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274 Book Reviews Paul Bishop, ed. A Companion to Goethe's Faust: Parts I and II. Rochester: Camden House, 2001. 319 pp. In his introduction to this volume of thirteen essays, Paul Bishop articulates several clear purposes. First, the book is to serve as a "companion" for undergraduate , graduate students, and scholars in the reading and interpretation of both parts of Faust (xiv). The "companion" has estabUshed itsetf as a reUable critical genre: we know to expect broad interdisciplinary orientation to a subject through contributions by distinguished scholars. And Uideed, as a coherent, accessible , often masterful introduction to a vast and complex work, this volume fulfiUs its promise. Bishop's additional goals are to present a "pluraUty" of viewpoints , and to "stimulate debate on the text, and encourage further research based on a close reading of the original text" (xiv). On matters of "pluraUty" and "debate," however, the collection could be stronger. There is, without question, an awe-inspiring critical sovereignty and breadth Ui this book. Martin Swales's elegant, incisive essay on the "Character and Characterization of Faust" goes to the heart of Goethe's stance towards modernity and could serve as an introduction to both parts of Faust for students or scholars at any level. Ritchie Robertson offers wonderful glimpses into the poetic texture of Faust, offering exemplary readings of its metrical strategies, aUusions, and motifs that could not but inspire readers Ui their own close encounters with the work. ElUs Dye's very sympathetic reading of the "Feminine" in Faust manages to contextualize this theme with reference to, by my count, nearly twenty other works by Goethe, as well as works by a dozen other German authors. Essays on scientific themes (Peter D. Smith), on phüosophical issues (Cyrus Hamlin), on the play's relationship to the Medieval and Classical periods (Anthony Phelan), on the task of the translator (David Luke), and the challenge of theatrical production (Robert David MacDonald) aU contribute to a richly multi-dimensional but somehow inteUigible conception of this work. But what is perhaps most compelling about this volume as "guide" or "companion " could also be viewed as a limitation. That is, it seems to issue from a coherent critical universe, characterized by disagreements to be sure, but by few radical disjunctions. One senses indeed a strong common discourse and inteUectual background linking many of these authors. A casual comparison of the range of secondary works referenced throughout this volume to those cited Ui the 1994 Camden House coUection, Interpreting Goethe's Faust Today (ed. Brown, et al.) yielded here a more distinct and consistent canon of critical works. This impression of a common inteUectual culture could arise Ui part from the fact that aU but four of the fourteen contributors are associated with British institutions. And whether or not it bears on essay content, one can hardly miss that only one contributor—simultaneously the lone representative of German academia—is a woman. More to the point, with the chief exception of Franziska Schößler's provocative and original essay on economic paradigms and "restorative utopias," the most recent generation of criticism—aU the experiments, perspectives, and debates broadly associated with Cultural Studies—seems rather underrepresented. In his introduction, Bishop traces the movement in Faust criticism of the last half-century away from the "genetic fallacy"—away from a focus on "background and sources," to "greater attention to the structure and form of the text" (xxvU). Bishop does not deny the significance of cultural context: he writes approvingly of criticism in which extra-textual considerations Uluminate—but do not dominate—the work, and of critics who understand Faust as an ironic commentary on the cultural history of the West (xxvüi). At points in the volume, Goethe Yearbook 275 however, this "Western culture" emerges as oddly static and docUe in Goethe's hands. For example, Ui his essay, "The Diachronie SoUdity of Goethe's Faust," R. H. Stephenson emphasizes so thoroughly the recurrent, persistent, and ageold character of "Western thought" that one begins to long for greater cultural and historical specificity. Certainly this is not to suggest that the essays in this volume need toe the most recent theoretical Une, but the inclusion...

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