International Faust Studies: Adaptation, Reception, Translation

The challenge of Goethe's Faust, writes Jane K. Brown, is not its "resistance to interpretation, but rather its incorrigible responsiveness to any question posed to it" (4). Lorna Fitzsimmons quotes Brown in her introduction to underline the enduring power of Faust to resonate with people, and in turn to provoke a wide and diverse variety of responses. These range over literature, art, music, and other performance media, and across national and cultural borders. With this in mind, Fitzsimmons brings together fifteen essays by a number of well-known scholars, not only in literary fields, but performance media in a global context. The result is a stimulating survey of contemporary work in Faust studies, especially in areas that have otherwise often been neglected or marginalized. Fitzsimmons divides the essays into five broad categories.

The first part, "Anteriorities," groups two essays that explore two neglected sources of material that contribute to Faust. Arnd Bohm focuses on the figure of Alexander the Great in Faust, especially Goethe's use of Hellenistic satire and medieval romance, relating these to Faust's obsession with power and domination, a theme that also resonates with various postcolonial treatments of the Faust tradition. By contrast, Jane Curran is interested in the persistence of the puppet tradition, and how the comic figures of Hanswurst, Kasperle, and Pickelhëring are surreptitiously evoked by Goethe's use of language and byplay.

The second part, "Faust: In Context," offers three readings. Alan Corkhill looks at both Parts I and II in terms of their use of "sound related words" and "sound images" and the way that these link Goethe's scientific, linguistic, and philosophical preoccupations. Claudia Brodsky, on the other hand, dwells on the treatment of building and technology in Part II, taking Heidegger as her starting point. By contrast, Ehrhard Bahr focuses on Part I, tracing the conflicting concepts of the devil.

The next part, "Faust: Romantic Intertexts" looks at the transactions between Goethe and his British contemporaries. Fred Parker writes on Byron's familiarity with and use of Goethe's Faust, while Frederick Burwick surveys and discusses Coleridge's translation of Faust. Both Parker and Burwick provide good summaries of the early English translations of Goethe as well as his reception.

Part four takes a dramatic turn, looking at the reception of Faust in Asia, bringing together three essays. Adrian Hsia sketches an overview of the reception of Goethe in the Middle East, Asian Subcontinent, China, and Japan, focusing on translation, and influence. He is especially interested in the problem of translation and interpretation in cultures that do not share cultural concepts. Thus for instance, while Islamic cultures have a concept of the devil and can relate Mephistopheles to the figure of Iblis, Hinduism does not, thereby fundamentally altering the relationship between Faust and the devil. Similarly in Hindi versions, Faust's "act" (Tat) becomes "karma." The next two essays bore in on specific adaptations. Thus David G. John discusses Krishna Kaimal's adaptation of Faust into Kathakali, the highly stylized dance-narrative tradition in southwestern India. Antje Budde discusses both the adaptation of Faust in Chinese theater, and her own work with director Lin Zhaohua, and his production of Meng Jinghui's Bootleg Faust.

The final part brings together essays on Faust in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Britain. While this range seems conventional enough, the treatments seek to cast light into the neglected margins. Richard Ilgner writes on the magus tradition in Canadian novelist Robertson Davies's The Rebel Angels. Paul M. Malone looks at the treatment of the Faust theme in rock musicals, especially Brian De Palma's The Phantom of the Paradise, the Canadian stage musical Starboy, the Randy Newman's Faust album, and Rudolf Volz's Faust: Die Rockoper. By contrast, Gabriele Becheri treats the opera Faust. Un Travestimento (Faust. A Disguise), based on a libretto by Edoardo Sanguineti and music by Luca Lombardi. Katharina Keim looks at the appropriation of Faust from a postcolonial perspective, first tracing Faustian links with colonial themes of domination, then discussing Bahian director Mírcio Meirelles' adaptation, Fausto Zero, and South African William Kentridge's Faustus in Africa!, a production that uses Faust to critique colonialism. It also plays on the origins of the tradition by its use of puppets. The book concludes with Bree Hadley's essay on British playwright Mark Ravenhill's Faust is Dead. Ravenhill, an exponent of the so called "in-yer-face theatre," offers an ambivalent postmodernist response that links Faust with themes drawn from Baudrillard and Foucault and the question of commitment in a postmodern world.

Lorna Fitzsimmons's International Faust Studies vividly illustrates the enduring legacy and the seminal qualities of Goethe's Faust, a reminder that it truly represents a work of world literature, resonating far beyond the canonical boundaries of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German literature. The essays are well written, sophisticated without becoming opaque. The volume as a whole is well put together and supplied with an excellent index. This collection of essays is a refreshing and valuable contribution to Faust studies.