Faust

ISBN-13: 9781848612143 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 206 str.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe; Mike Smith

Opis

Drama. Translated from the German by Mike Smith. A new translation of one of the greatest monuments of German literature. This is the famous first part (Faust. Der Tragodie erster Teil), and does not include the extraordinary (and virtually unstageable) Part 2, completed many years later.

First published in 1808, and then, in a revised edition, in 1829, the story a variant of the old Faustus legend concerns the scientist (or perhaps, better, natural philosopher), Dr. Heinrich Faust, whose scientific quests, and their lack of success, lead him into a state of great frustration. Parallel to this, Mephistopheles (the Devil) lays a wager with God that he can subvert God's favored human being (for this is Faust).

Mephistopheles appears in Faust's laboratory, having metamorphosed from the form of a stray dog that had followed Faust home, and offers Faust a pact whereby he, Mephistopheles, will aid Faust on Earth, if Faust in turn will serve him forever in Hell. The pact is signed in blood, after some prevarication. The core of the tragedy revolves around the figure of Margarete (known by her familiar name, Gretchen), with whom Faust falls in love. Mephisto aids Faust in his seduction of her. Gretchen kills her mother, unintentionally, with a sleeping potion, administered so that she can receive Faust in her chamber without being disturbed.

When Gretchen discovers she is pregnant, her brother confronts Faust but is killed in a fight with him and Mephisto. The distraught Gretchen drowns her child, is convicted of murder and imprisoned. Faust tries to free her from jail by magical means but she refuses to leave, and Faust and his devilish accomplice flee the scene to the accompaniment of a chorus of heavenly voices who reveal that Gretchen will in fact be saved."

Faust occupies a central place in German literature, as the magnum opus of its greatest writer, as one of its greatest dramas, and as an epic poem of the highest quality-for, although it was written to be performed, it may also be regarded as a dramatic poem, prophetic perhaps of Berliozs hybrid musical adaptation in La Damnation de Faust. The Faust story caught Goethes attention from an early stage and the first published results of his engagement with it was Faust. A Fragment, published in 1790. He had however written a dramatic treatment of the story in his 20s, a fact which only became apparent over a century later, when the papers of Luisa von Göchhausen, a lady of the court of Weimar, were found to contain a transcription of this work, since known as the Urfaust (Original Faust). This early work was published in 1887. Faust. A Tragedy, Part One was finally completed in 1808 and was later revised and published in a new edition in 1829. The third act of Part 2 appeared in 1827, part of the first act a year later, and the complete text in 1832, shortly after the authors death. The entirety of Faust, parts 1 and 2 together, was performed for the first time in 1875, in Weimar. The translation presented in this volume encompasses only Part One, which is usually performed without its cerebral pendant piece, and remains the keystone of Goethes career.