Goethe’s , Part One (1808) Fourth Lecture Please note: while you must focus on the highlighted material to prepare for your exam, you do not need to worry about the line numbers!

I • Faust’s Wooing of Margaret/

¶ In the name of the Virgin Mary, Margaret’s mother gives to a Roman Catholic priest the jewels that Faust placed in the young woman’s bedroom, causing to observe, “The Church … \ Always digest[s] ill-gotten goods” (line 2839-2840) — i.e. the Church is materialistic, despite Jesus’s statement that one cannot serve God and Mammon. ¶ Arguably, the text implies that the mother should be attentive to her daughter (as opposed to the priest). She fails to offer candid, caring advice concerning the sexual threat that some men, such as Faust, pose (an aspect of what, in recent years, has been deemed “toxic masculinity”). ¶ In general, Margaret’s mother comes across as aligned with — even fearful of — the (essentially patriarchal) Roman . In addition, she is either plain lazy or (perhaps as a consequence of losing her husband and young daughter) depressed and inactive, requiring Margaret to perform most of the housework. A domestic disciplinarian, she seems incapable of addressing Margaret’s emotional wellbeing. ••• ¶ Due to a lack of maternal guidance, Margaret seeks mentorship from a middle-aged neighbor woman, Martha Schwerdtlein. who encourages her to engage romantically with Faust, especially due to his having delivered “another box of jewelry” (line 2875). ¶ While masculine figures — Mephistopheles, Faust, and (later) Gretchen’s solider brother Valentine — do not treat young women in a considerate manner, neither do Martha and Margaret’s mother, two middle-aged women. ¶ Mephistopheles makes a cold-call on Martha (while Margaret is visiting her home). Telling a lie, he claims that Martha’s husband — a lover of “foreign women, and foreign wine” (line 2996), as well as gambling — has died unexpectedly while in Naples, Italy. ¶ Martha seems less interested in her husband’s supposed demise than in what money and other assets he may have bequeathed to her in his will. Mephistopheles states that no fortune exists because the husband had fallen into debt. ¶ The likely truth is that Martha’s husband is has abandoned her and their children in favor of a young Neapolitan mistress — a “lovely girl” (line 2981). Implicitly, this scenario constitutes an indictment of the moral shortcomings of German male culture (which Goethe wanted to reform, especially given the possibility of ’s becoming a nation-state, competitive with the UK, France, and the US). ¶ Mephistopheles offers to return that night with Faust so that Martha can have the “two [male] witnesses” (line 3013) required to verify her husband’s death. Effectively, he sets up a double date (Mephistopheles- Martha and Faust-Margaret) in Martha’s garden, a locale that suggests the medieval idea of the enclosed Garden of Love, a kind of erotic version of locus amoenus (“ideal place”). ••• ¶ When Faust expresses reservations about lying, Mephistopheles calls him a “Sophist” (line 3050). The reference is likely to the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s work (known as a dialogue) titled Sophist, which, in essence, argues that, although intellectually acute, the kind of thinker-teacher known as a sophist deals in deception, not truth.

1 ••• ¶ During the double-date, Margaret (also known by the familiar name Gretchen) apologies to Faust for the “nasty, rough” (line 3082) condition of her hands, due to hard work. With those hands, she pulls petals from a Marguerite flower, a kind of daisy, playing the traditional fortune-telling Volk game, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, originally known by the French title of effeuiller la marguerite. The outcome is “He loves me!” (line 3184), convincing Margaret that her infatuation with Faust, an older man, is love and causing her to clasp Faust and return a kiss he gives her. ••• ¶ In a subsequent scene, Faust, alone in a forest cave, meditates on his evolving ease with the Passions. He praises the absent Mephistopheles for “reveal[ing]” (line 3233) to him the “deep, secret wonders in my heart” (line 3234). Faust also acknowledges the Sublime quality of the setting. He has sheltered in the cave, located amid “high cliffs” (line 3238), due to a storm that “roar[ed] in the forest” (line 3228) so violently that “giant firs” collapsed noisily. ¶ Suddenly, Mephistopheles appears in the cave to encourage Faust to have sex with Margaret. He explains, “Your body’s still stuck … with the Doctor [i.e. Faust’s old self]” (line 3277). ¶ Mephistopheles also reports that Margaret/Gretchen — who he deems a “poor little ape of flesh and blood” (line 3313) — is pining for Faust, exhibiting signs of lovesickness, even “[s]ometimes crying out, in tears” (line 3321). Becoming emotionally overwrought (even suicidal) as a result of romantic passion is a theme in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet (1590s) and Geothe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1779). ¶ Faust suggests that physical and spiritual desire may not be all that different or separate from one another, for he reflects, “I even envy the body of our Lord [i.e. the consecrated bread of the Roman Catholic , understood to be Jesus’s body], \ When her [Margaret’s] lips touch it at the altar” (lines 3334-3335).

II • Gretchen’s Fate

¶ Highlighting the lovesick Gretchen, the scene that follows quickly became one the most famous in Goethe’s Faust, Part One. Known as (“Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel”), it depicts Margaret/Gretchen spinning yarn while pining for Faust by means of a poem-song. Frequently, the act of spinning is interpreted as a metaphor for living one’s life. ¶ In October 1814, aged 17, a German composer named set Gretchen’s emotion-rich words, articulated while spinning, to music, intending a soprano voice to perform them. The result became a smash- hit instance of the genre known as the (a German word sometimes defined as “art song”). ¶ At times, Gretchen’s passion suggests the common phrase “madly in love”; for example, the third of the poem’s ten (four-line) stanzas begins, “My poor head \ Seems crazed to me” (lines 3382-3383) — or, in the original German: Mein armer Kopf \ Ist mir verrückt. ¶ Among Goethe’s goals here (as elsewhere in Faust, Part One) is to demonstrate to both domestic and international audiences the potential of German to function as a literary language. Goethe wanted to help create a body of German literature that could enhance German national identity and pride. He had in mind the way that such authors as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton served as icons of English capability and achievement. •••

2 ¶ In order to achieve his very precise (and perverse) ambition of having sex — what he calls “heart to heart” (line 3504) — with Gretchen in her girlhood bed, Faust arranges another rendezvous in Martha’s garden. ¶ This time, Gretchen calls him by his first name, “Heinrich” (line 3413), and inquires about his apparent non-engagement with , as well as his friendship with Mephistopheles, who, she confesses, “chills my blood” (line 3476). ¶ Concerning religion, Faust claims that he cultivates a spiritual life, which he calls “Feeling” (line 3456), with a capital “F.” His spirituality is, it seems, based on a consciousness of the sublimity of the universe — the “heavens [that] arch above us” (line 3442). ¶ Gretchen tells Faust that she would “gladly draw the bolt [for him] tonight” (line 3506) — that is, permit him into her bed — were she not fearful of her mother. In response, he presents her with “a little phial” (line 3511) of sleeping potion, three drops of which she should administer to her mother. ••• ¶ The ensuing action, sexual intercourse between Gretchen and Faust, occurs offstage, meaning that the reader next encounters Gretchen after she has become pregnant by Faust. The venue is the town fountain, where locals regularly come to draw drinking water. ¶ Aware of — but ashamed to admit — her condition, Gretchen encounters at the fountain her friend, Lisbeth, who shares news that their mutual acquaintance, Barbara, has become pregnant outside marriage: “She’s feeding two when she eats” (line 3549); “the flower [Barbara’s virginity] is gone” (line 3561). ¶ In response to Gretchen’s statement that Barbara’s lover will do right by her and “take her for his wife” (line 3570), Lisbeth reveals that he has already “gone” (line 3573) — that is, failed to man-up and take responsibility for getting Barbara pregnant. Here, Goethe presents another indictment of the sorry state of German males. ¶ In today’s United States, over 40% of births are to unmarried women. Furthermore, around 40% of US children are raised in homes without fathers. Manning-up to parental responsibility does not appear to be a priority for two-fifths of American males. ¶ Henceforth, abetted by the Roman Catholic church (which traditionally deemed unwed pregnancy a sin and the resulting children illegitimate), society will condemn Barbara as a “sinner” (line 3569), a status to be reinforced by local “lads” (line 3575) symbolically “scatter[ing] chaff” (line 3576) —waste material from processing wheat for flour — outside her house. ••• ¶ Uncomfortable as regards seeking counsel from either her mother or Martha, the pregnant Gretchen turns to prayer. Characterizing her heart as “break[ing] in me” (line 3607), she presents herself before a statue of the Virgin Mary in her role of Mater Dolorosa (“Our Lady of Sorrows”) and pleads to be saved “from shame and destruction” (line 3616). This manifestation of Mary emphasizes the seven major sorrows she endured as Jesus’s mother, the most profound of which was the crucifixion. ¶ Many interpreters see as central to the significance of the incident the fact that Gretchen — fated to receive condemnation, not sympathy, from the church — experiences a religious icon that conveys female helplessness and disempowerment. ••• ¶ In a later episode, Gretchen faces the church in a more dramatic setting: a public requiem mass (i.e. eucharistic [or holy communion service] for the dead) in a cathedral. The majestic building causes Gretchen to feel “imprison[ed]” (line 3818) and “[c]rush[ed]” (line 3820).

3 ¶ Although the text does not clarify for whom the requiem mass is being held., a voice identified as an Evil Spirit condemns Gretchen as the event unfolds. It reveals that the sleep medicine she received from Faust and administered to her mother killed that woman. ¶ Gretchen becomes despondent to the point of fainting when the cathedral choir performs a piece titled Dies Irae (“The Day of Wrath”), generally attributed to Thomas of Celano, a medieval Italian Franciscan friar. A standard element with the Roman Catholic requiem mass for centuries (until the Second Vatican Council’s reforms in the 1960s), it describes God’s Final Judgment upon each human, including the casting of sinners into eternal punishment, to be delivered by fiery flames. ••• ¶ Prior to the cathedral episode, another death occurs: Faust’s murder of Gretchen’s brother, Valentine, with crucial help from Mephistopheles. When we first meet Valentine, a soldier, he is recalling drinking parties with his male peers where he boasted of Gretchen’s chastity — her status as “an ornament to all her sex” (line 3636). ¶ Gretchen has confided to Valentine the news of her pregnancy, but rather than react with sympathy towards her, he selfishly worries about his own reputation: “Every rogue can taunt me!” (line 3641). ¶ When Valentine intersects with Faust and Mephistopheles outside his family home, he violently smashes the zither — a stringed instrument, often used to perform Volk music — being played by Mephistopheles as that individual sings a piece about a virgin’s having sex outside marriage and, thus, becoming “a maid no more” (line 3689). ¶ Next, Valentine attacks Faust, intent on “split[ting]” his “skull” (line 3702), but the Faust prevails once Mephistopheles causes Valentine’s hand to become “maimed” (line 3710). ¶ Neighbors, including Martha, gather to observe the expiring Valentine, whose final major discourse is a bitter condemnation of his sister, Margaret/Gretchen, as “a whore indeed” (line 3730) and of Martha as a “[s]hameless bawd [brothel-keeper]” (line 3767).

III • Walpurgis Night

¶ Abandoning any responsibility towards Gretchen, Faust is a sorry excuse for a man. The question becomes: Can German manhood be reformed in hopes of building a morally responsible and respectable German nation? ¶ Having earlier alluded to “[t]he splendor of [the upcoming] Walpurgis Night” (line 3660), Mephistopheles determines to lead Faust, on foot, upwards into the Hartz Mountains: a range of densely forested mountains in northern German that manifests the natural Sublime — for example, “cliffs and gullies” (line 3842), as well an “abyss” (3939). Their destination is a Volk celebration of a pre-Christian festival, known as Walpurgis Night. This extended episode constitutes the climax of Faust, Part One, although it is followed by a denouement that returns the focus to Margaret/Gretchen. ¶ By witnessing how the Volk mark Walpurgus Night, Faust absorbs a critical lesson about respecting women as three-dimensional persons, not two-dimensional objects. The fact that Mephistopheles facilitates this consequential learning experience strongly suggests that he may not really be aligned with the devil. One interpretation is that he represents Faust’s inner voice, which initially pushes the philosophe to satisfy his sexual urges but then is chastened by remorse. ¶ Significant about the episode as a response to Faust’s failure to manage his inner Passions is how it emphasizes, first, the Sublime and, second, the Volk. ¶ Experienced by Faust in the form of the natural awesomeness of the Hartz Mountains, the Sublime can remind humans, who are prone to hubris, of their comparative insignificance within the universe. ¶ As for the Volk: the socio-sexual values implicit in such traditions as Walpurgis Night can reorient Enlightenment humans to core moral principles: principles that their patriarchal institutions, such as the church, have marginalized and/or rejected.

4 ¶ Let us consider one particular dimension of Mephistopheles and Faust’s ascent into the Hartz Mountains and, after that, a couple of key incidents within the pair’s experience of the Volk’s programmatic Walpurgis Night revelry. ¶ Before reaching the place-of-revelry, Faust notices a “glow burn[ing] through the haze” (3921) in a manner that resembles “a colored fountain” (line 3923). This phenomenon may be the Specter, pictured on the previous page of these notes. Named after Mount Brocken, the highest peak in the Hartz range, it is an optical effect caused by light interacting with the water-droplets in mist or a cloud. To the observer, the overall impression can seem like a specter or ghost, hence the name Brocken Specter. ¶ The colored glow (potentially the Brocken Specter) underscores the Sublime, and it comes into sight shortly before Mephistopheles and Faust get to the “tip” (line 3957) of Mount Brocken — also known as Blocksberg — where members of the Volk are assembling. ¶ Walpurgis was an eighth-century Christian saint who emigrated from her native to evangelize in Germany. However, her feast — the first of May — was superimposed on a much older pagan fertility celebration. ¶ When we say Walpurgis Night, we mean the ritual lighting of after dark on 30: the eve of St. Walpurgis’s feast day. From their vantage point on Mount Brocken, Mephistopheles and Faust can see bonfires lit by multiple communities across the Hartz range: “A hundred fires burning, in a row” (line 4057). ¶ Walpurgis Night remains popular across Northern to this day, but in the pre-Christian era, its fires burned away the debris left after winter and, thereby, signaled the start of planting season. In other words: Walpurgis Night explicitly revered fertility: the planting of seeds to bring forth new life. This positive take on Mother Earth’s fertility stands in contrast with the utter negativity that Margaret/Gretchen experiences when her fertility becomes apparent. ¶ According to Faust, Part One, the models of woman advanced by so-called civilized society are the despairing Virgin Mary, the whore, and the harlot. However, the models advanced by the Volk during Walpurgis Night are fundamentally positive. ¶ The festival’s central figure is Baubo. At the event, the Chorus, which represents the Volk, asserts, “So honor then, where honor’s due! Baubo goes first!” (lines 3964-3965). ¶ Often depicted as a vagina goddess, Baubo receives honor and respect in Volk society. The Volk do not regard female sexuality as sinful, but instead as essential to the human condition and, therefore, worthy of veneration. ¶ This reverential attitude is also manifest in how most participants at Walpurgis Night honor another female figure: Lilith, “[f]irst wife to Adam” (line 4119). Although Lilith does not appear in Genesis, the first book in the Hebrew Bible, convention holds that she was the woman created by God in Genesis, Chapter 1. As such, she exists in distinction to Eve, the woman created by God in Genesis, Chapter 2. ¶ In Verse 27 of Genesis, Chapter 1, God — by an act of speaking — makes man and woman at the same time: “So God created [humankind] in his own image … male and female [by convention, Lilith] created he them.” Here, woman (Lilith) is man’s equal. ¶ In Verse 7 of Genesis, Chapter 2, God makes — not by speaking — a new, different man: “[T]he Lord God formed man [a single individual named Adam] of the dust of the ground.” Not until Verse 22 of Genesis, Chapter 2, does God make Eve (a second woman), using one of Adam’s ribs: “[T]he rib, which

5 the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.” Here, woman (Eve) is subservient to man. ¶ To summarize: both Baubo and Lilith are strong, empowered female archetypes, revered by — and on an equal footing with — men. ¶ As the Walpurgis Night episode draws to its end, Faust interacts with a number of elite members of mainstream society, such as a General (representative of the military) and a Minister or cabinet-level politician (representative of the government). They lament the potential eclipse of the social system they represent, should the attitudes and practices manifest in Walpurgis Night (particularly, equality for women) become commonplace. ••• ¶ Prior to revisiting Margaret/Gretchen as its concluding maneuver, Faust, Part One offers a piece of entertainment: a play-within-a-play. Titled A Walpurgis Night’s Dream, the mini-drama constitutes a German-language reinterpretation of one of ’s most popular comedies: A Night’s Dream (written in 1595 and/or 1596). ¶ Key figures from the Shakespearean work — the king ; the fairy queen Titania; and the sprite Puck — appear in A Walpurgis Night’s Dream. ¶ Goethe even writes in a four-line part for himself, indicating a preference for the moniker “A Child of this World.” ¶ In part, Goethe’s goal for the Dream mini-drama was to demonstrate some of the German tongue’s capabilities as a literary language, a matter we already considered with respect to the Gretchen am spinnrade episode. ••• ¶ While still among the Volk on Mount Brocken, Faust had a vision of Margaret/Gretchen with “feet … chained together” (line 4187). ¶ During the closing sequence of Faust, Part One, schooled by the Volk examples of Baubo and Lilith, he attempts to connect with the young woman once again, but this time with constructive (not exploitative) intent. ¶ He learns that Gretchen has been “imprisoned” in a dungeon, and he demands that Mephistopheles take him to her and “free her” (information presented in prose and, thus, not associated with a line number). ¶ When Faust accuses Mephistopheles of responsibility for Gretchen’s dilemma, Mephistopheles responds, “Who … dragged her to ruin? I or you?” He also promises to facilitate Faust’s removing Gretchen from her cell, “hand in human hand.” ••• ¶ When Faust intersects with Gretchen in her prison cell (having gotten there on a flying black horse), she seems distracted, perhaps even to the point of madness. Eventually recognizing him as her lover, she embraces him, but she comes to realize that his sentiment towards her is now pity, not love. ¶ Gretchen explains the reasons for her incarceration: “I’ve killed my mother; I’ve drowned my child” (lines 4507-4508). The downing resulted from her feeling overwhelmed as a single parent and, furthermore, being branded a sinner by the church and public opinion. The opportunity to escape fails to interest Gretchen, for her dungeon existence, however miserable, provides some insulation from the opinionated masses. ¶ When Faust attempts to force Gretchen to come away with him, she resists, saying, “Let me alone! … \ Don’t grip me so murderously” (line 4576-4577). ¶ Recognizing that Gretchen is determined to die in prison, Mephistopheles decides to remove Faust from the scene. No straightforward happy ending is possible. ¶ The episode and the greater text close with an expectation that Gretchen will soon expire. Mephistopheles commands Faust to “Come! Now!” (line 4606), and shortly after he perceives that Gretchen is being

6 “judged” (4610) — by God, presumably — in preparation for her death. In short order, an entity identified as a Voice from Above pronounces, “She is saved!” (line 4610) ¶ Gretchen’s salvation demonstrates Goethe’s opinion that God does not condemn in the way that the Roman Catholic church and mainstream society condemn. ¶ Overall, Faust, Part One makes a case for Germany’s reordering its culture so that men improve across a range of endeavors, especially relations with women. •••

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