The Press Saturday, April 17, 1926. "Dr. Faustus."

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18668, 17 April 1926, Page 14

The Press Saturday, April 17, 1926. "Dr. Faustus."

The series of volumes known as the "Broadway Translations'' is rendering good service by making accessible to the reading piiblic a great variety of more or less recondite material, generally buried away in libraries, or presenting linguistic difficulties. In a recent issue Dr. Wm. Rose, of King's College, London, concentrates into a readable and handy form the main lines of materia! for tracing the rise and development of the Faust legend, from its early beginnings to its final consummation and sublimation in the master hands of Goethe. The '' con- '•' temporary allusions," with which the record opens, have a special interest in their bearing on the question whether Faust had any real existence, or was a pure creation of legend. Here we have, in the year 1507 A.D., a learned Abbot writing to his friend the Court astrologer, to warn him against a vagabond and dissolute scholar, who went from town to town swaggering about his powers in magic and necromancy, and calling himself "George" Faustus (not " Johan," as later developments have it). A few years later we have Mutianus Rufus, an enlightened scholar, and friend of Melancthon, writing to a friend: " There came a " week ago to Erfurt a certain chiro- " mancer named Georgius Faustus, a " mere braggart and fool. . . . . . " The professions of this man are vain. "The rude people marvel at him; the "priests should denounce him." Faust seems to have been übiquitous. We nest find him at Bamberg, where an item in the Bishop's accounts for 1520 is: "Ten gulden to, Dr. Faustus " Philosophus in honour of his having "cast a nativity for my gracious "master." A less flattering entry is that in the minutes of the Town Council of Ingolstadt for 1528: "To-day "the fortune-teller, Dr. Jorg Faustus "of Heidelberg, has been ordered to " leave the town and •spend his penny " elsewhere." These are only a few j from' a large number of contemporary allusions and records collected by Dr. W. Rose. But, as years pass on, the direct personal touch fades into vague reminiscence and tradition. Faust is presumed to have died in 1539; andj during the next fifty years a large mass i of legend and myth accumulated round his name, every wild and fantastic achievement of wizards and necromancers (especially students) being fathered on him. We may mention incidentally that it is in a ehoroniele of 1548 that appears the first reference to Faust's being in league with the Devil. Towards the end of the century the quantity of Faust material had become so vast that a publisher saw the business possibilities of the legend; and in 1587 there appeared at Frankfort the first edition of what is generally known as " The German Fanst Book," thdagh the original title occupies a whole page. The publishers profess their sole object to be edification and a warning: all Christian men against the awful danger of forsaking God and entering into compacts with evil spirits. The demand for the little book was enormous, and four, new impressions and two new editions appeared before tie end of the year. Fanst is here at the University of Wittenberg, and is a Doctor of Theology! The whole process of his negotiations with Mephistopheles, the emissary of Lucifer, is given in detail, as well as Faust's terrors as he begins to realise the appalling consequences of the pact into -which he hak entered. Yet the significant feature of this crude and fantastic record of marvels is that in it already there appears in embryo that dual aspect of Faustism, which was to receive such fruitful development two hundred years later: In the main, the condition of the pact herd is that' Mephistopheles is to secure for him the unstinted gratification of all his sensual appetites, all his cravings for pleasure. Bnt. there is also an indication of the expansion of his knowledge of the mysteries of life, the bursting of the barriers which cramp and limit the flights of human intelligence. And so we have Fanst insisting on being escorted by Mephistopheles through the worlds of the stars, and on a tour through all the cities of the known world. And his persistent demands for a description of Heaven and Hell drive the evil spirit into such a fury that he threatens to tear him in pieces. This dualism is symbolic of an age, in which the old world of magic and superstition was falling to pieces, and a new world of knowledge and enlightenment rising on its ruins. But now, two years after the first issue of this book, and two years before the appearance of an English translation of it, the whole interest and driving impulse of the legend are transferred to England, through the appearance (about 1589) of Marlowe's tragedy, "Doctor Faustus."- This event marks an epoch in the evolution of the legend. For, though even Marlowe failed to grasp the deeper moral problems which it involved, it must be clearly understood that, throughout the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century, it was not the various editions of the German Faust Book that kept the legend greeifrin Germany, but the popular drama which developed from Marlowe's " Faustus." With the English theatrical companies who toured Germany, the play was a favourite item, and it was in frequent demand. But in that stagnant period of German literature there was no serious attempt at expansion or development. On the contrary, Faust productions degenerated into farce, burlesque, buffoonery, license, and, above all, the puppet-play. The great critic, .Lessing, had a vision of higher possibilities; ho conceived the idea of a new Faust drama, with a radical alteration'in the climax, Faust being ultimately saved, instead of being eternally damned. This, we know, was Goethe's view from the beginning; but he worked it out in his own jay, JFhe.

subject was with Goethe all his working life, and he elaborated it on a vast scale. His Faust is a yearning, craving human being, who, having tasted the hollowness and emptiness of human knowledge, cries out for real joy in life, Mephistopheles initiates him into a romanee and a tragedy. Then (in Part II.) he conducts him through wide fields of experience, half real, half symbolical, or mystical, and wonders when he will'be satisfied. " I shall be " satisfied, - ' says. Faust, "when you give " me a passing moment, to which I can "say, '0 stay, 0 stay, thou art so "'fair.' Then I am yours." He finds that moment, not in passion or power or learning, but in beneficent activity for the benefit of humanity. He dies. Devils grab for his soul: but it is rescued by angels.