Goethe's Faust

The Evergreen Forum

GOETHE’S FAUST

Course Syllabus: This course will study Goethe’s Faust in English translation. Goethe’s masterpiece, one of the major works of European literature, occupied him for nearly the whole of his creative life. Begun in the 1770s, when he was in his early twenties, Part I of this poetic drama was published in 1808; Part II was not completed until one year before Goethe’s death in 1832. The passionate, tragic love affair of Faust and Margaret in Part I is counterbalanced by the caustic wit of Mephistopheles; in Part II, Faust’s restless striving towards the ideal leads him into more remarkable adventures. Students are invited to become reacquainted with this foreign classic, or to explore its rich vastness for the first time and understand the concluding words of the mystical chorus: "Woman, eternally, shows us the way."

Class One: For the first class I suggest that course members read Part One of Faust through the "Faust’s Study" scene. This will take you up to the scene in "Auerbach’s Tavern in Leipzig." In the first class I will hand out a course syllabus.

Books: There are a number of good translations of Faust. The translation I will refer to in class will be David Luke’s, which is published in two volumes in the Oxford World Classics (Part One’s ISBN is 0192835955; Part Two’s is 0192836366). I can also recommend Stuart Atkins’s translation of Faust I & II, published by Princeton University Press as volume 2 of "Goethe’s Collected Works" (ISBN: 069103656X).

**An excellent translation of Part I of /Faust/ by the poet David Constantine was published in 2005 by Penguin (ISBN: 0140449019); I assume he will also translate Part II, but it hasn’t appeared yet.

Leader: Jim Brazell was a member of the English Department of The College of New Jersey for 34 years.

Thursday: 10.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m,

8 weeks beginning September 27.