the title of Faust. Ein Fragment. In 1797 the task was again resumed and during the next four years it made considerable progress. The work done at this time consisted partly in the writing of new scenes, partly in the revision and expansion of scenes already written but not published, and the welding of this new matter to the scenes of the published Fragment. During this process Goethe discovered that he could not complete his design within the limits of a single drama and so decided to publish, provisionally, a First Part. This First Part, still far from containing all that he had then written on the Faust-theme, appeared in 1808 under the title Der Tragödie Erster Theil.

Then ensued a long period of stagnation. At last, in 1825, Faust was again taken up to become, now, its author's chief occupation during his remaining years. The work done at this time was similar to that of 1797-1801, save that the proportion of entirely new matter added was much greater. Goethe died in March, 1832. The Second Part of Faust appeared in 1833.

In

The production that came into existence in this way holds a unique position in literature, there being nothing of its own kind with which to compare it. As a serious dramatic poem based on a tragical story and leading up to the death of its hero, it was called by Goethe a tragedy,' though the ordinary canons of tragedy do not, in the main, apply to it. On account of the magnitude of its scope it is often compared with the Divine Comedy of Dante. some respects it resembles a medieval mystery.' But whatever it be called and however opinions may differ with respect to this or that detail, it is beyond question the most important monument of German poetry. No other is so much quoted by German writers, so much discussed by German scholars, so vitally related to the intellectual life of the new Germany.* Nor is it simply a national

* Egelhaaf, Grundzüge der deutschen Litteraturgeschichte, p. 112, speaks of Faust as "das Werk, ohne das unser Volk seine Kultur, der Einzelne sein eigenes Geistesleben sich kaum denken kann."

poem. In proportion as the genius of Goethe has of late won universal recognition, so Faust, as the most complete revelation of his mind and art, has become a world-classic whose power is felt everywhere by those that know.'

6

On account of this exceptional character the study of Faust is a difficult and peculiar study. The poem contains but little of abstruse thought—for Goethe was no metaphysician,' — but it does take us sooner or later into almost every conceivable sphere of human interest. Thus the philological reading of the text with its peculiarities of form and expression, its folk-lore and antiquities, its reminiscences of reading and observation, its frequent excursions into unfamiliar regions of thought, feeling and poetic vision, constitutes a task to which modern literature since Dante offers no parallel. And when the difficulties of the text are overcome, then there is the poem as an entirety. In a very real and important sense it has unity, and so must be studied as an artistic whole. At the same time it is by no means free from incongruities. Moreover, owing partly to its slow and desultory genesis, partly also to the very nature of the subject and of the poet's plan, different portions differ greatly in matter and style and in the kind of appeal they make to the reader's interest. The comprehension of these various parts, both in themselves and in their relation to the whole, is an important part of the study.

But the essential character of Faust is its symbolism, which presents living issues of modern culture in a setting of old popular legend. To acquire a right feeling for this symbolism, so as to make of it neither too much nor too little, so as to get out of the poem in the reading just what its author put into it, no less and no more, this is what is hardest and at the same time most vitally important. To aid here is the chief purpose of this Introduction. This object will be attained best, however, not by discussing symbolism in the abstract, but by describing minutely the genesis of the poem. To know what Goethe put into Faust we must study

the origin of its different portions in connection with his contemporary moods and experiences. To understand the poetic artist we must first know the man thoroughly and then watch him at his

work. This is simply to follow his own well-known rule:

Wer den Dichter will verstehen

Muß in Dichters Lande gehen.

A famous passage from Dichtung und Wahrheit will serve as a convenient starting-point. In speaking of his first intimacy with Herder at Strassburg, which began in September, 1770, Goethe writes:

• Most carefully I hid from him my interest in certain subjects that had taken root with me and were now little by little trying to develop themselves into poetic forms. These were Götz von Berlichingen and Faust The significant puppet-play legend of the latter echoed and buzzed in many tones within me. I too had drifted about in all knowledge and early enough had been brought to feel the vanity of it. I too had made all sorts of experiments in life and had always come back more unsatisfied and more tormented. I was now carrying these things, like many others, about with me and delighting myself with them in lonely hours, but without writing anything down. Especially, however, I hid from Herder my mystic-cabbalistic chemistry and what pertained to it, though I was still fond of busying myself with it in secret in order to develop it into a more consistent form than that in which it had come to me.'

This passage calls for a retrospect in two directions. First we must see what that puppet-play legend' was that had so impressed Goethe in his youth. Then we must inquire into those personal experiences which led him to see in Faust a symbol of himself. ✔

* Werke, XXVII., 320. (References to Goethe's works are, wherever possible, to the Weimar edition now appearing. Werke means the 'works' proper, or first 'Abtheilung' of the edition; Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften the second, Tagebücher the third, Briefe the fourth. Whenever the needed volume of the Weimar edition is not yet out, the Hempel edition will be referred to.)

II.

THE DATA OF THE LEGEND.

The puppet-play referred to by Goethe was an outgrowth of an
earlier popular drama performed by actors of flesh and blood.
This popular Faust-drama made its appearance about the beginning
of the seventeenth century, but in order to understand its charac-
ter we must go still further back to the origin of the Faust-legend
itself.

Of the actual personage whose life gave rise to the legend very
little is known; it has even been argued that the whole tradition is
mythical. Modern scholars are well agreed, however, on the
strength of three or four notices found in the writings of men who
claim to have known Dr. Faust, that there was a man of that name
who went about Germany in the first half of the sixteenth century
and passed himself off on credulous people as a great magician.
Philip Begardi, a physician who published an Index Sanitatis at
Worms in 1539, speaks of Faust in this work as a notorious charla-
tan who had travelled about the country a few years ago,' calling
himself philosophus philosophorum, etc., and cheating people out of
their money by fortune-telling, necromancy, magical healing and
the like. Begardi was acquainted with many people who had been
deluded by Faust's large promises and small performance.*

In an age when every one believed in magic it was natural that
people should soon begin to credit Faust with actually doing the
kind of things he said he could do. Thus, even in his lifetime,
his name came to be associated with marvellous feats of magic; and

*The historical Faust does not greatly concern us. The notices relating to him can
be found in many places; e. g., in the essay of Düntzer upon the Faust-legend, published
in Vol.V., of Scheible's Kloster, in the same writer's Introduction to his commentary upon
Goethe's Faust, and in Kühne's 'Programm' Über die Faustsage. -For exact biblio-
graphical data concerning books referred to in this Introduction and in the Notes see Ap.
pendix I. at the end of the volume.

† Cf. Scherer, Das älteste Faust-Buch, p. vi-vii.

when, about the year 1540, he met with a violent death under ob. scure or mysterious circumstances, the mythopoeic imagination of the people was ready with its explanation: he had been carried off by the devil whose aid had enabled him to do his wonders. The myth once started, Faust speedily became a new representative of a type long familiar to European superstition, the type, namely, of the wicked magician who, for some transitory favor of pleasure, power, knowledge or the like, sells his soul to the devil. What was in circulation about former copartners of the devil began to be repeated, with local additions and variations, concerning Faust.* Thus grew up a mass of fables which, toward the end of the century, were collected, put together into something like a narrative and published as a Historia von D. Johann Fausten dem weitbeschreyten Zauberer und Schwartzkünstler.† This book appeared in 1587, at Frankfurt-on-the-Main. Its publisher was Johann Spies, who says in a preface that he had the manuscript from a good friend in Speyer.' The unknown author, apparently a Lutheran pastor, writes with a very definite and intensely serious purpose, which is to warn his readers against magic and the black art. The book is full of Bible quotations and bears on its title-page the motto: Resist the devil and he will flee from you.' The story told is in brief this:

The following quotation will serve to show at once how early the legend had taken shape and in what kind of soil it grew. It is from the Sermones Convivales of the Basel preacher Johann Gast. The book was printed in 1543. Gast writes of Faust: 'I dined with him in the great college at Basel. He had given the cook birds of different kinds to roast. I do not know how he got them, since there were none on sale at the time. He had a dog and a horse which, in my belief, were devils, as they could do everything. Some said the dog occasionally took the form of a servant and brought him food. The wretch met a terrible end, for he was strangled by the devil.' Later notices also give to Faust a 'black dog which was the devil.'

↑ Of the original Faust-book, first edition, there are now known to exist, according to Engel, Zusammenstellung der Faust-Schriften, p. 59, only five copies. It is, however, obtainable in various reprints: (1) in facsimile, Das älteste Faust-Buch, mit einer Einleitung von Wilhelm Scherer, Berlin, 1884; (2) Das älteste Faustbuch, mit Einleitung und Anmerkungen von August Kühne, Zerbst, 1868; (3) Das Volksbuch vom Doctor Faust, in Braune's Neudrucke deutscher Literaturwerke, Halle, 1878.