Comedy and Tragedy

1. Comedy and Tragedy David Pan Humanities Core Course Winter 2012, Lecture 4

2. Satire against the Catholic church. MEPHISTOPHELES. The mother asked the priest to have a look, and he had scarcely heard what was afoot when he eyed the gems with muted glee and said: “You’ve done the proper thing! Who conquers self will be rewarded in the end. The church has always had an iron belly, has swallowed states and countries now and then, and yet it never overate. The church alone, dear woman, can digest ill-gotten gains without a stomachache.” (2831-40, pp. 243-45) The Catholic Church is hypocritical in its condemnation of worldly goods.

3. Satire of academic learning STUDENT. But each word, I think, should harbor some idea. MEPHISTOPHELES. Yes, yes indeed. But don’t torment yourself too much, because precisely where no thought is present a word appears in proper time. Words are priceless in an argument. Words are building stones of systems. It’s splendid to believe in words; from words you cannot rob a single letter. (1990-2000, p. 155) In academic learning, words become a substitute for real ideas.

4. Satire of bourgeois marriage MARTHA. The dirty thief! The robber of his children! All our misery and dire need did not suffice to draw his shameful life from sin. MEPHISTOPHELES. Well spoken, and for that, you see, he’s dead. But now, if I were in your place, I’d spend a year in decent mourning while angling for a new prospective swain. MARTHA. Oh my! To find another one quite like my first will be no easy undertaking in this world. He was the sweetest little pickle-herring. But he liked too much to roam about— foreign wine and foreign women, and worst of all, those cursed dice. (2985-97, p. 261) Bourgeois marriage is not about love but about self-interest.

5. 17th century perspective on the witches’ sabbath: serious or satirical? Christian legend Witches kill children and kiss the devil’s buttocks to show their loyalty. Source: Herr, Michael. Zauberei, Witchcraft. 1638. Hollstein’s German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts 1400-1700, Volume XXVI, Matthaeus Merian the Edler. Ed. Tilman Falk. Roosendaal, The Netherlands: Koninklijke van Poll, 1989. Print. 156.

6. STRUCTURE OF FAUST • WALPURGIS NIGHT • Walpurgis Night • Walpurgis-Night’s Dream PRELUDE IN THE THEATER PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN • FAUST STORY • Night • Before the Gate • Faust’s Study • Auerbach’s Cellar in Leipzig • Witch’s Kitchen • GRETCHEN STORY • A Street • Evening • Promenade • The Neighbor’s House • A Street • Martha’s Garden • A Summer Cabin • Forest and Cavern • Gretchen’s Room • Martha’s Garden • At the Well • By the Ramparts • Night • Cathedral • GRETCHEN • STORY • Gloomy Day • – Field • Night • – Open Field • Dungeon DEDICATION Act 5: Burial Act 3: Helen Story Act 1: Emperor Story Act 5: Mountain gorges Act 4: Counter-Emperor Story Act 2: Classical Walpurgis Night Act 5: Baucis and Philemon Story Faust II Faust I

7. The Walpurgis Night is • A utopian alternative to the oppression of the church. • A diabolical diversion from the violence against Gretchen.

10. WITCHES (in chorus). The witches ride to Blocksberg’s top. The stubble is yellow, green the crop. On top of the cackling horde Sits Urian presiding as lord. Over rubble and stubble they stream in blustery weather, Witches and billy goats stinking and leaping together. (3956-61, p. 357) Focus on body and scatological humor MEPHISTOPHELES. Just look! You scarcely see the end of it. One hundred fires burning in a row; they dance, they chat, they cook and drink and kiss. Can you tell me where one offers something better? (4056-59, p. 367) Witches celebrate, free of social constraints.

11. FAUST: But I prefer that higher region where even now I see a smoky, churning glow, and crowds advancing to the Evil One; many riddles may be answered there. MEPHISTOPHELES: But other riddles will be knotted. (ll. 4037-4041, p. 365)

12. MEPHISTOPHELES: Today there is no rest for you; the dance resumes. Let's get into the fray. FAUST (dancing with the YOUNG WITCH): Once I fell to pleasant dreaming: I saw a sturdy apple tree with two apples on it gleaming. I climbed it, for they tempted me. PRETTY WITCH: You want apples of a pleasing size; You've looked for them since paradise. I am thrilled with joy and pleasure, For my garden holds such treasure. MEPHISTOPHELES: Once I had a savage dream: I saw an ancient, cloven tree In which a giant hole did gleam: Big as it was, it suited me. OLD WITCH: Let me salute and welcome you; The cloven hoof shows through your shoe! A giant stopper will ensure That you can fill the aperture. (ll. 4123-43, p. 373) Operetta: Comic theater with characters singing their parts. Burlesque: Takes a serious genre and exaggerates it to make fun of it.

13. PROCTOPHANTASMIST: Shameless mob! What on earth is this? Has it not been proven long ago: Spirits do not walk on solid ground? Now you presume to dance like one of us! PRETTY WITCH: What could he be doing at our ball? FAUST: You may find him anywhere, my dear. When others dance, he's got to criticize, and if he fails to criticize a step, that step might just as well have not been taken. His chagrin grows most severe when we move forward. PROCTOPHANTASMIST: You are still here! Incredible, such insolence! Clear out! We are enlightened, don't you know? The devil's pack ignores all rules and standards. We are so smart, but still the ghosts haunt Tegel. How I have worked to clear the air of superstition! But - such insolence - the folly still clings everywhere. (ll. 4144-63, p. 375) SATIRE Rationalist believes spirits have been disproven. Intellectual criticizes rather than lives. Enlightener believes superstition and folly should no longer exist.

14. Walpurgis Night overturns the tragedy by creating a utopian alternative to the oppressive world of Christian morals that condemns Margaret. • As a space of nature, folk tradition, freedom, and fantasy, the Walpurgis Night presents an alternative to the community’s oppression. • Enlightenment rationalist does not recognize the validity of spiritual or bodily concerns. • Christian attack on witches is part of the same prejudices and fears that drive Margaret to despair.

15. FAUST. Mephisto, do you see a pale and lovely child, far away and quite alone? She is gliding slowly from her place; she appears to move with fettered feet. I must confess, it seems to me that she resembles my dear Gretchen. MEPHISTOPHELES. Leave that be! It bodes no good to anyone. It is a lifeless magic shape, an idol; it is unwise to meet it anywhere. Its rigid stare congeals the blood of men so that they nearly turn to stone. You’ve heard of the Medusa, I suppose. FAUST. Now I see a dead girl’s eyes which were never closed by loving hands. That is the breast which Gretchen yielded me, the blessed body I enjoyed. MEPHISTOPHELES. You are too gullible, you fool! It’s make-believe! To all she seems their own beloved. (4183-4200, p. 379) Faust is reminded of Gretchen. But Mephistopheles turns his attention away from her, diverting him with the Walpurgis-Night’s Dream.

16. FAUST. In prison! In irremediable misery! Given over to evil spirits and to the unfeeling who presume to dispense justice! And meanwhile you soothe me with stale, insipid diversions, hide her ever-growing anguish from me, and let her perish without help and without hope. (Gloomy Day – Field, p. 399) Faust blames Mephistopheles for distracting him from Margaret with the Walpurgis Night.

17. Walpurgis Night cannot establish its view of reality and ends up only interrupting the tragedy and distracting both Faust and the audience from Margaret’s plight. • The scene distracts Faust from Margaret’s plight. • The scene diverts the audience from the tragedy. • The scene’s alternative perspective is an aspect of Faust’s ethic of individualism.

18. The Walpurgis Night is • A utopian alternative to the oppression of the church. • A diabolical diversion from the violence against Gretchen. • None of the above.

19. What is the role of Mephistopheles? • To discourage Faust from striving. • To urge Faust to continue striving.

20. Mephistopheles threatens Faust’s goals by tempting him with empty activity. MEPHISTOPHELES (in FAUST’s gown). If once you scorn all science and all reason, the highest strength that dwells in man, and through trickery and magic arts abet the spirit of dishonesty, then I’ve got you unconditionally— then destiny endowed him with a spirit that hastens forward, unrestrained, whose fierce and overhasty drive leapfrogs headlong over earthly pleasures. I’ll drag him through the savage life, through the wasteland of mediocrity. Let him wriggle, stiffen, wade through slime, let food and drink be dangled by his lips to bait his hot, insatiate appetite. He will vainly cry for satisfaction, and had he not by then become the devil’s, he still would perish miserably. (1851-67, pp. 143-45) • Mephistopheles recognizes Faust’s preference for striving rather than pleasure. • He wants to make Faust’s activity into something meaningless and focused on sensual satisfaction.

21. Mephistopheles… … defends Faust against Valentine, who Faust kills. … provides a sleeping potion for Margaret’s mother, but then she dies. … saves Faust from prison, but Margaret is left to be executed. … provides Margaret for Faust, but she is cast into misery and death.

22. Gloomy Day – Field FAUST. Given over to evil spirits and to the unfeeling who presume to dispense justice! And meanwhile you soothe me with stale, insipid diversions, hide her ever-growing anguish from me, and let her perish without help and without hope. (p. 399) MEPHISTOPHELES. The blood-guilt by your hand still lies upon the town. Avenging spirits hover over the site of the murder, lying in wait for the returning killer. FAUST. That too from you? A world of murder and death upon your monstrous head! (pp. 401-403) Faust blames Mephistopheles for diverting him from Margaret’s suffering during the Walpurgis Night. Faust blames Mephistopheles for the murder of Valentine.

23. Mephistopheles insists that Faust made the decisions that led to violence. Gloomy Day—Field FAUST. Save her! Or else beware! The most dreadful curse on you for ages! MEPHISTOPHELES. I cannot undo the bonds of the Avenger, nor draw back the bolts.—Save her!—Who was it that plunged her into ruin? I or you?

24. Mephistopheles vs. Earth Spirit FAUST. Can you conceive what new and vital power I draw from living in the wilderness? If you could, I think you’d be devilish enough to envy me my happiness. MEPHISTOPHELES. What supernatural delight! To lie in nightly dew on mountain heights, to encompass earth and heaven in a rapture and inflate one’s being to a godlike state, to burrow to the core, inflamed by premonition, to feel six days of God’s creation in your bosom, enjoy in pride and strength I know what not what, and flooding all in loving ecstasy, the son of earth is canceled out— then comes the lofty intuition— (Makes an obscene gesture) to end in … Well, I’ll keep it to myself. (3278-92, pp. 295-97) Faust obtains a feeling of power by communing with nature. Mephistopheles pokes fun at Faust, treating his feeling of power as a conceited, self-indulgent delusion.

25. Mephistopheles tempts Faust to return to Margaret. MEPHISTOPHELES. Now she’s cheerful, but mostly she is sad, now her tears are streaming down, and then she’s calm again, it seems, and always, always loving you. FAUST. You snake! You snake! MEPHISTOPHELES (aside). Here now! So I’ve trapped you! FAUST. Get away from me, you cursed fiend, and never speak her blessed name! Lash not again my tortured senses to lust for her whom I adore. (3320-29, p. 299) In order to protect her, Faust tries to avoid going back to Margaret

26. What is the role of Mephistopheles? • Push Faust to continue striving. • Convince Faust to stop striving. • None of the above.

27. How do we judge Faust’s hesitation? FAUST. And you, what led you to this chamber? How deeply you are stirred! Your heart is heavy, and you feel so out of place. Wretched Faust! Who are you anyway? Am I moving in a magic haze? I came to seize the crassest pleasure, and now I dissolve in dreams of love! Are we the sports of every whim of the weather? And should she enter at this very moment, how you would rue your crude transgression! Then Faust would suddenly be very small and languish helpless at her feet. MEPPHISTOPHELES (entering). Quick, my friend! I see her coming down below. FAUST. Away from here, and never to return! (2717-2730, p. 235) Are Faust’s misgivings a sign of morality or of weakness? Faust seems to emphasize not just his guilt, but also his fear of weakness.

28. MEPHISTOPHELES. But come. Why all this fussing? You’re going to your sweetheart’s chamber and not at all to death and doom. FAUST. When in her arms, I need no joys of Heaven. The warmth I seek is burning in her breast. Do I not every moment feel her woe? Am I not the fugitive, the homeless roamer, an aimless, rootless, monstrous creature, roaring like a cataract from crag to crag, madly racing for the final precipice? And she along the banks with childlike, simple sense, there in her cabin on an alpine meadow, with all the homey enterprises encompassed by her tiny world. And I whom God abhors, I was not satisfied to seize the rocks, and crush them into pieces. It was her life, her peace I had to ruin. You, Satan, claimed this sacrifice! Help, Satan, help abridge the time of fear! What has to happen, let it happen now! Let her fate come crashing down on mine, let us both embrace perdition! (3345-65, pp. 301-303) Faust despairs because he knows that he is in continual movement… …and Margaret is someone in stasis. He blames himself for ruining her peace… …but chooses to continue on his path in spite of the destruction it will cause.

29. Goethe’s Faust I is: • A comedy that affirms the values of the Walpurgis night. • A tragedy because Margaret dies to affirm Christian values. • A tragedy because Christian values create so much suffering for Margaret. • A tragedy because Faust must continue to strive in spite of the violence he causes. • None of the above.

30. 19th century reactions condemned Goethe’s Faust for its anti-Christian tendencies. from Joseph von Eichendorff’s History of German Literature (1857) „...Goethe summed up the idea of humanity, not just as the cultivation of a sense of beauty through art, but the harmonious development of all human powers and capacities through life itself. He does not at all want to „follow an ideal“ but to allow his feelings to develop into capacities through struggle and play. [...] Clearly such an absolute focus on natural development makes all positive religion impossible, or at the very least superfluous (1052-53). Eichendorff sees Goethe’s Faust as central to the development of an individualist, humanist ethic. But this new ethic undermines religion. Eichendorff, Joseph von. Werke in sechs Bänden. Ed. Wolfgang Frühwald, Brigitte Schillbach and Hartwig Schultz. Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1985-1993.

31. Beginning with German unification in 1871, critics began to see Faust as a model for German identity. Gustav von Loeper (1871) Loeper describes Faust’s guilt as part of his “greatness.” „Faust‘s true guilt and at the same time his true greatness lies in the struggle against the limits of human nature“ (XIV). Kuno Fischer (1878) „Faust‘s pleasure lies in the fruit of his labor, the view upon the great and blessed sphere of influence that he has created and upon the land that he has wrung from the elements, settled, and transformed into a human world and into an arena for striving generations after his own image“ (3:55-56, emphasis in original). Fischer sees Faust’s ideal of striving as the basis of activity for future generations. Loeper, Gustav. Goethes Sämtliche Werke. Vol. 13. Ed. Gustav von Loeper. Berlin: Hempel, 1871. Fischer, Kuno. Goethe’s Faust. Ueber die Entstehung und Composition des Gedichts. Stuttgart: Cotta, 1878. Cited in Karl Robert Mandelkow, Goethe im Urteil seiner Kritiker : Dokumente zur Wirkungsgeschichte Goethes in Deutschland. 4 vols. Munich: Beck, 1989.

32. The individualist ethic of Goethe’s Faust reaches the peak of its influence amongst established Goethe scholars in the Nazi period. Hermann August Korff Professor, University of Leipzig (1925-1954) Visiting Professor, Harvard University (1934) Visiting Professor, Columbia University (1938) “The contrast between good and evil is not thereby dissolved. Faust feels deeply what in an elementary sense is good and what is evil. But though he always participates in the two as he participates in the play of pleasure and pain, elementary morality does not have final power over him. It becomes a preserved moment within a more total ideal that has a hyper-moral character because morality is only one value next to other values and is no longer the highest value.” “For that which is placed above morality is the personality, whose fulfillment is the true goal of such a life.” “Great personalities consume the smaller ones. That is the law of nature. And their unethical behavior only consists in the way in which they must obey their natural law without allowing themselves to be hindered by their still existing moral affects.” (161-63) Morality is subordinated to the personality of the individual. What seems unethical is actually the individual’s adherence to a natural law without allowing moral feelings to get in the way. Korff, Hermann August. Faustischer Glaube: Versuch über das Problem humaner Lebenshaltung. Leipzig: J. J. Weber, 1938. My translation.

33. Nazi Goethe critics repeated the arguments of scholars like Korff. “Faust is the ingenious man who cannot be content with having and possessing either material or spiritual possessions. In this man there lives a drive to become a genius of the world and of the deed. The paltry contentment and the merely pleasurable that are the essence of the philistine are foreign to him, at least to the truly Faustian man. […] Yet, we must express this more clearly and more powerfully: here in the Faustian man there lives a passionate will that surges from the primal depths and does not shy away from any means of fulfilling the numerous tasks with which life confronts him – even to the point of allying himself with the devil!” (12). Schott promotes a focus on the world and deed. Schott refers to the Faustian man as someone who should not shy away from devilish means for fulfilling his goals. Schott, Georg. Goethes Faust in heutiger Schau. Stuttgart: Tazzelwurm Verlag, 1940. My translation.