Faust Read Free Page B

translators are given a second chance, and it is strangely illuminating—when reviewing the earlier version—to be conveyed into one’s own past and, as it were, to come face-to-face with one’s translating persona of an earlier day. There is a nervous “hello” and also a firm “good-bye.”
    I feel inwardly connected to all those readers who came to
Faust
by way of my English version, and I am now tentatively confident that the changes in this new edition will further contribute to the understanding and enjoyment of one of the world’s supreme poetic works.

GOETHE CHRONOLOGY
1749
August 28. Johann Wolfgang Goethe born in Frankfurt, Germany.
1765
Enrolls as a law student at the University of Leipzig; takes private lessons in art.
1768
Falls seriously ill. Returns to Frankfurt. Reads Shakespeare for the first time; also books on alchemy. First anonymous collection of poems, called
Neue Lieder
, set to music and published by Breitkopf.
1770
Travels to Strasbourg, in Alsace. Resumes his studies at the university. Falls in love with Friderike Brion, a parson’s daughter living in nearby Sesenheim. Meets German critic and essayist Herder.
1771
Receives law degree. First plans for drama
Götz von Berlichingen
, profoundly influenced by Shakespeare. Also possible first sketches for a Faust drama.
1773
Much preoccupied with drawing and portraiture. Completes
Götz von Berlichingen
.
1774
Epistolary novel:
The Sorrows of Young Werther
.
1775
Accepts invitation of the reigning duke of Weimar, Carl August, to join his court.
1777
First version of
Wilhelm Meister
, a bildungsroman. Group of dithyrambic odes, “Prometheus,” etc.
1780
Poems: “Der Fischer,” “Erlkönig,” and other ballads.
1782
Receives title of nobility from the emperor.
1784
Scientific writings: treatise concerning granite; discovery of the intermaxillary bone in humans.
1785
Common-law marriage with Christiane Vulpius (legalized 1806).
1786–
First Italian journey. Dramas:
Iphigenie auf Tauris
,
1788
Egmont
.
1789
Birth of son, August von Goethe. Poetry:
Roman Elegies
. Drama:
Torquato Tasso
.
1790
Second Italian journey.
Faust I
first published as a fragment.
1791
Becomes general manager of Weimar Court Theater. Completes treatise in biology:
The Metamorphosis of Plants
.
1794
Meets Schiller. Beginning of collaboration and friendship between the two poets.
1795
Completes first volume of
Wilhelm Meister
. Epic poem:
Hermann und Dorothea
. Second series of ballads, among them “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
1804
Madame de Staël visits with Goethe in Weimar.
1805
Schiller dies.
1808
Conversation with Napoleon.
Faust I
appears in complete form.
1812
Meeting with Beethoven.
1816
His wife Christiane dies.
1822
Theory of Color
(
Farbenlehre
), opposing the physics of Isaac Newton.
1823
First visit of Johann Peter Eckermann, subsequently Goethe’s secretary and faithful recorder of conversations with him.
1831
Completes
Faust II
.
1832
Dies in Weimar on March 22.

FAUST: ENGLISH

DEDICATION 1
 
 
WAVERING FORMS, you come again;
 
once long ago you passed before my clouded sight.
 
Should I now attempt to hold you fast?
 
Does my heart still look for phantoms?
 
You surge at me! Well, then you may rule
 
as you rise about me out of mist and cloud.
 
The airy magic in your path
 
stirs youthful tremors in my breast.
 
You bear the images of happy days,
10
and friendly shadows rise to mind.
 
With them, as in an almost muted tale,
 
come youthful love and friendship.
 
The pain is felt anew, and the lament
 
sounds life’s labyrinthine wayward course
 
and tells of friends who went before me
 
and whom fate deprived of joyous hours.
 
They cannot hear the songs which follow,
 
the souls to whom I sang my first,
 
scattered is the genial crowd,
20
the early echo, ah, has died away.
 
Now my voice sings for the unknown many
 
whose very praise intimidates my heart.
 
The living whom my song once charmed
 
are now dispersed