LECTURE NOTES FOR GOETHE'S FAUST, PART 1 Third of Three Lectures

Faust and Margaret-Gretchen part after kissing in hortus conclusus (enclosed garden) or hortus amoris (garden of love)  Faust repairs to cavern in forest (wild or Sublime locale), where he reflects, "I can no longer do without" (page 1) not woman, but Mephistopheles  Mephistopheles visits Faust to urge return to Margaret; love-sick philosophe declares, "I...envy the body of our Lord, | when her lips touch it at the altar" (page 2)  Focus shifts to Margaret-Gretchen, who sings heartache lyric—"My peace is gone" (page 3)—while working spinning wheel; scene set to music in 1814 as soprano Lied (Romantic song) called "Gretchen am Spinnrade" by Franz Schubert  On subsequent date in Marta's Garden, Margaret-Gretchen pushes Faust to assert belief in God; however, he's only prepared to say, "Feeling is all," offering something like an Ennlightenment Argument from Design—"Don't the heavens arch above us? Doesn't earth lie here under our feet?" (page 4)  She also wants him to ditch Mephistopheles: "I can't pray when he's there" (page 9)  Mephistopheles overhears Faust convince Margaret-Gretchen to drug mother; he wishes to "clasp you to my heart"—and Mephistopheles asserts, "I take pleasure in it too!" (i.e. voyeurism) (page 5)  Next scene: at fountain, Margaret-Gretchen (who's now slept with Faust) learns fate of acquaintance Barbara: "feeding two"; "the flower is gone"; "We'll scatter chaff in front of her door" if she marries child's father (pages 5-6)  Next scene: Margaret-Gretchen's brother, Valentine, recalls boasting to drinking comrades about "flower | Of maidenhood" (page 6); he challenges Faust to "[p]arry" or fight beneath Margaret- Gretchen's window (page 7)  While "dying," he tells Margaret-Gretchen, "[Y]ou're a whore indeed" (page 8)  She unsuccessfully seeks solace at Cathedral mass for "mother's soul" (page 9)—apparently, Faust's drug worked too well  Choir sings Dies Irae ("Day of Wrath"), medieval poem about God's final judgment, while Evil Spirit (perhaps her guilty conscience) torments Margaret-Gretchen  Mephistopheles conducts Faust through "labyrinth of valleys, | ...cliffs and gullies" (page 10) of Hartz Mountains to witness fire-intensive Volk rituals of Walpurgis Night  Polymath Goethe conducted geological research in these mountains that Volk tradition associates with supernatural phenomena like "will o' the wisp" (page 10) and Broken Specter— optical illusion caused by magnification of one's shadow when it falls upon mist surrounding tallest Hartz peak, the Brocken (3,743 feet)  Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht): 30 April  Christianization of pagan springtime fertility ritual, with bonfires to confound chaotic evil spirits  Various mythic female types, such as Lilith, "[f]irst wife to Adam" (page 13)—not created from Adam's rib  Arguably, most important: Baubo, who, "riding on a mother-sow," "goes first" (page 11)  As complex Walpurgis episode concludes, Faust believes he sees Margaret-Gretchen, but as well as "sweet body I enjoyed" there's "single scarlet cord... | Like a knife-cut" at her throat  Sequel to Walpurgis Night episode: piece that offers German version of Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream