The Paths of Faust

The Paths of Faust.

Writing Assignment №1.

Dr. Johann Georg Faust was a German astrologer, alchemist, who lived between 1480 (or 1466) and 1540. His personality firstly became a protagonist of an anonymous book of tales about Doctor Faust, in 1580s. This book’s translation is believed to be taken by Christopher Marlowe for the basis of “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus”, published in 1604, 11 years after Marlowe’s death. Two ages later, a German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe got back to the legend and wrote his own play “Faust”, consisted of two parts. Part One was finished in 1806, and Part Two in 1831. Written two centuries later, Goethe’s play differs from the Marlow’s interpretation of the legend, being influenced by the ideologie of the author’s ages. Firstly, this considers the differences in understanding of the Faustian nature itself in terms of the ways of personal development. Secondly, the presenting of the God is also quite different.

To begin with, one of the central themes of both plays is a conflict between medieval and Renaissance ideologies. Medieval understanding of the world implies that the God is placed in the center of existence, while a man and nature are put aside. In contrast to medieval values, the Renaissance emphasizes individualism and scientific approach to the understanding of the nature. Renaissance philosophers adored the mind’s creative power and believed that wisdom and knowledge are the basis for happiness.

The scholar R. M. Dawkins identifies Marlowe’s Faustus as "the story of a Renaissance man who had to pay the medieval price for being one". In other words, Marlowe’s Faustus gets the eternal damnation as the price for his weak faith, in conjunction with his striving to get knowledge nature. The tragic hero is surrounded by the medieval world where his nature is regarded as the sin, and this sin is pride. One of the primary ideas in the play is the morality that reaching the inner harmony and wisdom is possible only through the deep-seated faith and repentance for all the sinful nature of a human. Ambitions only hamper people and blind us. During the play, Faustus makes many attempts to repent, but it is still unclear why he fails to do this: whether he is blinded with pride, whether sometimes Mephistopheles interferes in crucial moments or it is the God who does not really hear Faustus attempts to conversion to him. While reading the play, there is the feeling that though Faustus has a chance to repent, he will not do so. In the end when he actually does, it is too late and the God cannot forgive him. Faustus tergiversation is his main sin and his soul cannot be saved. The end is edifying to ensure that people will not repeat Faustus’ steps.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, living two centuries later, presented Faustian nature as more complicated and contradictory than in Marlowe’s play. Goethe showed negative features of Faust’s nature, though at the same time, he emphasized Faust as a striving man with aspiration of the human spirit.

Goethe’s Faust has a very pessimistic view at the world. He curses all the human vices and even love, hope and faith:

Cursed be the vine’s transcendent nectar,—

The highest favor Love lets fall!

Cursed, also, Hope!—cursed Faith, the spectre!

And cursed be Patience most of all!

Faust deeply despairs in life and is ready to commit suicide by drinking poison. In the first part of the play, we see the process of degradation and fall of the hero. It seems that in Goethe’s play the fall of Faust is the necessary condition to reach the heights of self-development and wisdom. As Dawkins wrote: “With the fall, the mind of man embarks on the realization of its limitless potentialities”. Goethe shows different way of understanding the generalization of a “good man portrait”. The crucial difference of the Creator in Goethe’s play is God’s incredible tolerance and forgiving power. Herman J. Weigand points in his “… introduction for students…”, that this makes a Creator different from the Biblical Jehovah “whose wrath doomed disobedient man to perdition”. As I wrote before in the discussion of the “Prologue”, a reader already expects Faust to be saved after the scene with the Lord’s bet. Considering the obvious power and wisdom of the Lord and his boundless kindness, the confidence of the Lord while he bets on Faust ensure a reader that Faust will repent and the God will forgive him. In my opinion, betting with Mephistopheles, the God does not expect Faust to be strong enough to stand all the temptations, but the Lord wants Faust go through them. The God wants to affect deeply his heart and soul, making his good nature prevails on the evil one.

According to the legend, Faust signs the pact with the Devil, according to which, he would give his soul to the Devil after 24 years of life on Earth. In Goethe’s interpretation, Faust would sell his soul only after he would exalt any moment of his life. These differences follow from Faust’s different aims of signing the pact. In Goethe’s play, Faust does not believe that Mephistopheles can make him happier, and help reach the sense of fulfillment, so his signing the pact more likely as a bet. While in Marlowe’s play Faustus also despairs, he hopes that Mephistopheles would give him the wisdom and knowledge, so Faustus has ideas how to use this power. What we face – is that the power corrupts Faustus and though he could do, he does nothing worth-wile. His horizon appears limited and narrow. He only performs conjuring tricks for kings and noblemen.   

In the legend, there was a conflict between Mephistopheles and Faustus about the marriage – Faustus was strictly prohibited to have a wife, because it was the element of Christian tradition and he indulged in fornication. In Goethe’s interpretation, there are not any attempts of Faust to marry, but Mephistopheles underestimates the noble impulses of Faust’s heart and soul towards Gretchen. Mephistopheles does not expect Faust to have deep feelings and perceives Faust’s relation to Gretchen too cynical. This is the evidence that Faust’s nature is not irretrievably twisted.

To conclude, Goethe presents Faust as a victim of the Renaissance, rather than the hero. His striving nature leads him to choose the wrong way, following which Faust degrades being corrupted with the illusive power. Moreover, Goethe presents the Creator as more tolerant to people’s mistakes and charges him with the power to save the souls of people who, despite their doubts and false steps, still have a prevailing good nature, even if they engaged themselves to the pact with Devil. Though the basic of two plays was the same legend, the interpretations reflect the ideologies of the authors ages and are rather different. Both plays are worth being deeply studied and this is the infrequent occurrence in literature, when readers have the opportunity to compare the different interpretations of the same legend, written under the influence of different age tendencies.

Works Cited

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Faust. Part One. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Faust. Part Two. London: Penguin Group Inc, 2009. Print.

Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. London: Bloombsbury Publishing Plc, 2008. Print.

Weigand, J. Hermann. Goethe’s Faust an Introduction for Students and Teachers of General Literature. The German Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Nov., 1964), pp. 467-486. Web. 21 Oct. 2013