A New Interpretation of Faust

REVIEWS 425 A NEW INTERPRETATION OF FAUST* HEINRICH MEYER Professor Fairley's previous studies of Goethe have initiated a new epoch in biographical and literary research because he brought to a seemingly fully explored field of investigation a freslmess of outlook, an independence of judgment, a keen sense of logic, and, above all, literary taste and skill such as had not been seen since the days of HeImann Grimm. It is most refreshing that he now brings these same gifts to bear on Faust. He breaks with the tedious tradition of Faust commentators who either used to show their odd pieces of knowledge under the pretext of source study, or persisted in elaborating time-worn problems posed by generations of predecessors. When one reads Homer one is hardly aware that there should be an Homeric question; when one reads Faust and Goethe's remarks on Faust, one becomes certain that there is no room for a Faust problem. Professor Fairley has therefore discussed Faust as a literary masterpiece that is open to the sensitive mind and the appreciative heart, and that does not conceal an esoteric message, a deeper meaning, an implied system of philosophy or any other hidden content such as has been imputed to it ever since the eighteen-twenties when Hinrichs, the Hegelian, lectured on Faust to "a not inconsiderable number" in Heidelberg. While it seems impossible that Goethe's life-work should have been misinterpreted and reinterpreted generation after generation in the face of Goethe's own clear directions, we have seen until recent years one commentary after another misinterpreting the obvious and overlooking the manifest merely because men without a feeling for artistic value and poetic beauty would not be satisfied until they had lent their own jejune ideas about life and death, salvation and damnation to Goethe who, certainly, felt quite differently about those matters. Barker Fairley was wise enough not even to take issue by indirection with this burdensome, even deadly past. He has read Faust with a fresh mind and has given us his sound impressions with a convincing and most delightful clarity. Himself an artist in the use of words, he knows how to say well that which he has felt and seen. Originally written for delivery under the Mary Flexner Lectureship at Bryn Mawr, the six lectures of the book address themselves to a mature audience. But in making his chief points, the experienced teacher also manages to let us understand them integrally, as an outflow of Goethe's creative genius, and thus gives, by way of Faust inter~ pretation, a comprehensive interpretation of Goethe. This is as it *GoetheJs Faust: Six Essays. By BARKER FAIRLEY. London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press. 1953. Pp. viii, 132. $2.00. 426 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY should be, for in Goethe we do not have an artist who follows an established genre or fornI, but one who shapes his fonn through the very act of self-expression. This is brought out in the first chapter on "Goethes Dramatic Characters." The chapter discusses Goethe's lyrical poetry and dramatic self-representation and develops from his mode of work the plot and history of Faust itself. The interpretation of Faust that results is new in the Faust literature, but it is not new to those who have read Faust with love and who could not find in it a "problem." The second chapter, "The Form of Faust," applies the principles of monologue and dialogue, of lyric and dramatic expressions , of Faustian and Mephistophelian parts, to a comparison of the two parts of Faust in which each scene discussed becomes more understandable both in itself and in its relation to the whole work, which bas also been treated as an epic. Professor Fairley rightly says that the poem "is at once dramatic, epic, and lyrical without being properly anyone of the three, the claims of each being vetoed by the other two." This "conflict of opposites" is then developed with reference to the rhythmic elements and the two opposing worlds of Gennan Gothic and Hellenic Classicism. One remarkable word remains for all future students to consider: Goethe's "death put a close to a poem...