Faust

Just finished faust 1&2. What's your personal favorite quotation and what's your interpretation of Faust 2? Also, did Faust win the bet?

Guys? Anyone?

Most people here only reads vapid shit like IJ, Pynchon and Bolaño, user. Sorry.

ehr, I might get to it, I was intrigued when I skimmed through the first pages once when wasting some time at the Uni library

I wouldn't consider those things vapid. They've just been the center of too many circlejerks. Also, surely there are other gerfags browsing Veeky Forums, faust is pretty much one of the most important german tragedies out there. A few people here must have read it.

The orthodox interpretation of Faust 2 is of course human striving.

For background, Goethe wrote Faust over the course of his entire career - Faust 1 was largely done when he was 20 something, whereas Faust 2 was his last work, an old man at the verge of death. The drastic difference and shift in style is understandable, and I personally like to view Faust as tracing the entirety of Goethe's career and evolution of his views.

In Faust 2, Goethe transforms the drama of an individual - Faust - into the toil of an entire culture. He viewed German culture of the time as the greatest the world has known since the Greeks, and he sought to synthesize the two. Faust becomes not just a lone scholar who makes a deal with the devil, but an abstraction of the German - and indeed human - soul.

The interlude with the Homunculus can, I think, be read as Goethe expressing doubt that humanity is ready, in a sense, to ascend to a heightened level of culture and new form of existence that perfectly encompasses and synthesizes all that came before.

Human striving - both of the individual and of an entire society - is the way to go. Faust was always destined to be saved because God willed it so. Your question is interesting: "Did Faust win the bet?" considering Faust made no bet with Mephistopheles. He simply made a deal that states Mephistopheles will serve him until he becomes, well, content and complacent - and will give up the human striving that makes up the core of his being. It is the Lord who makes the original bet with Mephistopheles, and it is always known that God would win. It's interesting to note that while God proclaims "man must err while he strives," (not an exact translation) he also proclaims something to the effect of "even in his darkest hour man knows what is right and wrong." Such, though the "erring" that accompanies "striving" is inevitable, it is also acceptable, given the human soul's is constantly pulled upwards towards righteousness, which leads to the final image of Faust's soul ascending to heaven.

> Your question is interesting: "Did Faust win the bet?" considering Faust made no bet with Mephistopheles.

He made a bet.

> He simply made a deal that states Mephistopheles will serve him until he becomes, well, content and complacent - and will give up the human striving that makes up the core of his being

The bet was that if Faust, through Mephisto, becomes content he'll drop dead instantly.

> He viewed German culture of the time as the greatest the world has known since the Greeks, and he sought to synthesize the two.

I'd say it's more about the rediscovering of the greek beauty ideal through the renaissance since Faust himself is the personification of the later. This especially seems true to me because Faust meets Helena in a medieval setting, the time period before the renaissance.

> Human striving - both of the individual and of an entire society

Also I don't think it's only about human striving. There seems to be, among other things, critic towards capitalism. I'm talking about the emperor who ends up, through the acting of Mephistopheles, with too much money which undermines his rulership.

>The bet was that if Faust, through Mephisto, becomes content he'll drop dead instantly.

Oh and after that he'll also have to serve Mephisto.

I've only read Part 1, but I thought that was a bit of a trainwreck personally. Perhaps the translation (David Luke) obviously didn't do it justice (awkward rhyming couplets), but structurally the whole thing really shows that Goethe composed the whole thing over a 30-40 year period.

Faust doesn't really seem to have a character (he's overshadowed by Mephistopholes, who is wonderful) and the whole Gretchen story doesn't fit in at all with the bet. And then you have the mixing of high and low which came off as jarring to me (unlike, say, in Shakespeare, who I suppose is the inspiration).

"And here I am, about as wise today, poor fool, as I ever was...I know that it's nothing good I know, I know what I teach won't mend the minds and manners of humankind...so I have given myself to necromancy, to hear the mouths of ghosts disclose in power some of their mysteries..."