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Goethe's Faust
p 704-5 - “...Jane Brown was hardly exaggerating when she observed in 1986 that Act IV has ‘traditionally been considered the least accessible part of a generally inaccessible work.’”
“A considerable part of the interpretive difficulty... has been self-induced, arising from the persistent and apparently irresistible temptation on the part of progressive-minded interpreters in the East and West [Germany, I believe] to enlist Goethe in the service of a truly epochal project, whose purport has been, ultimately, to legitimize socialist utopian thought. Indeed, this was widely held to be the politically ‘correct’ task of the historical moment. Now that that moment has passed and socialism has begun rapidly to disappear from the historical agenda, it may be the appropriate time to revisit Act IV and take a fresh look at its peculiar political implications for Faust as a whole.”
p 706 - “No school has been more thoroughly committed to the task of historical interpretation than the Marxists, and no one has had a higher stake in an ideologically coherent reading of Faust than the Faust scholars of the former GDR. The importance of articulating a politically ‘correct’ interpretation... becomes immediately apparent if we recall that the GDR defined its national identity with distinct reference to the progressive cultural heritage of German history; it prided itself on being not only the guardian but also the executor... of that heritage... Alexander Abussch actually decreed in December, 1961 that the vision of the dying Faust anticipates the GDR’s historical role of trying to drain the foul swamp of capitalism in Germany and to create the new land of the socialist state...”
“The lynchpin of that orthodoxy [of GDR Faust interpretation]... is the assertion that feudalism is overcome and destroyed by Faust... feudalism had to be overcome and succeeded by Faust’s superior, forward-looking means of production as articulated in Act V. Without this crucial step, the fundamental assumption of all Marxist Faust interpretations would be untenable -- the assumption of a historically inevitable progression from feudalism to capitalism and beyond to a vision of socialism... There is indeed a long German tradition of reading ideas of progress and perfectibility into Faust, and of thereby adjusting Goethe’s text, again and again, to the political agenda of the state -- be it the Second or the Third Reich, or the ‘first socialist state on German soil.’”
“The sudden disappearance from the historical scene of the state that claimed to be the heir and executor of Faust’s utopian vision naturally casts a ghostly pall on the whole GDR project... It is now, one would think, a closed chapter not only of German history but also of Faust exegesis...”
p 707 - “Act IV, in a certain sense, represents Goethe’s last word on Faust. It was written... after Act V.. Goethe felt prompted to reconsider the question of how Faust acquired the land over which he rules... His sketches of 1816 called for Faust to acquire his land through a war of conquest fought in medieval Greece against the {‘monks’}, i.e. a religious authority. In 1831, Goethe decided to have Faust get involved in a civil war in the German empire and help the Emperor win it.”
“...There is evidence... to suggest that this final revision of the Faust material was triggered by the July Revolution of 1830 [“The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution, Second French Revolution or Trois Glorieuses in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown.” -Wiki]. It led Goethe once more to contemplate the issues of revolution and restoration; it further led him critically to reconsider the doctrine and religion of Henri Saint-Simon (1760-1825)...
“Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon... was a French early socialist theorist whose thought influenced the foundations of various 19th century philosophies, including the philosophy of science and the discipline of sociology. His thought played a substantial role in influencing positivism, Marxism and the ideas of Thorstein Veblen.
Although he was born an aristocrat, in opposition to the feudal and military system, he advocated a form of technocratic socialism, where the economy would be managed by industrialists and technical specialists who would occupy positions of leadership based on technical merit. Simon believed that such an arrangement would lead to a national community of cooperation and technological progress that would eliminate the poverty of the lower classes. He felt that men of science, rather than the church, should be the leaders in society. Simon held the belief that those who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are entitled to rule it.”
About the Saint-Simonians, “Bazard, a man of stolid temperament, could no longer work in harmony with Enfantin, who desired to establish an arrogant and fantastic sacerdotalism with lax notions as to marriage and the relations between the sexes.”
“After a time Bazard seceded and many of the strongest supporters of the school followed his example. A series of extravagant entertainments given by the society during the winter of 1832 reduced its financial resources and greatly discredited it in character.”
“French feminist and socialist writer Flora Tristan (1803–1844) claimed that Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, anticipated Saint-Simon's ideas by a generation.” - Wiki
...with its revolutionary program of social engineering, and to rethink the issue of land ownership, which he was reading about just then, in Niebuhr’s Roman History.”
[“Barthold Georg Niebuhr (27 August 1776 – 2 January 1831) was a Danish-German statesman and historian who became Germany's leading historian of Ancient Rome and a founding father of modern scholarly historiography. Classical Rome (rather than Greece) caught the admiration of German thinkers.”
“France's revolution of July in the same year was a terrible blow to him, and filled him with the most dismal anticipations of the future of Europe. Niebuhr died, aged 54, in Bonn.”
“Niebuhr's Roman History counts among epoch-making histories both as marking an era in the study of its special subject and for its momentous influence on the general conception of history. Leonhard Schmitz said: “The main results arrived at by the inquiries of Niebuhr, such as his views of the ancient population of Rome, the origin of the plebs, the relation between the patricians and plebeians, the real nature of the ager publicus, and many other points of interest, have been acknowledged by all his successors.” -Wiki]
“...a different set of questions needs to be raised -- different from the favorite preoccupation of so many Faust scholars with their clouds, volcanos, and waves [the Nature rather than Historical interpretation]...”
p 708 - “When news of yet another revolution in Paris reached Weimar in the summer of 1830, Goethe was haunted by the thought that the French Revolution, the political trauma of his life, was rearing its head again. He viewed the events of July, 1830 as the greatest intellectual challenge... that he would have to encounter at the end of his life...”
I have to observe here that, regardless of what Goethe may have written previously, the return to Germany and the Emperor makes internal sense since it reconnects with those previous sections and is consistent with the notion that the future of Romantic Germany does not lie in Classical Greece.
“... in the introductory exchanges of “High Mountains’ it is Mephistopheles who argues for the volcanic theory of the earth’s origin. Given the well-known associations in Goethe’s mind of ‘Vulkanismus’ with revolution and, conversely, of ‘Neptunismus’ with {a} theory of evolution, we can see that the political dice were loaded from the outset... We are led to realize that Faust’s and Mephistopheles’ fraudulent rescue actions in Act I merely postponed the present crisis...”
p 708-9 - “...Mephistopheles tempts Faust; Faust rejects what is offered and demands something else instead. For the reader, everything depends on the realization that Faust’s rejection of a life of leisure and his desire for land and power are perfectly consistent and all of a piece... He has no intention of governing the multitudes of a modern metropolis, for fear of having to deal with insurrection -- ‘And all one does is raising rebels' (10159) [That doesn't sound quite right but I don't have the text to confirm]. Nor is he attracted to the pleasure-seeking life-style of the aristocracy; this option he rejects as ‘Tawdry and up-to-date! Sardanapal!’ (10176). The latter lacks the dimension of activity, the former that of complete, unchallenged domination.”
“...He has conceived the idea of claiming land from the sea and of controlling ‘such elemental might unharnessed, purposeless!’ (10219). He desires nothing less than the dominion of the sea and of nature. This project -- in a certain sense representative of the ambition of Western man since the Renaissance -- will offer him both creative activity and the delicious enjoyment of the exercise of power:”
Earn for yourself the choice, delicious boast,
To lock the imperious ocean from the coast
{10228-9}
Sway I would gain, a sovereign’s thrall!
Renown is naught, the deed is all.
{10187-8}
This assumes the existence of “waste” land that no one has previous claim on and that serves no natural purpose. The Zionists really should have gone this route though even then there would have been environmental collateral damage.
“...Faust means ‘Landeigentum,’ landed property, specifically that stretch of land by the sea... He needs the land for carrying out his project; in addition, by owning it he acquires feudal rights and power over the people living there... Landed property will give him the opportunity to control the vast, aimless forces of the sea and to claim additional territory over which he intends to rule with no resistance from any ‘rebels.’ So many optimistic voices to the contrary notwithstanding, there is really no evidence that Faust’s motivation is in any way generous, idealistic, or specifically ‘philanthropic.’”
p 711 - “...Let us further recall in this context that Faust commentators have again and again associated the ‘Gegenkaiser’ [rival Emperor] with Napoleon. Goethe’s unpatriotic admiration for the upstart emperor of the French is well known. Napoleon may indeed be viewed as the great contemporary rival to the legitimate emperor of the old Holy Roman Empire.”
p 712 - “It appears that the political configuration of Act IV is deliberately designed to contradict Faust’s overtly non-political motivation and to plant questions in the readers’ mind about the political and moral basis of his drive for power. Clearly, legitimacy and justice play no role here... But Goethe seems to have had no interest in portraying Faust as the agent of progress and the grave-digger of the feudal system... Goethe, it would appear, consciously departs from the Elizabethan model, and assigns Faust a place at the side of the old, legitimate, yet unworthy ruler...”
p 713 - “...Forced labor within the realm, and the inseparable triad of trade, war, and piracy (11187) in external relations, make this an evil empire by any civilized standards. What we are made to witness here is the inevitable outgrowth of a drive for power that appertains to Faust’s striving from the beginning and that unmasks its pernicious propensity toward unchecked excess only now, in the last stage of Faust’s career.”
p 714 - “... The enforced expropriation of the old couple [Philemon and Baucis] {is regarded} as a sacrifice necessary for the good of the collective. At this point, GDR orthodoxy fully reveals its moral insensitivity and political opportunism. Goethe’s Faust, by means of some bizarre interpretive moves, is used to justify and make palatable the socialist policy of expropriation and collectivization.”
I think Goethe would have loved this.
“...What weighed on Goethe’s mind was a French forerunner of socialist collectivization, namely the ‘doctrine’ of the Saint-Simonians. In the last years of his life, Goethe informed himself quite thoroughly about the latest ideology from France. His contemplation of its tenets formed part of that {‘intellectual challenge’} of coping with the revolution of 1830. It was the Saint-Simonians who had called, among many other things, for a change in the laws governing land-ownership; they confidently declared this to be the last step to a new Golden Age. Here we find a remarkable parallel to Faust’s behavior in Act V. Before he announces his own vision of a Golden Age -- a liberated people on liberated land -- he orders, chillingly and incongruously, the expropriation of Philemon and Baucis!”
“... [Faust] as the irresponsible and dangerous social engineer that Goethe had come to see in the French reformer and his many disciples... Faust arrogantly claims to know what is good for the masses and takes the lead on the road toward that goal -- 'To bring to fruit the most exalted plans,/One mind is ample for a thousand hands’ (11509f.) -- he essentially echoes the Saint-Simonians. Like the French reformers, Faust places the supposed concerns of the masses... above the liberty and the dignity of the individual, whose existence is justified only to the extent that he/she contributes to the ‘improvement’ of humanity. Very much in the spirit of the Saint-Simonians, Faust is bent on controlling land and on exploiting nature... Faust’s last speech... still bears the imprint of an authoritarian, power-hungry mind.”
p 715 - From Goethe’s last letter to von Humboldt “The world is ruled to-day by bewildering wrong counsel, urging bewildering wrong action” [Our critic,] “...It is time to recognize that Faust’s last speech -- the most politically exploited lines in all of German literature -- is to be counted among those misguided teachings of the day.”
This is really another iteration of the Burke vs Mary Shelley’s parents debate. Faust’s Brave New World (and Saint-Simon’s, apparently) would be yet another sort of Frankenstein’s creature.
I have to confess that this is the only aspect of Faust's "Faustian" striving that I find seductive. To be able to create a totally new society without reference to tradition or the views of others would certainly tempt me. My goal would not be personal wealth, but the realization of a sustainable and economically healthy urban development... but I would undoubtedly fall prey to all of Faust's sins and more. It does give one pause.
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