Goethe's Deities of Vengeance

Although I had trouble placing some of this week’s readings within the overall narrative, I did think that many scenes had funny little segments and words of wisdom.
The “A Great Hall” scene in Act I of Faust II is described by the characters within it as an allegory and a pageant. One of the groups of allegorical figures is the Furies. The Furies are beautiful, but the Herald character, who introduces them, warns us that we shouldn’t assume they are pleasant, and not to forget “how doves like these can wound with serpent’s tongues.” (Line 5353)



The Furies then describe first-hand how they can damage lives and ruin relationships. I found Tisiphone’s lines amusing. She describes how she punishes the unfaithful – by giving them STDs.

Instead of using slander, I mix poison
sharpen steel, for faithless lovers!
late or soon, if you love others,
you’ll suffer in a vital organ. (Lines 5381 - 5384)

Faust (Manga Adaptation of Goethe's Faust)

Based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's closet play Faust, Osamu Tezuka came up with his own version of the classic German story.

In the manga, Mephisto is a proud, confident devil who is causing all kinds of havoc and violence in the world. One of his most sinister acts is sending angels to fall to Earth, making them fallen angels. Witnessing this, God grants new life to the fallen angel as she is reborn as Princess Margaret, daughter of the King: Charles V. God then confronts Mephisto and bets him that he can not take the soul of Heinrich Faust, God's favorite human at the time, to Hell. Sure of his ability, Mephisto agrees to God's wager and heads down to Earth to get Faust away from righteous pursuits so that he can take his soul.

On Earth, Faust has hit a roadblock in his studies. He believes that no matter how hard he studies, he won't be able to reach his goals. Before him, Mephisto appears as a black furred, white eared and tailed poodle. Turning into a kind of anthropomorphic animal, he offers to grant Faust's every desire. Faust signs a contract with Mephisto, agreeing that Mephisto can have his soul if Mephisto can satisfy everything that Faust desires.

The rest of the manga details Faust's journeys to win the love of Margaret, meet the demands of the King in finding the beautiful Goddess Helen, and blends Faust Part One and Faust Part Two together.

When creating this manga, Osamu Tezuka applied a cartoony style of Caricature to Goethe's Masterpiece. He did this with the intent of helping manga become an important medium in Japanese culture. It allowed serious subject matter to be portrayed in a style that would normally be reserved for more light-hearted material.

Pretty interesting, huh?

On the Origin of the Gretchen-Theme in "Faust"

Title: On the Origin of the Gretchen-Theme in "Faust"
Author(s): Albert B. Faust
Source: Modern Philology, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Nov., 1922), pp. 181-188
Publisher(s): The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/433280

Albert Faust (so coincidentally named) analyzes the story of Goethe’s love for Friederike and compares this to the story of Gretchen, the Kindesmörderin. Friederike Brion was well-known as a kind and gentle mother-like character among her neighbors and those who knew her. She never married, which Faust attributes to either her delicate health in younger years or her caretaking of her parents. She is said to have had a pulmonary condition just as Goethe did as a child. Friederike had been seduced by a Catholic priest and was with child by him, which had deterred Goethe from marrying her. However, Friederike and her sisters always spoke well of Goethe, and her gentleness and benevolence, as well as Goethe’s confession of love for her and regret for never marrying her help to rule her out as the source of Gretchen’s tale.

The more likely candidate, however, is found in a tale separate from Goethe—Maria Flint, a young girl with a Swedish lover who left her. Her parents died before the child was born, according to Faus, from the grief at the loss of the family honor. Thus Maria was subject to the jurisdiction of the town for having an illegitimate child, and she killed her child at the risk of even greater punishment. She was thrown into prison and was set free by Lieutenant Johann Dycke of the Husars, who plotted a plan to release her in the night. She fled but returned some months later, saying she could not go anywhere without fear, and so they threw her in jail again with stronger securement and was killed just at Goethe described. Faust concludes, as Boenigk describes in the essay Faust cites, that Goethe must have heard this story while he was studying in Leipzig.

Faust also looks at one of the hot topics of the time: infanticide. Women at the time were expected to remain virgins until marriage, but it often happened that they would be seduced by a lover of sorts and left with a child. Fearful of the consequences of having an illegitimate child, women sometimes killed their children in the hope that no one would know and thus they would have no consequences. Any woman who killed her child was to be punished heavily by the town, and this was a prominent issue for the people of the 18th century. As abortion is in modern day, infanticide was often a topic that would result in more energy being spent on condemning the woman than helping her. Thus the theme of infanticide, in coincidence with the story of Maria Flint, was on the mind of Goethe in around 1770-1775, when the Gretchen theme was created.

Faust concludes that Friederike is most definitely not the source of Goethe's Gretchen and that Maria is a more likely candidate, but also that neither is fully responsible for the creation of Gretchen. Rather, the story is embedded much more deeply in the themes of the time period and should be examined within this context rather than just in the lives of those Goethe knew. I feel that Margarete is a manifestation of the various love interests of Goethe's life-- perhaps based more on one than another, but who can say which that is?-- in conjunction with the story of Maria Flint and the infanticide theme. Interestingly, Maria is the Italian equivalent to the name "Margarete," although Faust also makes note that Johann, Faust's German name, falls next to Margarete on the calendar.

Women in Faust

In our class on Sept. 23rd, we discussed the role of women in Goethe's Faust-- in particular, the role of Margarete as a character, but also the presence of other women.

In Goethe's Faust, women are present, but they are not really given characters of their own. For the most part, they are the subject of folly or present only in the background as objects of love and tryst.

The first important "woman" (if you want to call her a woman) is the witch who makes Faust young again. It is no accident that this character is female-- the witch represents magic and superstition, which are irrational things. At this point in time (and, perhaps, still today...), women were often considered to be irrational creatures. This is paralleled by Faust, the man, who represents science and knowledge, i.e. the rational, therefore depicting men as reasonable and logical beings in opposition of the irrational feminine.

In all the text that we have read, we never hear about Faust's mother. This is to say that Faust, having no female associates, represents the pure masculine. Margarete, therefore, being pure and innocent at the time that she meets Faust, represents pure femininity and the expectations of a pure woman at the time. In a fairy tale, the convergence of these two characters would end in completion, but Faust isn't quite the fairy tale prince she's been looking for. Goethe also depicts women as the preservers of moral values (think of Margarete when Goethe first meets her) that can be corrupted by men (as Faust) but still may be redeemed (as Margarete was at the very end of Faust I).

There is also this theme of "das Ewig-weibliche," the eternal feminine. The last line of Goethe's Faust reads: 'Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan,' the eternal feminine draws on us. This represents the power of women to inspire and spiritualize mankind, indicating that women are, throughout, an underlying power that can captivate man and direct or mislead according to their whim.

On a fun side note, there is a real woman named Helen Margarete Faust.

Goethe-Schiller Correspondence Online

Here's a Swiss news account about the digitalization of the Goethe-Schiller correspondence, which is one of the great collections of letters in Western history.

Here's the entry to the Goethe and Schiller Archives of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar. If you click on the "Digitalisate" link, you'll get to PDFs of the actual letters written--in old fashioned script. I'm pretty sure none of us will be able to read them easily, but take a look anyway!

Faustian Poetry

I wanted to look for other Faustian Poetry, and found this link:

http://metal-archives.com/release.php?id=111375

Any reactions?

Preview to my Presentation:

I will be speaking about two people who have significantly contributed to German culture in the 20th century.

They are:

Paul Celan: One of the most famous Holocaust Poets. I will be reading his poem "Todesfuge" in class.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/316

and

Anselm Kiefer: A modern Artists who has done some very beautiful, yet very controversial work.

Some samples of his work:http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kiefer/

Some information about his work and his personality:

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kiefer.html

I will go into detail about them in class. They are both very talented and interesting people.

Faust cartoon

hahaha, I loved that one:

German Faust on youtube

I was checking youtube for some German Faust-clips tonight and I actually found some really good stuff.

- This clip might be intersting especially for the German students who have to read the Gretchen/Margret part.
--> It is an interpretation of Franz Schubert's "Gretchen am Spinnrade" by Karita Mattila - this way you also learn about German classical music ;-)
if you have read Gretchen's line "Meine Ruh' ist hin, Mein Herz ist schwer, ich find sie nimmer und nimmer mehr" - you might recognize the words and even enjoy it :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g9n3V6aPCQ



- Also for the German students - or those of you who wanna see what the Germans did with Faust's soliloquy at the very beginning.
--> Tobias Mann, a German comedian doing a "Faust rap" :-) it's really funny even if you don't speak German ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0yTtzGmHro&feature=related


- This is also for those of you who speak German:
--> Comedian Hubert Burghardt does Faust in 5 minutes - it is hillllllaaarious :D he is talking rather fast but because you know the story - maybe you get the hang of it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6NywGKS6EQ


- And one more...
Done by Michael Quast and Philipp Mosetter (sophisticated German actors and cabaret artists): Gretchen's Blues
(basically it is their interpretation of Gretchen's soliloquy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s69dIGsBeqA&feature=related

Bedazzled

Someone mentioned the movie Bedazzled in class already, but I think it's worthy of a blog post too.



The movie has a typical Faustian plotline. Elliot - played by Brendan Fraser - is offered seven wishes by Satan (Elizabeth Hurley in a very interesting take on the Mephisto character) in exchange for his soul. He agrees, has a whole lot of (mis)adventures, and, at the end gives up his final wish in a selfless act. In doing so, he voids his contract and is redeemed. (This has some similarities to Goethe's version of Faust, since the Faust character is redeemed).

I've attached a link for the trailer, which you can find here.

For Classical Music Lovers

As we shall see, there are many many many versions of the Faust story in classical music. One of them is Mahler's Eighth Symphony, "The Symphony of a Thousand," which is based on the conclusion of Goethe's Faust, when Faust goes to heaven. Here's an NPR story on it, including a link to the part where they sing, "Gerettet ist das edle Glied," which translates directly as "the noble member is saved."

Daisies and Lillies

I found a few interesting quotes...

Lines 3183-3185

Margarete
Loves me - not - loves me - not
(Elated she picks the last petal)
He loves me!

I thought it was interesting that a game from our childhood dates this far back and can be found in Faust.

Lines 3336-3337

Mephistopheles
That's good my friend! I've often envied you
the twins that feed among the lilies.

I have no idea what these lines mean, but they jumped out at me :) It's during the conversation when Mephistopheles and Faust are in the cave.

Faust Class 9-16-10

This week’s discussion of Goethe’s Faust began with some background on Goethe himself. Faust was a long-term work of literature, but he also dabbled in different classes of literature such as Sturm and Drang (Storm and Stress), Classicism, and Romanticism. There were also various versions of Goethe’s Faust, which eventually led to the Faust we have read. Although Goethe wrote Faust in the 1700s, the story took place in the 1500. Many of the questions that Faust faces in Goethe’s play can be examined during not only these time periods, but also present day.

In Ingrid’s Shafer’s article “Faust Reflected in the Multiple Mirrors of the Christian Spectrum: Science as Diabolic or Divine” she examines a lot of the history of Goethe’s Faust, along with background on the entire Faust legend and religious views of the time. A lot of her article focuses on choices and forgiveness. She notes how some people believe that there is nothing a person can do that God will not forgive, mostly because they believe that God gave man free will. This follows Goethe’s Faust well, seeing as God oversees Faust’s predicament. Shafer also lists various examples of legends of people that also supposedly made pacts with the Devil, all arriving in Heaven forgiven in the end.

Another thing focused on in the article is the quest for knowledge. As we discussed, in Goethe’s Faust the Doctor is fed up with the limited knowledge he can learn on Earth without the help of the paranormal. People really had to contemplate whether Faust was making a good choice seeking help from the Devil to achieve higher standards and whether striving was something God would approve of.

Etwas Schön Für Euch

Ach Gott! die Kunst ist lang,

und kurz ist unser Leben

Alas, that art is long

and human life so short!

-Goethe, Faust I, 558-559

Does anyone else have any favorite quotations to share from the reading tonight?

The Devil Went Down to Georgia!

I know every word to this song...it's crazy! My most favorite country song of the 90's. It's an absolute contract between mortal and devil... COUNTRY STYLE, BABY!

Here's the song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6uADPVzXFU Listen to the lyrics carefully! Enjoy!

~Seven Deadly Sins of Fashion~

Here is a link to a snapshot (haha, pun) of America's Next Top Model episode featuring the Seven Deadly sins... I couldn't actually find the episode online :(

FAUST MOVIE

So this movie is not directly about Faust but it certainly has some great themes in it. The movie "Click" starting Adam Sandler is an extremely enjoyable movie. The protagonist Michael Newman (played by Adam Sandler) is displeased with his life. He wants to provide a nice life for his wife and kids; however, he must sacrifice a lot of his time with them to work. One night, he goes to buy a universal remote control at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Michael falls asleep on one of the beds and is woken by a clerk named Morty who strikes a deal with him. Morty gives Michael a universal remote, the only condition being that Michael cannot return it.

At first Michael is overjoyed upon realizing that the remote control can control everything in his life, ie fast-forwarding fights, allowing him to pause events, etc. However, things soon begin to go wrong as the remote takes over his life because it has programed himself.

I won't ruin the entire movie but I will say that there is conflict resolution at the end. Michael is like Faust, letting desire overwhelm him to the point where he makes great sacrifices. They are both so consumed by what they want, that they initially don't see what they have given up until the very end. Unlike Faust, Michael ultimately achieves salvation. I love the fact that Faustien themes can be found in modern movies and would highly recommend this movie.

For this week/ Diese Woche

Duetsche Studentinnen:

-Lesen wir dem Buch auf English.

-Lesen wir auf Goethe's orgional Buch. (auf Deutsch, Natuerlisch!) Drei Stueckchen.

English Students: Just read up to page 66.

Alles klar, Herr T?

This week's class: September 9, 2010

In this week's class we examined Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. We began with a discussion of the nature of Faustus's relationship with Mephastophilis wherein we noted several passages from the text. Faustus we could tell was not an evil person by any means (at least in the context of Marlowe's rendition of him). Indeed, he mentions in act two, scene three the various miraculous acts that he could perform for humanity as legitimizing his damnation:

My heart's so hardened I cannot repent.
Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven,
But fearful echoes thunder in mine ears:
"Faustus, thou art damned!" Then swords and knives,
Are laid before me to dispatch myself;
And long ere this I should have slain myself,
Had not sweet pleasure conquered deep despair.
Have not I made blind Homer sing to me
Of Alexander's love and Oenon's death?
And hath not he that built the walls of Thebes
With ravishing sound of his melodious harp
Made music with my Mephastophilis?
Why should I die then, or basely despair?
I am resolved: Faustus shall ne'er repent.
Come, Mephastophilis, let us dispute again
And argue of divine astrology. (II.iii 31)

To this end, we discussed how, exactly, Faustus fell into his unique predicament considering his (albeit vague) sense of humanity. Why does Faustus, an educated (by sixteenth century standards) and observant "scientist" (also by sixteenth century standards) never repent?

To answer this question we then segued into my presentation of William M. Hamlin's article "Casting Doubt in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus" wherein Faustus is described as a "skeptical" man in line with the sense of "Pyrrhonian Skepticism", a popular stance on the philosophy of skepticism during the early modern era of Western European intellectual circles. Hamlin points out that both ancient and modern notions of skepticism can be utilized rhetorically to argue either for or against Catholic dogma, Marlowe leaning more toward a critique of the former sense in Doctor Faustus. As a significant point of satire in Doctor Faustus, Hamlin proceeds to describe Marlowe’s play as exemplifying a turning point in western philosophy in that its themes recognize the relationship desire has with skepticism. Faustus is never satisfied: while his rejection of Heaven and disdain for the inability of Catholic dogma guides him to the fruit of his labors, Faustus’s concentration on worldly abilities eventually brings him to the epiphany that he lives in misery and awaits damnation regardless. Insofar as his capacity to doubt what is true or false remains constant throughout the play, the perpetual tug of war that exists for skeptics between conflicting philosophical inquiries continually reoccurs (as symbolized, according to Hamlin, by the Good and Evil Angles). Earth, or that which is below Heaven, is hence metaphorically equivalent to Hell. Faustus’s disbelief in dogma only favors the Devil’s damned power. Thus Marlowe ironically uses Catholic dogmatism to uncover a bias in his philosophical contemporaries’ tendencies toward favoring dogma as an argumentative neutral zone in accordance with early modern interpretations of ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism (Hamlin specifically cites Michel de Montaigne’s stance). Faustus was condemned to Hell ultimately because he was quick to reject his faith in pursuit of the tangible and logical, and vice versa. Instead of maintaining objectivism on the matter of God and Heaven’s physical manifestation (and by extension the relevance of both to him), Faustus fails to suspend judgment whenever he is threatened or tempted by Satan.

Though Hamlin makes a compelling argument of this matter, his essay is nevertheless lacking in its analysis of Doctor Faustus as a quintessential sociopolitical satire. Hamlin concentrates more on analyzing Marlowe’s play as a philosophical critique of the broad misinterpretations of classical skepticism that were more or less rampant in early modern theological studies. While he implies that Marlowe’s narrative rhetoric did make implications about the fallacy of Roman authority in theological matters, Hamlin ultimately downplays the role Marlowe played in the radical rethinking of the Catholic Church and its blatant corruption that was the Protestant Reformation of the seventeenth century.

Student-Centered Education in the Middle Ages

In  both Marlowe and Goethe's works, Faust is a professor. Especially in Marlowe's work, we get a bit of a sense of what it was like to be a student in an early modern university. 

For a bit more background, I thought this was a really interesting article about medieval universities. It's a review of a seminal piece from 1930 called "Mission of the University " by the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset on universities. Ortega says we tend to think of the modern university as an odd, awkward hybrid between the 19th-century German research university and the British residential college. Ortega reminds us that universities also have a ver early Mediterranean tradition--and that this tradition was highly student centered. In fact, so student centered, that the model of a university was a group of students banding together and hiring their professors.

What do you think? Could you imagine a university where every year, the student government would decide who was going to be hired and what was going to be taught? Would it produce a good education?

Marlowe's English

I haven't taken many literature classes at Clark, and absolutely zero English lit, so reading Marlowe's Doctor Faustus was kind of like reading Shakespeare back in high school. I really enjoyed deciphering Marlowe's English. The word snipper-snapper (based on whipper snapper) particularly amused me.

Something I found more confusing was a segment in Act III, Scene I in which Mephistophilis and Faustus visit the Vatican. Mephistophilis describes the Vatican as a place:

"Where thou shalt see a troupe of bald-pate friars,
Whose summun bonnum is in belly cheer."

That's a pretty convoluted way of calling the Catholic Church a bunch of bald, fat monks.

Have the Democrats Made a Faustian Deal? Is It Backfiring on Them?

Earlier this summer, David Brooks, (fairly) conservative columnist for the New York Times, claimed that the Democrats are feeling the hangover from their Faustian bargain.

Dr. Faustus (the Democrat) asked Mephistopheles (his provost) for the following things:

1) an economic collapse that would discredit capitalism;
2) the smartest politician in the world to be the Democratic president;
3) the political will to create an $800 billion stimulus package;
4) the ability to pass universal health care;
5) a major environmental disaster caused by a multinational oil company to promote environmental law.

Mephistopheles gave Dr. Faustus all of this, but it has backfired .... Now Faust has fallen "back into despair. His soul will spend all eternity trapped in Glenn Beck’s microphone."

Read the whole article here!

The Simpsons

.. Prof Tobin said the forum was also about fun.. so I thought I might post something I think is quite funny - there just seems to be a Simpsons episode about kinda everything :-)


... so, here you go: Homer and the Donut Hell

First Day of Class!

Hi there! Glad to be in class today.
So when we write our responce for class entries, do we analyze
1. First Hour of Herr T's lecture
2. The presentation from our classmates
3. Reactions/comments/what we learned from our group discussions
Vielen Dank
-Anna

The more things change

In the English Faust Book, Faust flounces about with his boy, "continuing his amorous drifts, his delicate fare, and costly apparel." Love affairs, fancy food, and expensive clothes--I guess the Devil's temptations haven't changed much in 400 years!