Recent Faust-translations in Romanian

230 GOETHE SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA perceives her own guilt" (p. 75), or of the pact scene that "there is a sense in... Faust that mankind is not only redeemable, but already redeemed in nature" (p. 178), we can only wish that he had allowed himself more scope to develop these fine perceptions. But by and large the flashes of genuine illumination do not seem particularly tied to the thesis of the book, and they are not frequent or sustained enough to outweigh the conceptual difficulties one has with the study. University of Michigan, Dearborn Neil Flax Recent fwrt-translations in Romanian Goethe, J.W, Faust, translated by Lucian Blaga. Bucharest: ESPLA, 1955. Goethe, J.W, Faust, translated by Stefan Aug. Doinas. Bucharest: Univers, 1982. The extent of German literary influence on Romanian writers in the 19th century and later is usually underrated because the influence of French culture was so visible and so massive. However M. Eminescu (1850-1889), Romania's great late Romantic poet, learned much of what he knew from German models, T. Maiorescu (1840-1917), the greatest Victotian critic in Romania, was a devoted Schopenhauerian, and I. Slavici (18481925 ), a vigorous fiction-writer contemporary with them, was steeped in Biedermeier realism. AU of them were great admirers of Goethe, particularly Maiorescu. Goethe was familiar to the educated Romanian audience early on. Fragments of Faust I were performed in 1818 in Bucharest by a traveling group of German players, and a month after Goethe's death Albina Româneasca of Jassy published a commemorative article with short passages translated from Hermann und Dorothea. Lyrical fragments of Faust were translated in the 1830s and 1840s, the first full prose translation of Faust I by V. Pogor and N. Skelitty appeared in 1862, and Pogor also published apoetic versionof F<2»Ji/in 1879. Goethe soon became a role model admired for the "perfect" balance between Classic and Romantic, progressive and traditional, natural and cultural impulses—a model that was supposed to act beneficially on a culture seeking access to modernization while preserving as far as possible its own identity. A commitment to Faust was not linked, as it often was in Germany, to "demonic" creativity, but rather was an attempt to promote a balanced humanism in which Westernization and indigenous features could be blended. It is interesting that Faust was taken up not only by conservative cultural humanists such as Maiorescu and later L. Blaga (1895-1961), but also by socialists such as Ion Nadejde and Ion Gorun, who both produced complete translations, the former in prose (1908), the lattet in verse (1906). For conservatives and socialists alike Faust was exciting because it discussed ideas such as rationality, harmony and humanistic balance in movement, i.e. in dialectical and problematical form. Ina coded way this was a kind of opposition against the glorification of the irrational often embraced by nationalist populist ideologues in 20th century Romanian politics. Virgil Nemoianu 231 The existentialist philosopher Constantin Noica provided perhaps the most sophisticated anti-Faustian essay written by a Romanian in his Despartirea de Goethe (Goethe: A Valediction, 1976), in which he objected to Faust II on the grounds that it was an expression of technological and imperialist hubris that prepared the way for an impasse in Western society. Noica's stance was an answer to the strong Goetheanism of leading intellectuals such as Tudor Vianu and Lucian Blaga in the period between the two World Wars. The most solid and comprehensive studies of Goethe reception in Romania ate I. Ghergel's Goethe in literatura romana (1931) and I. Roman's Ecouri goetheene in literatura romana (1980). After World War II the altered political circumstances led to some interesting shifts in the perception of Faust; the drama became chiefly valuable as a paradigm of interactions between tradition and progress, and between the individual and society. The pervasive feeling that individual freedom of decision, and indeed individual identity, are threatened in an environment that emphasized communitarian interest, made Faust particularly helpful as a rational alternative. There was a second reason for interest in Faust: it was seen not only as a repository of aesthetic forms, but also as heralding the symbolist and expressionist poetic sensibility of the modern age. It could thus provide an answer to the dilemmas of Marxist criticism in the face of 20th century modernism, by providing (arguably) a model of both continuity and innovation. These two positions are quite clear in both the translations by Lucian Blaga and Stefan Augustin Doinas. (A third post-war translation in verse, by Ion Iordan, is much inferior to the two discussed here; it was published in 1957-1958.) In 1948 Blaga was already the author of a vast philosophical and poetic oeuvre; he had been a professor at Cluj University and had held diplomatic positions. He was preoccupied with Goethe's work all his life. Already when he was in his twenties, Blaga wrote two essays, the titles of which ("Daimonion" and "Utphänomen") clearly show which aspect of Goethe's work he deemed worthwhile; later he wrote perceptive commentaries on the concept of Weltliteratur. In the Stalinist 1950s he was not permitted to publish original poetry (analogies with or influences of Rilke, Trakl, Arno Holz, Dehmel, Hey m, and Benn are conspicuous in his verse) ; like Pasternak earlier, he responded with a spate of translations. Faust was the most important of these. Blaga was interested in key philosophical terms (Mutter, Urquell, Brudersphären) which he translated with surprising adequacy, as well as in local and mythological terms for which he found ingenious equivalents in Romanian folklore. The translation is somewhat flabby: there are almost 5% more lines in his Romanian version and many eight-syllable lines are translated into lines of twelve to fourteen syllables. AU the key passages, however, particularly the lyrical ones, are superb achievements. Blaga's Nachdichtung provides a Faust in Jugendstil, delicately stylized, impressionistic and light, somewhat more uniform in tone than the original. Doinas belongs to a much younger generation. He was born in 1921 and was Blaga's student; he is a poet both versatile and robust. Doinas systematically exercised his superlative craftsmanship not only in his original poems but also in an impressive range of translations: Dante's minor works, Mallarmé, Benn, the (virtually) complete works of Hölderlin, Coleridge, Shakespeare, Rilke, and many others. His Faust translation is accompanied by abundant notes and bibliographical comments, as well as by a long essay in which he presents his personal interpretation of the drama. According to Doinas, if 232 GOETHE SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA Faust is to be regarded as homo europaeus, the reason is not his identification with a Spenglerian essence, but rather the opposite: he is a succession of "masks," of experiences, of variants, of historical alternatives. Faust is primarily not harmonious, but open-ended. This centerless synthesis, as I would like to call it, has a theoretical background, explained by Doinas in structuralist terms. He considers the myth to be intrinsically multifaceted, with three levels (historical, psychological, and symbolical), each of them with five components and three human types. The multitude of Faustian literary treatments is generated by the exploitation of potential combinations or emphases of these component elements. Similarly the "Europeanness" of Faust is explained by the myth's complex internal structure. (This view is meant, I believe, as a kind of rejoinder to Blaga's emphasis on the organic unity of "geprägte Form, die lebend sich entwickelt"). The translation by Doinas rigorously follows the text published by Erich Trunz in the Hamburger Ausgabe. The formal structure (e.g. rhythms, stanza, shape, line lengths, etc.) is also faithfully preserved; the notes occasionally offer alternative translations. The translation's main merit is its variety. More systematically than Blaga before him the translator takes advantage of the over 150 years that have elapsed and works back into the text stylistic effects and textual sensibilities that have been made available to us in the interval by post-Romantic and modern poets. Doinas controls the sublime register as well as the level of stylistic earthiness. He is excellent in "Walpurgisnacht," in the Gretchen episodes, in "Anmutige Gegend," and in the Helena episodes. Curiously enough, a certain exhaustion seems to set in when some of the famous "arias" oÃ- Faust are reached ("Prolog im Himmel" and the conclusions to both parts of the drama): the notes suggest a case of over-achievement or over-rationalization. There are very few mistakes that I could detect ("dunkler Ehrenmann" in "Vor dem Tor," 1. 1034, is mistranslated as "just and sullen man"), but the connotations are not always kept in mind, and so occasionally countrified or homespun tones come to be heard in unexpected places. But these are relatively minor faults. The achievement of Doinas, like that of Blaga twenty-five years ago, is considerable. It shows perhaps better than many a learned Western exegesis the sheer immediacy and usefulness of Goethe's work in complex and difficult cultural and social circumstances. Faust, in this test case which perhaps is or can be duplicated in other areas of the globe, shows itself well able to provide sophisticated and symbolical responses to new ideological situations. Catholic University of America Virgil Nemoianu Muenzer, Clark S, Figures of Identity: Goethe's Novels and the Enigmatic Self. University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984. I mean to praise this book, indeed to praise it very highly, and I begin with this statement because it occurs to me that the body of what follows may create a misleading impression. To call Muenzer's work "convincing" or "accurate" or interpretively "sound" (which in many ways, or at many points, it is) would be to compromise its principal aim, ...