FAUST: MAN,
MYTH, OR LEGEND?
The
central theme of the Faust legend – a
man selling his soul to the Devil – is known to most people. Faust
as a symbol of the human condition, of human emancipation and revolt against
manfs limitations, is also a familiar figure. But who knows about the genesis of this
tale? Who is aware of the facts
which transformed yet another 16th C. itinerant astrologer and a
work which was, basically, Protestant propaganda, into the most potent and
enduring myth of the Western World in the second half of our millennium?
The
very fact that Faust has become such
a powerful myth suggests that we know extremely little about the actual man,
and this is indeed the case. He may
have been born in Kneitlingen c.1480. He may have died c. 1540. He could have been expelled from several
cities for unseemly conduct involving children. He wandered a great deal, and he may
have fled a great deal as well. We
do, however, know that he was a man of his time – an expansive, revolutionary
age which witnessed several peasantsf revolts, the exploration and exploitation
of new worlds, and the Reformation.
And he certainly made an impression on his
contemporaries.
After
his death, oral tradition idealised him, while written tradition characterised
him as the Devilfs associate. For,
unlike the clerics and the intellectuals, he was a man of the people; and this
earned him the hatred of the Catholic and the loathing of the Protestant
Churches. Anecdotes of his magical
tricks were first written down in the late 1560s; then, in 1587, appeared the Historia von D. Johann Fausten. In this work, Faust sells his soul to
the Devil for 24 years of gratification; his ambition is to strive after
knowledge for knowledgefs sake and wallow in sensual pleasures. His pact, as a means of fulfilling his
desire, is the fruit, not the root, of his sin.
The
So
in what ways is the Historia von D. Johann Fausten a Protestant
work? First of all, it was printed
in Frankfurt, a strongly Lutheran city, by Johannes Spies, a prominent printer
of Lutheran religious books; and the action largely occurs in
This
eHistoryf is a didactic tale, for the Reformation was strongly suspicious of
the prose narrative – especially prose fiction. This age gave rise to the Teufelsbuch genre, which was particularly prevalent from c.
1550 to the 1580s. Tales which had originally been humorous, concentrating on the
cardinal sin of folly, and depicting the Devil as a comic trickster who could
be outwitted by even a simple peasant, now assumed a darker tone as they
shifted their focus to the threat of Hell and eternal damnation. The Historia von D. Johann Fausten owes much to this genre, but also marks a
significant departure from it; whereas the earlier tales concentrated on the
event, the actual pact itself, this history centres around
the character who makes the pact.
This emphasis is of vital importance for the further development of the
legend. The Devil as comic
trickster is still apparent in Fausten – Faust believes that he has been shown Hell, when
the visit was merely an illusion – but there are also elements of the Lutheran
Devil in the echaracterf of Mephistopheles, who resembles the Satan of
tradition in many respects with the significant difference that he uses the
Papacy to achieve his ends. The
Pope is described as the Antichrist; allusion is made to the Catholic Charles
Vfs interest in black magic; Mephistopheles first appears in the garb of a
Franciscan Monk; and so on.
Yet the most important example of the Protestant nature of this
work – indeed, the central theme – concerns Faust and the issue of Salvation. Although he has made a pact with the
Devil, he will not be damned if he can only have faith; if he trusts in Godfs
mercy and believes that he can be forgiven, he will be saved. Repentance and good deeds are to no
avail if he does not truly believe.
He does not have to pray, and he does not need anyone – neither priest,
saint, Jesus nor the Virgin Mary – to intercede with God on his behalf. Everything depends on him.
But
Faust does not repent; he is afraid of Satanic
punishment. Therefore he is denying
Godfs omnipotence; he does not believe that God would be able or willing to
protect him; he has no faith.
Therefore he must and will be punished. Finally, after giving a group of
students in an inn an admonitory address (donft do what I did, etc.), his term
of gratification expires, Mephistopheles arrives, and Faust meets what the
author regards as a well-deserved end; his brains are discovered smattered
around the walls of his room and his body is found outside on a dung-heap. Nor is there any doubt as to the
destination of his soul; Hell and the Devil were tangible realities to 16th
C. man. Even as great a thinker as
Luther believed in the personification and the physical manifestation of evil.
Stylistically,
the Historia von D. Johann Fausten is very raw
and in nowise to be considered a work of art. It gives the impression of various
episodes being cobbled together, and large sections are copied word for word
from various sources, as was the common usage at that time. Halfway through the text, the narrative
stream ceases its rough flow and a number of anecdotes about Faust playing
tricks on peasants is inserted. These are parodies of similar episodes
which appeared in mediaeval lives of saints; the incidents are told in the same
style, yet the miracles Faust is performing do not have the noble and godly aim
of healing the sick. For those who
have not read the work, the following analogy may be of use: imagine that you
are watching a modern film of this story, with sound and colour, when suddenly
and abruptly the colour fades into grainy black-and-white, the sound is
replaced by jaunty, crackly piano-music in the
background, and the characters begin to move in a rapid, jerky and exaggerated
manner. After some five minutes or
so, the film returns to normal. Marlowe included this section in his wonderful play, a
decision which has come under heavy criticism over the years; but although this
group of anecdotes seem dated, and appear to reduce Faust to the status of
Elizabethan clown, we must remember its parodic
purpose.
There
is also the fault – at least what we nowadays would regard as a fault – of
didacticism. Mephistopheles is a
cardboard creation who, when asked questions whose answers lie beyond human
knowledge, gives conventional responses which Faust could easily have found by
legitimate means. And can you
really imagine the Devil telling a man, in all seriousness, to follow and
honour God?
Nor
did the narrator check his facts like the modern article-writer. He states that Geneva had a bishop, and
this was certainly true in 1493, the date of his source. However, anyone to whom mention of the
name Calvin will ring a faint bell will know that this certainly was not the
case in 1587.
Yet
is must be said that, despite the faults of Fausten, this is an immensely
powerful work. It may be as jerky
in its movements as a cheap puppet, but it contains the same potential for
horror, the same ability to fascinate and make a lasting impression. Once it was stripped of the regressive
Lutheranism, which regarded scientific investigation and its results as being
necessarily opposed to theology and therefore to God, it presented great
possibilities for improvement – and Marlowe was
intelligent enough to realise its potential. By emphasising Faustfs quest for
knowledge, he gave the tale its future direction; by contrast, later German
versions of the history (in 1599 and 1674) placed more stress on Faustfs loose
living than on his curiosity. Here
was the perfect character for the playwright whose great hero-villains are
encapsulated in the line: gThat like I best that flies beyond my reach.h
And
Marlowe not only recognised the greatness in Faustfs
character: he duly realised it, most notably in his opening and final
soliloquies. The author of the Historia had sown
the seeds of greatness by providing Faust with a temporal background, through
the invention of his childhood and academic career in a cursory concession to
realism. Yet it was Marlowe, in his The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus
of 1588, who first evoked compassion for Faustfs fate; although he sent the
eponymous hero to Hell, this is no merely didactic work; how can we not admire
and empathise with a character who delivers such magnificent speeches? Moreover, the play is a tragedy. Faust is no longer a warning, an
example; he has become a representative, an individual searching for his
relation to his Creator and the rest of creation, an individual in isolation
whose evil hurts only himself.
The
chain of development leads from Marlowe to Goethe (Faust Part I,
1808; Part II, 1832). Indeed, the importance of Marlowefs great play cannot be stressed too strongly, for
the original Historiafs
popularity lasted only for about a decade; thereafter, the story was relegated
to the status of puppet-play in Germany.
Goethefs version, the greatest, although not
the definitive (to use this term of any rendering would be to misunderstand the
nature of the legend) gives us further evidence of the sheer flexibility and
adaptability of the Faust material.
It concentrates less on damnation – for Faust cannot be damned; as long
as he strives, he is saved, and as long as he lives he must strive, for it is
in his nature to do so – than on manfs relationship with the world around him. It is worth mentioning that the first
author to save Faust was Weidmann in 1775, but Goethefs Faust
was no mere product of the Enlightenment, as has been claimed; the faith in
manfs rational faculties, so central to this movement, is ridiculed in the
character of Wagner, the narrow-minded pedant. Faust is a modern, self-conscious,
post-Christian man, embarking on a quest for happiness, for fulfilment, a quest
he can never achieve, for the only happiness open to him is that provided by
the act of questing. He is not
searching for knowledge, for his learning has encompassed all that a man of his
time could know; it is practical experience of life that he desires. Faust cannot overreach; he can only underperform.
Not only is his character developed to a rare complexity, but
Mephistopheles is rendered much more convincing – and much more human. He seems less like a Devil and more like
a cynical companion who speaks many unwelcome home truths; for Goethe viewed evil not as the opposite of good, but as its
other side. It is now Mephistopheles
who is doomed from the beginning; he may gain many small victories, but the
ultimate victory shall belong to Faust – to man. And by a bitter irony, the Devil himself
will help Faust to attain that triumph.
There
is tragedy amidst the triumph, however.
It does not occur at the end, but takes place throughout, for striving
is essentially tragic; it is in the nature of growth to cause pain. And this poem is the drama of the
evolution of the human soul; lacking the restrictions of unity, it represents growth
in its form as well as its content.
It also represents the evolution of a human mind – Goethefs
– over a lifetime. This must be the
most optimistic tragedy of all time; man may be limited, but how vast are those
boundaries! Human experience appears
as narrow and repetitive only when observed from the perspective of the whole
race; when viewed through the eyes of the individual, the spectrum is
breathtaking in its range.
The
universal appeal of Faust is reflected in the number of versions of the theme
by authors of different nationalities: Valéry in
France, Lunacharsky in Russia, Byron in England (Manfred), and Ibsen
in Norway (Peer Gynt). But the fact remains that the Faust
legend is essentially a German legend: hence Klinger
(1791), Chamisso (1804), Lenau
(1836), Heine (1847) and Mann (1949) have all essayed
their personal interpretations. He
is probably the nearest equivalent to Robin Hood or King Arthur that Germany
has. And, personally speaking, I
find his Germanness to be one of the most attractive
aspects of the myth; for that reason I greatly enjoy Faust Part I and the Urfaust (even if they are little more than a love-story) but
can only feel a cold, qualified admiration for Faust Part II. I do not
desire the fusion of the Northern and the Classical Worlds; I like them as they
are. They can occasionally be
united with brilliant effect, as the magnificent poet Hölderlin
proved; ironically, but not untypically, Goethe was incapable of recognising his genius.
But
to return to our eherof. What
legacy has he left to the 20th century? He has given us the moral dilemma of the
scientist, an issue at no time more relevant than the period after Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. The insistence of Goethefs Faust on action, on the need for each generation
to develop inherited traditions is as relevant as ever – especially for those
more conservative lands. So is his
turning away from the sun towards the rainbow – that is, ceasing to search for
the divine light and contenting himself with regarding its reflection in
nature. And the prevailing theme of
the freedom – and the loneliness – of the human mind is timeless.
The
relations to God and the Devil mean nothing in a largely irreligious age; it is
entirely appropriate that this centuryfs great version of the legend, Thomas
Mannfs Dr. Faustus,
should treat culture as its central theme.
Indeed, the Faust legend is in the enviable – possibly unique – position
of having been shaped by three great authors, in the languages of dramatic
verse, poetry and prose. For this,
we have to thank the original author, who unwittingly left the framework for
others to build on as they pleased.
By not having been defined at the outset, Faust is not limited; he
retains the vagueness of a myth, that same vagueness which enables a figure
like the Wild Man to develop from a bogey figure into the noble savage. Faust is probably the most effective
literary example of the isolated individual and the most powerful expression of
the human condition with regard to man as an individual; whereas we cannot help
thinking of Hamlet the Son or Lear the Father, Faust is on his own – a small
man in an immeasurable, incomprehensible universe, apart from society,
incompatible with his lover, searching for his Creator. But he is also a giant: a symbol of the
mythical potential of man. He is as
ambitious as Icarus, as restless as the Wandering
Jew, as mysterious as the Holy Grail.
Blake claims, when writing on the Canterbury Pilgrims, that human nature
does not change; anyone who has been introduced to the various metamorphoses of
Faust, or who considers belief to be the major factor in formation of
character, may doubt this. Or are
we discovering aspects of our nature which have always existed but had never
previously been evident? I do not
think so. Hamlet and Don Quixote
are for all time; Faust is for any time.
What
of the Fausts of our age? There are numerous trite, eminently
forgetful adaptations, focusing on petty, materialistic concerns. This legend has covered the greatest
themes of all – man in relation to his world and the universe, salvation, the
priorities of life – and awaits the pen of another great author to install
fresh life into it, if anyone should be brave, wise or foolhardy enough to pick
up the strings and play God to this extraordinary puppet. What direction can it now take? Will someone turn from the mythical
towards the actual historical figure?