens, the bright epitome?
Can Earth with such a thing be mated?209
Discontent with life, sense of the insufficiency of human knowledge and the most gloomy pessimism lead to the passion of love which, eventually, after many devious paths, throws Faust into the arms of Marguerite. The story is one of the world’s great romances and everyone knows it. Faust all unconsciously was following the prescription of Brown-Séquard. Brain-fatigue had made the continuation of the study which caused it impossible. The condition is plainly stated in the following lines:—
The thread of Thought at last is broken,
And knowledge brings disgust unspoken.
Let us the sensual deeps explore.210
The brain has refused to work, and blind instinct, in the guise of dreams, whispers that there is in the organism something that can restore the intellectual forces. This something, however, is what is called sin, and much courage is needed to plunge into it. Without this evil, life cannot last. Faust has to choose between love and death, and chooses love.
The end of the romance of Goethe and Frederique was bad, and that of Faust and Marguerite was still worse. The poet painted it in the most sombre colours. Marguerite killed her child, poisoned her mother, became crazy, and was beheaded. Faust’s cup of misery was filled to the brim; he blamed his evil genius, he made desperate efforts to save the poor woman, and cried “O that I had never been born.”
To sum up: in the first Part, Faust is a young, learned man who expects too much from science and life, and whose genius requires extra-conjugal love as a stimulant; he is unbalanced and inevitably pessimistic. It is not surprising that his life goes badly, and that his conduct leaves him much to repent of. But although, at first, a vague general discontent nearly drives him to suicide, later on the terrible evil which he had wrought on a poor creature he loved passionately did no more than plunge him into misery that was bitter but far from mortal. His mind had developed far in the direction of optimism. The crisis through which he passed, serious as it was, ended by his return to a life of great activity and enterprise.