The Humanistic Tradition, Book 5 Romanticism, Realism, and the Nineteenth-Century World

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READING 28.7

40 CHAPTER 28 The Romantic Hero

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as it leaves his body, God’s angels, led by Gretchen

(Goethe’s symbol of the Eternal Female), intervene to

shepherd Faust’s spirit to Heaven.

The heroic Faust is a timeless symbol of the Western

drive for consummate knowledge, experience, and the will

to power over nature. Though it is possible to reproduce

here only a small portion of Goethe’s 12,000-line poem, the

following excerpt conveys the powerful lyricism,the verbal

subtleties, and the shifts between high seriousness and com-

edy that make Goethe’sFausta literary masterpiece.

From Goethe’s Faust(1808)

Prologue in Heaven

The Lord. The Heavenly Hosts. Mephistopheles following

(the Three Archangels step forward).

Raphael:The chanting sun, as ever, rivals 1

The chanting of his brother spheres

And marches round his destined circuit—^1

A march that thunders in our ears.

His aspect cheers the Hosts of Heaven

Though what his essence none can say;

These inconceivable creations

Keep the high state of their first day.

Gabriel:And swift, with inconceivable swiftness,

The earth’s full splendor rolls around, 10

Celestial radiance alternating

With a dread night too deep to sound;

The sea against the rocks’ deep bases

Comes foaming up in far-flung force,

And rock and sea go whirling onward

Figure 28.5 EUGÈNE

DELACROIX, Mephistopheles

Appearing to Faust in His Study,

illustration for Goethe’s Faust,

1828. Lithograph, 10^3 ⁄ 4 9 in.
      Dressed in a “suit of scarlet
      trimmed with gold,” a “little cape
      of stiff brocade,” and a stylish
      hat, Mephistopheles invites
      Faust to dress up like him and
      prepare to seek “pleasure and
      action.” Goethe’s drama inspired
      many contemporary visual
      illustrations, as well as musical
      settings by Berlioz and other
      composers (see chapter 29).

(^1) The sun is treated here as one of the planets, all of which, according
to Pythagoras, moved harmoniously in crystalline spheres.