Biblical Borrowings Faust

8/14/2019 Biblical Borrowings Faust

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BIBLICAL BORROW INGS IN GOE THE S FA U ST :A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF TH EIR INTERPRETAT ION

As any survey of the secondary literature on Goethe sFaustwill demonstrate, ourunderstanding ofthe work and of the author s intentions has not increased linearlyduring the two centuries in which it has been subjected to critical exegesis. Evenbroadly based differentiations between successive stages inFaust criticism, such asHans Titze s distinction between periods of philosophical , philological , andphilosophic-aesthetic enquiry into the drama,^ cannot do justice to the vast rangeof individual interpretations thatFausthas elicited since its publication. From theearliest days to the present, the judgements that have been passed on the workhave ranged from relendess condemnation to unmitigated praise.Few aspects ofFausthave led to such extreme clashes of opinion ashas the au thor treatment of religious themes. This is because the function of religion inFaust iintimately bound up with the vexed question of how the drama is to be under-stood. From the outset, two views have been heard on this subject, according towhich Faust may either be a model of the striving individual or and thisalternative is virtually irreconcilable with the former standpoint his careermay be interpreted as a warning against presumption and excess.This polarization of atdtudes toFaust began as soon as the first fragment wamade avadlable to the pubKc. The praise that it earned from Schiller and otherappreciadve readers must not allow the misgivings with which it was spoken of inother circlestobe overlooked. EvenWieland doubted the work s prospects of success,^and Jean Paul expressed the opinion that the drama was directed against suchelements of Titanen-Frechheit as its autho r could only too easily discover withinhimself Of all the remarks made aboutFaustPart i in the first few years followingits publication, it was probably the passage in Germaine de Stael sDe VAllemagthat did most to enhance the negative impression which many of Goethe s contem-poraries had formed of the drama. Her undisguised enthusiasm for a work whichshe read as a parody of traditional beliefs made that work appear suspect in theeyes of many Germ an readers. In her eyes, Mephistopheles is the true hero of theplay and his ironicjd view of the world one of its main interests: Le diable est leheros de cette pifece . . . II y a dans les discours de M6phistophel4s une ironieinfernale, qu i po rte sur la creation tout entifere, et juge Tunivers comme un mauvaislivre dont le diable se fedt le censeur. * For her, there could be no doubt thatFaustwas not to be taken as a good example La pifece de Faust cependant n escertes pas un bon modfele and she confidendy predicted how the work was goingto end; L intention de I auteur est sans doute . . . que la vie de Faust soit sauv^e,maisque son ame [sic] soit perdue {DeI Allemagne, ii, 220 and 216). So, gradua

H a n s T i t z e , Die philosophische Periode der deutschenF austforschung {iSiy-iSjg), nebst kurzen Vberblickm


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830 Biblical Borrowings in Goethe s Faustthe view gained ground thatFaust was intended as a satirical play in whichselfconfident hedonism is caricatured and condemned.This positionwas,however, no longer tenable once the second par t of the dramahad appeared. The continuation of the play, which had eagerly been awaited formany years, aroused no small amotmt of contempt and ridicule when it was finallypublished after Goethe's death, especially as the salvation of Faust was felt to beincongruous with the sum of the misdeeds that he had perpetrated during hislifetime. Also, it had been expected that the complete work would deal vth pro-found religious questions and contain Goethe's final profession of faith.* It is forthis reason tha t Wolfgang Menzel saw fit to judge the work on the strength of thescenes depicting Faust's death and salvation. M enzel is an extreme example ofthereaction against Groethe which set in during the latter years of the poet's life andcontinued until the middle of the n ineteenth century, and, in some cases, for muchlonger. He pours relendess scorn on all aspects of Faust's redemption, which heregards as totally unmerited, since Faust is a 'vomehmer Lustling' who has spenthis life in the clutches of superetition. Yet he also attacks Goethe for not havingpresented a convincing portrayal of the hereafter. Surely, if he disagreed withFaust's salvation, he should have been gratified rather than outraged by Goethe'sevocation of a non-Christian heaven But he berates the poet for having fobbedoff his readers with a cheap sham, a 'Madchenhimmel' where Faust is receivedwith a display of 'bengalisches Feuer' and other 'WeihnachtsherrUchkeiten'. Suchoffences against Christian ethics allow him to conclude his study by lashing out afthe 'asthetischer Heliogabolus'fi omwhose mind this vision of an effeminate heavenhad sprung, where there was no trace of Cjkxi andaHmasculine values were entirelylacking (ni, 328, 333, and 343).If Menzel's Protestant sensibilities had been offended by the pardon meted outto the sinner in thefinalscene, many R om an Catholic critics were nolessvociferousin condemning what they saw as a misuse of the divine prerogative of grace.A prim e example of the biting sarcasm w ith which the newly published second partofFaust was greeted in Catholic circles is Michael Leopold Enk von der BurgBriefe uber Goethe s Faust (Vienna, 1834). He rebukes Goethe for having veninto the realms of theology while opposing its teachings as well as those of pureReason; the 'greatness' oi Faustlies only in the vast dimensions ofitsportrayal odecline and destruction (pp . 64 and 29).Naturally enough, these adverse reactions to the play as a whole had the effectofprovoking a stream of counter-responses in which it was given a more favourableEissessment. It is in this second wave ofFaustcriticism that critical analysis ofthereligious elements in the work has its origins. The critic who could prove thatreligious themes are treated seriously by Goethe would obviously be in a goodposition to refute Menzel's claim thatFaust was the work of a Heliogabalus. Sit happened that the first attempts to comment on the significance of the biblicaland religious material in Faust arose not so much from a recognition of theintrinsic significanceasfrom the pressing need to counter the arguments of Goethe'


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O. DURRANI 83(1841), and Ferdinand Deycks's commentary on Fausi of which the first editionappeared in 1834.Ricmer's study of Goethe isa document with a very definite b ias. In it, he defendsall aspects of Goethe's character against the accusations of his opponents. A lengthydiscussion of the poet's 'Religiositat' figures among chapters extolling h b 'Uneigen-nutzigkeit', 'Dankbarkeit', and 'W ohltatigkeit'. R iemer makes no bones about thecauses that persuaded him to publish these observations; he claims that whileLessing, Wieland, and others were allowed to deviate from the norm withoutincurring severe stricture from their readers, Goethe had become the victim of awitch-hunt. Quoting Menzel, Riemer complains, 'er muB sich als Atheisten ja alsunsittlichenM enschen als einenHeliogabaiverschreien lassen'. In o rder to refute criticisms, Riemer sets out to dem onstrate th at it was Goethe's constant endeavour'sich dem Hochsten zu nahem'. He does this by reminding his readers of thereligious themes and subject matter in such diverse places as 'Poetische Gedankenuber die Hollenfahrt Jesu Ghristi', 'Der ewige Jude', 'Bekenntnisse einer schonenSeele', Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjakre and at the end oi Faust fin ingn theseother works substantial evidence of Goethe's sympathy for the early Christians, andalso for Lutheran Protestantism. For example, Riemer is able to defend Goethe'swell attested aversion to the crucifix by referring to the first Christians, andshowing that they, too, did not venerate Christ crucified. In the course of hisarguments he also picks out quotations from Faust in order to prove a point; so,for example, the carefully expurgated lines 'W o es thront, hinzubeten es lohn t'from the scene 'Felsbuchten des agaischen Meers' (see Faust, lines 8206-8) areadduced as evidence of Groethe's tolerance in religious matters.'^ So it was thatRiemer set a pattern which many future admirers of Goethe were able to follow:his statements on religion were quoted out of context, and his objections to certainaspects of Christianity could sometimes be construed as resulting from a desire toreturn to the origins and essentials of the faith. Those isolated works in whichreligious themes occurred could be set up as examples of the poet's inherentreligiosity. In addition , G oethe's putative religious temperam ent couid be cloakedin vague, metaphysical terminology; Riem er's description of Goethe striving 'sichdem H ochsten zu nah ern ' is typical of the euphemistic formulations with the helpof which he, and others after him, endeavoured to restore Goethe's reputation as areligious thinker.Ferdinand Deycks has the distinction of having produced the first fuil-lengthcommentary on Parts i and n of Goethe'sFaust; this appeared in the autumn of1834.The author's Vonede makes it clear that the principal intention behind thiscommentary is to combat the influence of Enk sBriefe uber Goethe's Faustbydemstrating th at the piay embodies '[eine] zum Grunde liegende sittliche und religioseAnsickt .Because ofthiscom mitment, Deycks tends to dwell on those aspects of theplay that can be used to illustrate the pious intentions of its author. The parallelbetween the 'Prolog im HLmmel' and the Book of Jo b is underscored, Faust's replyto Gretchen's question about religion is construed as evidence of his 'From migkeit',


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832 Biblical Borrowings in Goethe s Faustan das Gdttliche des Christenthums . Even so, Deycks feek obliged to point out tohis readers that Faust is not an exemplary character; like Werther, he is not to beemulated, but to be taken as a warning. Appendices provide information aboutsuch m atters as the lives ofthesaints mentioned a t the end of Bergschluchten , anda small number of other biblical parallels are noted.^ It was Deycks who initiatedthe study of biblical allusions in Faust The results ofhis enquiries are to be found inthe second, augmented and corrected, edition of his commentary (1855). In this,the legend of Dr Faustus is traced back to the biblical tradition of the temptationof Christ by Satan (Matthew 4. 8), and a few direct allusions to the Bible arerecorded. The differences between theirstand second editions of Deycks s commen-tary are an indication ofthenew approach to the criticism of austthat came aboutin the middle of the last century. Sweeping generalizations and personal opinionsgradually come to be replaced by the close study of details deemed to be significant,Deycks s discussion of the devil in the Bible, the older aust chapbooks, and thesimilarities between these and the life-stories of St Cyprian and Theophilus ofAdana are all manifestations of the tremendous interest inQuellengeschichtethat wbeing kindled at the time. After Deycks, all these supposed sources are referred toover and over aga in in the works of the exegetes and editors. Another of Deycks scontributions to the evaluation of the religious content of the dram a is his attemptto identify biblical quotations in the text. Th is scientific method, based on thepositivistic belief that in literature as in the natural sciences it could be profitableto break the m aterial ofone s study down in to its smallest com ponents, was, as weshall see, developed further by subsequent critics, many of whom made it theirconcern to com b through Goethe s works in search of ever more quotations fromthe Bible. For Deycks, however, this is still a means of demonstrating that theunderlying thought is Christian in its tenor. He cites passages from the Psalms toshow that Faust s doubts in M arthens Garten are shared by accepted religiousauthorities (Psalms 13. i ; 52. i ). The extent of his bias may be gauged from thefollowing comm ent on Faust s reaction to the Easter bells: W er es noch nich tweiB,mag auch da erkennen, mit welchen festen, unzerreiSiichen Banden Goethes Seele,trotz aller Naturlust, an dem chrisdichen Grundton hing (second edition (Frankfurt,1855),P- 37)-

The prolific Goethe-exegete Heinrich Duntzer entered the arena not long afterDeycks with a commentary whose tide shows that the author s main concern wasstill to defend the work against the criticisms of Goethe s detractors: Gothe s austseiner Einheit und Ganzheit widerseine Gegner dargestelltfirst ap pe ar ed in 1836, andformed the basis for Duntzer s future, highly successful FrlSutenmgen. He is morconcerned than Deycks, whose study he has obviously read, to strike a balancebetween making the play sound attractive to a Christian audience for example,by discussing the orthodox features in the Prolog im Himmel and acquaintingthem with some of Goethe s non-Christian ideas. While stressing the importanceof the Prologue, and, indeed, suggesting that Der H err may be equated w ith theChrbtian God, healso declares tha t Christianity is subordinated in imst toGoethe s


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O. DURRANI 8 3 3Christian one, that is 'Omnia, quae secundum naturam fiunt, habenda sunt inbonis' (Cicero)."^There can be no doubt that the partisan tone of these 'defensive' commentariesis fully justifiable in view of the hostility that the drama had provoked in certainsections of the public. T he prejudices that prevailed even against Partiare nowherebetter exemplified than in the numerous attempts that were made to produce theplay on the G erman stage.^ The scripts that have come down tousare distinguishedby relentless cuts, bowdlerizations, and gratuitous additions, from which it isobvious that Goethe's frequent allusions toreligioustopics werea sourceof embarrass-ment to would-be producers. Their task was, of course, not made easier by thefact that Goethe never concerned himself to any great degree with the question ofarranging a performance of the play and gave remarkably little support to thoseindividuals who ventured to do so themselves. His letter to Zelter of November1810,in which he mentions the possibility of a performance oiFaust reveals some-thing of his own misgivings as to the success of such an undertaking.^ When theplan was dropped, and Goethe said no more about the desirability of a publicperfonnance of his drama, the opinion became current that it had never beenintended for the stage. Nevertheless, the first performance of Goethe's Faust,Part Ifinallyook place in SchloS Monbijou under the auspices of rinceRadziwillin t8ig. On this occasion, the producer got round the problem of how not tooffend the sensibilities of the public by the unique device of instructing the actorstofindheir own substitutes for any passages in the ir speeches which might give riseto disapprobation, an arrangement which, it must be added, was felt to be un-warranted by most members of the audience . It was not until 1829, first in Braun-schweig in January of that year, and later in Dresden, Leipzig, and Weimar, thatthe playwasshown to wider sections of the public, as a tribute to Goethe in honourofhiseightieth birthday. The cuts made by Klingemann in Braunschweig were, incomparison with what was to follow, fairly moderate; even so, Gretchen was notallowed to attend confession for fear that this might give offence, and Faust's envyof the crucifix (1. 3334) was suppressed for similar reasons. For the W eimar pro-duction, however, Goethe's advice was sought in the matter of how best to deal withsuch potentially controversial passages as Faust's confession, 'Nenn's GluckHerz Liebe Gott . . . ', bu t his response was frequently unhelpful. W hen he wasasked to find an alternative to the line quoted above, he merely replied, 'Hier weisich keinen Rath' Graf, p. 491)- It was inevitable, also, that censorship wouldsometimes make matters worse, as clearly happened when the quotation from theSong of Solomon (1.3336 f.) became;

' D u n t z e r , Gdthe s Faast in seiner Einheit und Gandteil wider seine Gegner dargestellt (C o l o g n e , t 8 3 6 ) ,pp. 20,28.^ The following information on early adaptations oi austfor the theatre is draw n from three m ainsources wh ich, for reasons of space, it will not be possible to acknowledge in each instance . These ar e:A d o l p h E n s U n , Die ersten neater-Aaffiihrmgen des Goethe schen Faust. E in B eitrag zur Geschichie des


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8 34 Biblical Borrowings in Goethe s Fcm stGar wohl, meinFreund Id i hab' Eucb oft beneidetUm das,woran ihr Aug' und Mund geweidet.

These lines ofdoggerel,which open up a vista of lascivity which is avoided in theoriginai, demonstrate how far the censor was prepared to go in order to excise alltraces of biblical language. The cuts ordered in Dresden, where the production wasorganized by Ludwig Tieck, were no less severe, especially in regard to religioussubjects. There, the censor had to be particularly carefiil, as the Catholic andProtestant Churches alike kept a closer watch on the theatre than elsewhere. InDresden, no references to the Church and the priesthood were permitted, so thatGretchen's mother had to give the jewels to 'den Armen', thereby deprivingMephistopheles of the point of one of his most characteristic tirades. 'Christ'(1. 737) became 'Er', and the celebrated 'leider auch Theologie' was transformedinto 'selbst sogar Theologie'.^ Faust continues, with deplorable disregard for themetrical balance of the original:Zwar bin ich gescheiter als alle die Laffen,Doctoren, Magister und wenn man sonst hat zu schafFen .. .

The 'Tropfen Fegefeuer' in 'Auerbachs Keller' was metamorphosed into 'Fiamm eirdisch Feuer', Faust's translation of the first verse of St John was omittedaltogether, and little remained of his early dialogues with Mephistopheles. HerrSchwerdtlein was even deprived of his grave on hallowed ground; 'An einer wohl-geweihten Statte' became 'An einer angesehnen Statte'. All instances of the words'heilig', 'Teufel', 'Religion', 'Wunder', 'Kirche', 'Sakramente', 'Beichte', 'Messe','Priester' were relentlessly expunged. On the other hand, the consequences wereeven more drastic in places where censorship was less strictly enforced, as inLeipzig, where Tieck's version was performed on 29 August 1829, without thedeletions that had been made by the Dresden censor. Here Mephistopheies wasallowed, briefly, to rant against the Church and State, for which he was resoundinglyapplauded, mainly, it appears, by students. Thereafter, the play had to be with-drawn on the orders of the authorities, not only in Leipzig, but even in Dresden,where the more moderate version had been shown. Similar extremes of disapproba-tion occurred at Linz in 1836, when Faust had to be 'wegen vieler Anstofiigkeitenkurzerhand verboten', and as late as J846 the Chief of Police in Konigsberg isquoted as saying 'Es ware eigentlich viel besser, wenn Goethe seinen Fau st niegeschrieben hatte'.If Gk>ethe s compatriots tended, initially, to react unfavourably to his handlingof religious issues, the general public in Britain seems to have formed an almostwholly n^ative impression of the use of biblical and religious material in FauslThis may, in part, be attributab le to the very considerable delay in the appearanceof a complete translation in this country, and to the fact that the first translators


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O. DURRANI 835found it necessary to abridge all controversial scenes.^ A conversation thattook place between Goethe and Henry Crabbe Robinson, who visited the poet inAtigust 1829, casts further light on the low opinion oi Faustthen current in Britainand especially on the taboo surrounding the portrayal of biblical subjects on thestage:He [Goethe] was alive to his reputation in Eng land, and apparen tly mortified at the pooraccount I gave of Lord Leveson Glower's translation o f Faust', though I did not choose totell him that his noble translator, as an apology, said he did it as an exercise while learningthe language. On my mentioning that Lord Leveson Gower had not ventured to translatethe 'Prologue in Heaven' he seemed surprised. 'How so? that is quite unobjectionable. TheideaisinJob . 'He did not perceive that thatwasthe aggravation, not the excuse . . .Graf,p. 500)The allegedly blasphemous content of the work is one of the reasons cited byColeridge as having swayed him against the idea of attempting a translation; he isrecorded as having said:I was once pressed many years ago to translate Faust. .. But then I debated with myselfwhether it became my moral character to render in to English and so far, certainly, lendmycountenance to language much of which I thoughtvulgar,licentious and blasphemous.*Suck opiniotis are wholly in keep ing with the ton e of th e reviews of Faiisi th a t wer eappearing sporadically in the British press at the time. The following extract, fi-omMonthly Review(1810), provide s an interesting insight into the prejudices tha t wererife, even in academic c irc les:On the whole the absurdities ofthe piece are so numerous, the obscenities aresofrequent, theprofaneness is so gross, and the beauties are so exclusively ad apted to Germ an relish, tha t wecannot conscientiously recommend its importation and still less the translation of it to ourEnglish students of German literature.^Again and again the reviewers returned to the work's three alleged defects: absur-dity, obscenity, and blasphemy. So slowly did news concerning the literature offoreign countries travel in those days, that the author of an article in the DublinUniversityMagazine, vm ting in 1836, was sti ll labourin g und er the impression thaFaust was inten ded to be da m ne d a t the end ofthe play, a speculation which pro m ptedthe rebuke: 'and his destruction is, we repeat it , a l ibel on Divine Providence'(Hauhart , p . 43). Further damage was done to Goethe 's rept i ta t ion by an Englishtranslation of Menzel 's Die deutsche Literatur,published in 1840. W he n the tide of

The work appeared as Faust:A DramaticPoem,byGoethe. Translated into EnglishProse, with Ron Former TransUitifms,and Notes, by the Translator of Savign/s Oj tbe Vocation of Our Age for LeandJurisprudeacs [Ab raha m Ha yw ard] (London, 1833). Earlier translations, for examp le, one bLord Gower (1833), had been incomplete to the point of caricature. Gower omits most of the'Prolog im Hioimel' and 'Walpurgisnacht', and'in place ofthe episode in which Gretchen consultsthe 'Blumen wort' he WTites 'Th ey mak e love'. An d there are m any errors W agner's 'U nd lispelnetiglisch wenn sie li^en' comes out as 'And lisp in English when they lie'; see Hayward, pp. xii andxvi. In anoth er 'translation ', dating from i8 a i, the dialogue on F aust's religious aililiations is par a-phrased as follows: Margaret: I t is long since you hav e been to mass or confession. D o you believein G od ? Faustu s replies to this interro gation by one of those mystical definitions of belief in Go d


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8 36 Biblical Borrow ings in Goethe's 'Faust'public opinion began to turn, as it did in Germany, but later, the process washelped by the same tendency to over-emphasize the ideological import of Goethe'sbiblical ma terial, and to see him as a thinker whose philosophy, though bearing theimprint ofhisindividuality, could ultimately be reconciled with Christianity. Withthis aim in mind, one editor of the German textofFaust published in London in1853, begins by assuring his readers that 'He [Goethe] was a Christian, in thesense which this word has in Germ any, tha t is to say, he loved God and men'.iThe same editor, Falck Lebahn, provides extremely copious notes designed todraw attention to all biblical parallels that he can detect, but many oftheseare ofdoubtful authenticity. In the 'Prolog im Himmel' alone, Lebahn finds twenty-nine allusions to the Bible; and when he comes to discuss the half-line 'Es stinkt '(1. 3548), he feels obliged to quote several biblical precedents for the use of thisword (Genesis34.30;11 Samuel 10.6; etc .; see Lebahn, pp . 384-98 and 574). Inthis case, it is likely that his aim was chiefly to lessen the impact that this 'vulgar-ism' might have on English ears by showing that the word was sanctioned by theBible, rather than to prove that a borrowing had been made. Such are the deviousorigins of the study of biblical language in Goethe. Despite its many irrelevancesand its undeniable long-windedness, Lebahn's work anticipates the later findingofHehn,Henkel, and Hohne in its detection of biblical allusions.Fausthas continued to receive praise from some and rebuke from othei^ on thegrounds of its supposed compatibility or incompatibility with Christian thoughtup to the present day. It can be noted, though, that between the middle of thenineteenth century and the eve of the Second World W ar the critics who arguedthat the drama put across Christian attitudes to religious problems have by faroutnumbered those who stressed its anti-Christian features. Hundreds of tractshave been written to prove tha t thefigur sand ideas alluded to in 'Bergschluchten'makeFausta Christian mystery-play. Typical of many is the view put forward byJulius Barens, who reduces the 'message' otFaust to simple terms agreeable to alChristians, tha t is,the forgiveness of sinners and the belief that G od is love. Barensalso brings in Goethe's own life as substantiating his Christian interpretation ofFaust;he points out that Goethe had Christian friends, and a conscience, which imore than can be said of Heine Even religious leaders began to speak out insupport of the view that the drama was the product ofa fundamentally Christianmentality. Willibald Beyschlag, 'Doktor und Professor der Theologie', concludeshis study GSthesFattst in seirtem Verhaltnifi zu m hristenthum (Berlin, 1877) withobservation that Gk>ethe was 'ein Prophet wenn auch eben nur einProphetdes Evangeliums'. The most convincing evidence for Beyschlag is the circumstancethat the play portrays the working of divine grace, which destroys the pact at thevital moment and makes Faust's salvation possible (Beyschlag, pp. 37 and 33).At the same time, the number of systematic attempts to evaluate Goethe'sborrowings from the Bible from a scholarly rather than a religious point ofviewbegan to increase, under the infiuence of the new , positivistic approach to literature.The Estonian literary critic and scientist Viktor Hehn did much to stimulate


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O. DURRANI 8 3 7hundred allusions to the Scriptures in an article entitled 'Goethe und die Spracheder Bibel'.^ However, it is all too obvious that he, too, has an ideological axe togrind. In brief Hehn equates the language of the Lutheran Bible with the idiomof the common people, for whom the Bible was a source of linguistic inspirationat a tim,e when the German nobility turned to foreign literatures and philosophies.So the occurrence of biblical language in Goethe's works becomes a weapon inHehn's nationalistic defence of the poet's sterling patriotic qualities.The subject of Goethe's use oftheBible was taken up by Gym nasialdirektor a.D .Hermann Henkel, whose little volumeGoethe vnd die ibel appeared at Leipzig 1890. In the introduction to this study, Henkel expresses the hope that he will beable to continue the line of approach suggested by Hehn, without confininghimself as Hehn had done, to examples from Goethe's earlier periods. The bulkof Henkel's study is made u p of quotations; these are presented without comm ent,and it sometimes seems as if Henkel were impressed more by Goethe's powers ofmemory than by the intrinsic significance of the quotations which he used ('Fast dieHalfte der Anfuhrungen ruhrt aus Briefen, Gesprachen und Tagebuchem her, einBeweis fiir die Lebhaftigkeit und Prasens der biblischen Erinnerungen' (Henkel,p,8)), A supplement to this study appeared in 1901.^Such attempts to do justice to the totality of the poet's borrowings from a well-nigh inexhaustible source were bound to fail, if for no other reason than becauseof the Herculean dimensions of the enterprise. It is therefore understandable thatthe ambitious publications of Hehn and Henkel should have been followed by aseries of more specifically directed investigations of the type of Otto Pniower'scomparative essay, 'Goethes Faust und das Hohe Lied', which appeared in 1892.In this, Pniower embarks on a detailed study of the parallels between one bookfrom the Old Testament and Faust using Goethe's own translation of the Song ofSolomon, which differs in many respects from the renderings provided in theVulgate and by Luther. Gretchen's exclamation: 'Mich iiberlauft's ' (I. 3187) isrecognizable as a biblical borrowing only if itisrealized th at G oethe had translatedetventer meus intrem uit ad tactum ejus' (Song of Solomon, 5. 4) w ith the expres-sion 'mich uberliefs'. Pniower is able to dem onstrate tha t Goethe has recreated notjust a linguistic formulation but an entire situation that bears the marks of its biblicalprecedent, and he abo relates lines 3336 f, to Song of Solomon 4. 5, and 4128-31to 7,8. One of Pniower's major achievements was to relate Gretchen's monologue'am Sp innrad ' to those parts of the Song of Solomon in which the girl describesthe beauties of her beloved (4. i; 6. 4-6; 5, ii-i6). He is thus able to dismiss thesuggestion that Gretcheu's soliloquy was inspired by Anacreontic or Ossianicverse, and his conclusions concerning the function of the Song of Solomon inFausthave helped to provide a basis for the study of biblical leitmotifs used in thework.'Positivistic enquiry into Goethe's use of biblical quotations in Faust finallyculminates in a treatise by Em il Hohne, published in 1905 under the title 'Umfangund Art der Bibelbenutzung in Goethes Faust'.* In this, the biblical references


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8 3 8 Biblical Borrowings in Goethe s Faustare discussed systematically in two stages. Hohne begins by combing Parts i and1for quotations that are of importance for an understanding of the play, where-after he provides a list of the less significant allusions and mere echoes of scripturallanguage, in the order in which these occtor in the Bible. This gives rise to theperhaps misleading impression that some of the quotations are more deserving ofcritical enqtiiry than others, and the criteria on which Hohne bases his selectionsare necessarily subjective why should U nd wirke der Gottheit lebendigeSKleid (Psalms 104. i f.) be considered more significant than Du hast mir nichtumsonst / Dein Angesicht im Feuer zugewendet (Exodus 3. 3 f.)?Along with themajority of the investigators already disctissed, Hohne attempts to give an explan-ation as to why biblical references should be so prolific in the work under dis-cussion. He adm its tha t it could be main tained das Bibelwort ist recht oft in Faustmehr miBbraucht als gebraucht , and does not try to detnonstrate th at the quota-tions form part ofaphilosophical substratum . They are used casually, wortlich undfrei, tiefernst und ironisch, zustimm end und ablehnend , and they have a partlyornam ental, partly structural function. They serve as Bindeglieder and as sinn-voUe Orna tnente {Hohne, pp . 37, 38, and 92). Thus Hohne treats them as form-giving elements in a literary work that was not constructed according to any oneideology. In defending the often cynical allusions to the Bible spoken by Mephisto-pheies, Hohne reiterates the old argument that their offensive qualities are miti-gated by the fact tha t they occur in verse. AUin all, he submits over2 referencesto analysis, of which the majority, approximately 136, derive from the NewTestament.The relatively high degree of objectivity displayed in the articles and studies byHenkel, Pniower, and Hohne, contrasts with a more partisan approach evincedin religious and clericalcircles. Here, as we have seen, there were ardent supportersof Goethe sFatistwho felt that the work could be reconciled with the principles ofChristianity; but there were also those who continued to argue that its contentwas the legacy of a heathen. It is interesting to note that this division of opinionmakes itself felt in Jewish as well as in Christian circles. The tracts on the reiigiousimplications of the dram a tha t w ere published by Jewish religious leaders towardsthe end of iast century reflect the uncertainty of their Christian colleagues as tothe morality of the work. Oberrabbiner J. Hollander claims, in Der biblische mder gothe sche Fatist (Trier, 1881), that the analogy with Job is a superficial one athat Faust does not succeed in solving the problem of human existence (p. 21).On e year later, Landrabbiner Julius Landsberger published his comparative studyDas Buck Hiob und Goethes Faust (Darm stadt, 1882), in which he points out whtakes to be close parallels between Faust and Job, and argues that Faust was to alarge extent modelled on this Old Testament figure, especially as both men owetheir salvation to the interaction of divine grace (pp. 30 f.). In the face of somanyattacks and counter-attacks. Pastor Albert Kalthoif s enqtiiryDie religiosen ProblinGoethes Faust(1901) strikes a note of relative impartiality. The auth orisone oftsmall number ofcriticswho, despite a personal commitment to religion, a re none-


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O. DURRANI 8 3 9prevailed in the past, and for this reason he goes so far as to welcome Goethe'ssarcasms against the Church. He also maintains that many of the scenes in whichChristian traditions figure are best considered to be frankly satirical. One of themain ideas behind the drama is to depict 'die Geschichte des Zusammenbruchesvon Himmel und Holle im Glauben des modernen Menschen' hence thereprenta tion of God as a highly 'naive ' figure in the Prologue, Kalthoff thereforeconcurs with much of Goethe's criticism of religious institutions and beliefe, forinstance his rejection of the anthropomorphic conception of the deity, and hisjibes at the Trinity, which Kalthoff thinks he is right to denounce as 'Hexenein-maleins'. This surprisingly progressive clergymanisprepared to go all the way w ithGoethe in rejecting those aspects of Christianity which he considers unacceptableto modern man. His comments on G retchen show a quite unusual lack of sympathytowards her religious practices, too ; Kalthoffseesher catechizing of Faust and herprayer to the Virgin isindications ofanaive and over-confident acceptance of theteachings of her priest ('Sie glaubt an Gott, weil sie an ihren Pfarrer, ihre Kircheglaubt'),while Faust's answer to her question abouthisreligion is at least in keepingwith the Scriptures ('Denn von ihm und durch ihn und zu ihm sind alle Dinge',Romans11.36). In his reply, Faust makes it plain that simple answers to questionsabout God are impossible: 'er [Faust] giebt ein ne in und ein ja zugleich, unddamit ha t Faust seine Stellung zum Gottesglauben ausgesprochen, die recht eigent-lich das Glaubensbekenntnis des modernen Menschen genannt werden m u C 'So, in the end, Kalthoff distances himself from the two extremes of attitude thatreligious interpretations had previously put forward, and, ascribing neitherungodly hedonism nor traditional Christianity to its hero, deduces a constructivecriticism of religious issues fromFaust.After much of the spade-work of unearthing biblical references latent inFaushad been performed by scholars such as Hehn, Henkel, and Hohne, it was left to asecond generation ofexegetesto apply these discoveries to the text, and to investi-gate the precise relevance of the quotations in their context. As Otto Pniower haddone in thecaseof the Song of Solomon, critics began to examine one ortwospecificparallels betweenFaust and the Bible in detail, either by comparing Faust withfigures such as Moses orJob,or by contrasting the general import of the d ram a w iththe theme of a book from the Scriptures, for example Job or Ecclesiastes, WhileHohne was content to indicate in a few words that there was a correspondence in themanner in which good and evil forces fought for the souls of Faust and Moses(Hohne, pp. 82 f.), Konrad Burdach supplies massive evidence in support of theview that Goethe was well acquainted with the legends about the dea th of Moses,and draws elaborate parallels between the two figures, showing that in both casesgood and evil spirits battle with each other over the men's corpses, that theirgraves are prepared not by human beings but by spirits, that they end their livesas centenarians, resisting death to the last and are overcome only through theintervention of supernatural agencies, and that they both die within sight of theUtopia for which they have been striving without, however, being able to set foot


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8 40 Biblical Borrow ings in Goethe s Faustfavourite topics in literary criticism since the mid-nineteenth century; there haveprobably been more studies of the correspondences between these two works thanofany other biblical source ofFaust.^ In 1906, Robert Petsch published an essay onFaust und Hiob which, for its concision and for the wealth of material it presents,can still be regarded as exemplary.^ Petsch improves on H enkel s enum eration ofreferences to Job in the work, and suggests a reason why CJoethe should havewanted to adapt Job in hisFattst not because he is primarily interested in theo-dicy, bu t because Herder had opened his eyes to the poetic poten tial of the them eothe incommensurable struggle between U nten and O ben , m an and the higherpowers, with reference to the poetic books of the Old Testam ent. He argues thatHerder and Goethe knew th at the Satan in the Book of Job was not a personifi-cation of Evil, bu t rather, as Herder pu t it, nichts als Gerichts-Engel Gottes, einBote zur Ausforschung, zur Zuchtigung, zur Strafe ;* therefore, it would not beright to equate Mephistopheles with the devil, not even in his capacity as tempterof mankind. Instead, he is best seen as der poetische Exponent einer Tenderzseiner [Faust s] Seele . Petsch concludes his observations with a word of cautionto those who may be inclined to search for abstruse parallels, but the history ofFaustcriticism shows that even the most arcane correspondences have not remaineduninvestigated. Cabbalistic symbolism has been discussed by a number of investi-gators,^ and parallels with the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes have beenIbrought to light by Isaac Rosenberg and W illiam G oodrum . The latter discuss thesimilarity between Qoheleth s and Faust s inability to attain happiness in a worldwhich they regard as meaningless; it emerges tha t Faust s m ood is in m any waysidentical to that of the Old Testament sage. Both try to find satisfaction in theacquisition ofknowledge, and in pleasure, but neither is content withhisexperiences.Paradoxically, it is only the story of Faust that continues after death: Ecclesiastesends on a more sombre note of stoical resignation.Th e cen tenary of the poet s death proved to be an im portant turning-po int inattitudes to Goethe. Some of the m any publications intended to commemorate thisoccasion reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the conventional stereotype of theserene, Olym pian Goethe. Questions were asked as to the authenticity of thisimage and its value for the m odern reader of Goethe. Jose Ortega y Gasset was oneof those who believed tha t many of the poet s less exemplary qualities had beenoverlooked by the established schools of literary criticism:Wir sind der Statue oethes ein wenig iiberdrlissig. Dringen Sie in seinDramaein unteVerzicht aufdieherkommliche und unfruchtbare Schonheit seiner Gestalt. . . Zeigen Sicuns einen Goethe, der schifFbriichig und verloren ist in seiner eigenen Existenz, der keinenAugenblick weiB,was aus ihmwerden wird.

See Faust-Bibliographie, edited by Hans He nnin g, 5 vols (Berlin, 1966-76}, 11, 2/2, pp . 72-4. hronikdes WienerGoethe-Vereins, 20 (1906), 13-16.* Th e view that He rder was responsible for a large part of the theo lc^ cal content ofFaustis arguedby Giinther Jaco by,Herderals Faust (Leipzig, 1911).*Vom Geist der Ebraischen Poeiie, in Samtliche Werke, edited by Bernhard Suphan, 33 vols (B


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O. DURRANI 841So he recommends the study of some of Goethe s hitherto unexplored character-traits, such as seine dauernde Verstimmung, seine Geheimradichkeit, seineIsoHertheit, der Zug von Bitterkeit .i Just as Ortega y Gasset argues th at tbeolder Goethe had betrayed his vocation as a poet by settling in Weimar, KonradBurdach m aintains tha t Faust is less true to his ideals in Part11than he had been inthe first part of the d ram a. After showing tha t Faust s religious experiences werelacking in continuity in Part i, he considers the reasons behind his salvation. Hecannot accept that Faustwasintended to be taken as a model: Nicht ein Paradigm awoUte Goethe in ihm schaffen, wohl aber eine W am ung und einen Trost and Indem SchluB des zweiten Teils . . . scheitert Faust : sein Lebensweg ist der Vem ich-tung geweiht. Having thus condem ned Faust, it is no easy task for Burdach toexplain why the poet nevertheless engineers his salvation with the help of familiarChristian symbolism. He decides that the reasons for this are largely to do withGoethe s early interest in Pietism, Gatholicism, and in the O ld Testament, andsees the final scene as an attempt to evoke the Urreligion of mankind.^

The years leading up to and following the Second World War saw a considerableincrease in tbe number of published interpretations that stressed the pessimisticaspects of Goethe s dram a. Wilhelm Bohm sFaust der Nichtfaustische (1933) andlaterGoethes Faust in neuer Deutimg (1949) mark an attempt to examine the cecharacter s m ore negative features, and the consequence of this app roach is thatthe play is seen as a satirical debunking of the concept of the tjbermensch. Similarif from a more committed theological angle , Reinbold Schneider mainta ined thatthere was a possibility that a great misunderstanding had occurred in literarycriticism as to the true importofFaust, whose hero was no more than a genialeFrevler . After emphasizing the many occasions on which Faust refuses to ac-knowledge the transcendental realm as envisaged by Christianity, Schneider tries toaccount for his salvation, and has to conclude tbat only the intercession of theVirgin Mary could have produced this otherwise inexplicable development:WedervomSittlichen noch vomTheologischen her kann die Losunghinreichend begrundewerden; als Prophetie wird sie vielleicht verstandlich . . Der Frevel am Miitterlichen,diesereigentlich faustische Frevel, kann nur vonder Mutterverziehenwerden.Negative, too, are the assessments of Faust s character arrived at by JohannesPinsk,* Ernst Jockers,^ and Werner Milch,* to name a few of the post-war criticswho were inclined to see Faust as arrogantly overreaching himself Pinsk readsChristian symbolism into most parts of the dram a (the M others , for example,represent creation before the Fall of M an), and believes that Faust s death occursprimarily as a punishment for the murder of Philemon and Baucis. Gretchenensures that Faust is ultimately saved; she remains part of the Church in spiteof her sins, and Pinsk commends Gkiethe for portraying christliche W irklichkeiteven though this does no t play an important pa rt in tbe poet s personal beliefs. Jo si Orte ga y Gasset (translated by Helene W eyl), U m einen Goethe von innen bittend. Brief

an einen Deu tschen , NeueRundschau, 43 (1932), 559, 566. First published as Pidiendo un Goethdesde dentro. Gartaaunalemin , itaisiaifeoeaitoite, 36 (1932), 1-41.


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842 Biblical Borrowings in Goethe s FaustJockers and Milch regard Faust as a tragic figure who does evil deeds in theerroneous belief that he has the utilimited freedom of his creator. These are sotneexamples ofthe defeatist readings oiFaustwhich reflect attitudes that w ere currenamong certain intellectuals at the time of the Second World War, and of whichBarker Fairley says that they were forced on Gennatis by their own unhappiness .Many of these studies were in fact not so much first-hand readings of Faust areactions to the eulogies of Faustian striving that had been apjjearing in the wakeof Oswald Spengier s charac terization of der faustische Mensch ,* such as FritzStrich s Der deutsche M ensch : er sei mit einem W orte hier der faustische Menschgenannt ,* or Richard GrCstzmacher sGoethesFaust. Ein deutscher Mythos (19the title speaks foritself For Fairley, the Germ ans needed to be helped to a sounderview of their own poem, and hisGoethe sFaust. Six Essaysisintended as a contrtion to this task. He no longer sees the religious question as the main issue of thework; G oethe s modelling of the Prolog im H immel on the Book of Jo b may bethe boldest ofhislevies on the past {Fairiey, p. 102), but the Bible is only one ofthe many foreign sources of which the poet made use. From this point onwards,the role of Anglo-American criticism liecomes increasingly important, so thatby the mid-1960s it begins to look as if foreign scholars were tnore interested inGoethe than Germans were.*After publishing several articles on various aspects of Faust Stuart Atkinsproduced his literary analysis of the com plete work in 1958. His studies showhim to be greatly interested in the significance of the religious elements in Fausbut his interpretation is character-oriented, and he consequently evaluates thereligious material chiefly with tbe objective of deducing supplementary inform-ation about the play s characters from it. His bookisa vigorous plea for regardingFaust as a unity, tbe unifying factor being the character of Faust, whose presenceis to be felt even in those scenes in which he does not appear , which Atkins treats asdreams and experiences undergone in a trance-like state.^ When assessing Faust sstatements on religion, Atkins endeavours to decide whether Faust is being seriousor frivolous, and in doing so he is not always consistent. Too often, when Goethehas left Fatist s motivation uncertain and ambiguous, Atkins believes he knowsexactly how Faust feels, and supplies amplifying descriptions which are at bestidiosyncratic and at worst wilfully misleading. Essentially, Atkins sees Faust as acreature offleshand blood rather than sa constructed literary figu re; in his words,Faust is above all . . . a man so likable (sic) that sympathetic self-identificationwith him in moments of passionate triumph or of bitter despair is always possible(Atkins, p. 26). He therefore tends to err on the side of being over-specific in attri-buting certain feelings and attitudes to Faust. In his view, Fatist s reference to thechurch s venerable night (1.927) is spoken disparagingly , and th e whole tenorothis speech is facile , somewhat sentim ental , alm.ost glibly anthropocentric

* Goethe s Faust. Six Essays ( O xf o r d , 1 953) , p . v . O s w a l d S p e n g l e r , Der Untergang ties Abeiidlandes. Urm isse einer Morpko logie der Wettgeschichte, 2 vots


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O. DURRANI 8 4 3(Atkins, p. 34). I t is also an open question whether Faus t s religious principles canbe defined as accurately as Atkins attempts to in his deliberations on the openingverses of Studierzim mer I . But in the factual information tha t he provides abou tthe wording of the text Atkinsismost helpful to the reader. He spots a large num berof biblical quotations and associations, and supplies useful information about theircontext, as in his observations on Mephistopheles s misquotation ofGenesisin line2048,Goethe s distortion of the Requiem Mass in Dom , and the function of FrauBaubo in the writings of the early C hurch Fathers (Atkins, pp . 53 and90f.). Morerecently, Eudo C. Mason has disagreed with the proposition that Faust was alikable ch aracter and maintained that what Goethe termed the incommensur-able aspect of this work precludes a simple evaluation of Faust s character as eitherpraiseworthy or ignoble:The paradoxical view is here proposed thatFaust is in equal measure a glorification ana denunciation of the superman, that his self-centredness and ruthlessness are in equalmeasurejustified and condemned, that Faustissaved bothbecause of what he isand in spitofwhat heis.The amoralism of Faust and the Christianity of Gretchen are in conflict with oneanother, each being defeated and triumphing by turn, and in the end being unitedin the Eterna l Fem inine. According to Mason, G oethe found the Christian religionundesirable, intolerable, and indeed impossible from a personal point of view, bu talso regarded it as the right and indispensable religion for the ordinary man andfor woman at all levels, especially the highest level (Mason, p . 241). He can there-fore credit the work with no m ore than a very loose unity , and does not see Faust ssalvation as a structural element.

The unityoiFaust which has been under discussion since the time of Duntzer scommentary of 1836, is tbe subject of Paul R equ adt s penetrating analysis,GoetheFaustr Leitmotivik undArchitektur published in Munich in 1972, and to thisthelast in a long line of interpretations of the play. Though indebted to tbe researchof tbe previous English-speaking scholars, Requadt s work is distinguished fromMason s by its vigorous defence of the structural unity of the play, and from Atkins sby its more detached treatment of Faust s characte r: for Re quadt, Faust is a muchmore elusivefigur han for most other critics. The structure of the workisreflectedin the recurring symbols, and it is to these tha t R equadt devotes most ofhisatten-tion. Requadt s greatest interest lies in the symbols of expansion and contraction;several of these symbols are of biblical origin, for example the motif of the wideand the strait gate (Matthew 7. 13 f.), and the polarity oftheword and the spirit11 Corinthians 3. 6) . I t is therefore not surprising th at Requ adt s study shouldprovide one of the most thorough discussions of the biblical references in Faustever tohave been published. Requadt never attributes Goethe s biblical pbraseologyto anything other than the poetic intentions of the author, so tbat the Lord of thePrologue and Christ crucified (11. 1300-9) are not religious figu res so much assymbolsof totality which contrzist with Mephistopheles, who bears the connotationsof the particular and incomplete (Requadt, pp. 48, 59, 117, and 121-3). This


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8 4 4 Biblical Borrow ings in Goethe s Faustcreates the impression that Goethe waslessinterested in the religious significance ofhis symbols than in their function as poetic chiffres. Motifs such as Quelle andPforte serve to illustrate Faust s longing for expansion and his transitions fromEnge to Ausbreitung , while losing most of the m eaning which they had in theScriptures. Gretchen s prayer in Zw inger interests Requadt m ore on account ofits architectura l ramifications in Kerker and Bergschluchten than for what itreveals about her psychological condition {Requadt, p. 344). Similarly, Requadttreats the Song of Solomon as a recurring motif in the Gretchen Traged y withoutaskii^ why Goethe used this and no othermotifRequadt s discoveries will, it is hoped, help to create a greater sensitivity towardsthe prolific biblical allusionsinFaust.His disciissions show that they are of cardinaimportance for several reasons: they prove tha t the work has a tightly knit structureof recurring biblical symbols, and this in turn places the drama within the contextof modern literature , where, as Requ adt hints w ith reference to M usil, Joyce , andT . S. Eliot, the technique of quotation has had an im portan t role to play. When heexamines theprocessof Faust s salvation, which he regards asaheigh tening of motifsalready employed in Nach f and Kerker , Requadt provides an interpretation ofthe conclusion of the drama which proceeds from within, instead of imputing tothe salvationary machinery the role of an intrusive device, as so many others havedone (Requadt, pp. 385-8).The multiplicity of responses tha t G oethe s linguistic and them atic borrowingsfrom religious sources have occasioned in the field of modem literary studies bearsample witness to the important role which these elements play in Faust. They armore than a superficial form of ornamentation or a structure-giving device; norare they simply an aid to characterization or a means enabling Goethe to professhis faith ordisbelief The comments which they have provoked however contra-dictory they may at first appear point to the need for a synthesizing reappraisal,in which due attention is paid to the multiple functions of many of Goethe s allu-sionstoreligious subjects.^ The fate which Goethe s b iblical quotations met with atthe hands of the nineteenth-century censors demonstrates that there was a well-established convention at that time which forbade allusions to the sacrosanct inprofane con texts: Goethe must have known of this and contravened it intentionally.The negative reactions to this aspectofFaust as recorded above, show that Gk>ethwas prepared to risk his repu tation for the sake of the religious elements in his workwhich confirms their prom inent position in the au tho r s conception ofFaust. Buit is equally clear th at they allow themselves to be in terpreted from several angles,and inevitably, each generationwiUneed to examine them afresh and will be certainto arrive at new conclusions regarding their import. There could be no fitter mottowith which to terminate this survey than the words spoken by Dr Stockmann inIbsen s An Enemy ofthe People:The life of a normally constituted truth is generally, say, about seventeen or eighteen years,at most twenty; rarely longer., x^ O . DURRANIUNIVERSITY O F DURHAM


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Biblical Borrowings Faust