{ "meta": { "schema_version": "1.2", "endpoint": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/index.json" }, "work": { "slug": "faust-ii", "name": "Faust II (1832)", "stream": "western-european", "epoch_reflected": "current", "epoch_written": "current", "form": "poetic drama", "tradition": "Goethean Romantic-Idealist", "author": "J.W. von Goethe", "year_approx": 1832, "note": "Faust II — the Imperial Court, the alchemical Homunculus, the Classical Walpurgis-Night, the marriage of Faust and Helena, and the Mountain-Gorges redemption-scene. Composed posthumous 1832. Steiner's engagement concentrates on the Classical Walpurgis-Night, Helena, and the Mountain-Gorges redemption in GA 272/273; per-act commentary in GA 65 and GA 32.", "books_slug": "goethe--faust", "books_slugs": null, "has_project_translation": false, "steiner_loci": [] }, "parents": [ { "slug": "goethe-works", "name": "Works of Goethe", "url": "/sources/goethe-works/" }, { "slug": "faust", "name": "Faust (Parts I and II)", "url": "/sources/faust/" } ], "translation": { "title": null, "author": null, "source": null }, "chapters": [ { "num": 1, "slug": "01-act-i-a-pleasant-landscape", "title": "Act I — A Pleasant Landscape", "words": 868, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/01-act-i-a-pleasant-landscape/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/01-act-i-a-pleasant-landscape.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act I — A Pleasant Landscape (Faust's restoration)", "blurb": "Opens *Faust* Part II. Faust, having survived Part I, sleeps on a meadow attended by Ariel and a chorus of spirits. The healing of his memory and conscience; the great speech at sunrise — *Du, Erde, warst auch diese Nacht beständig* — and the symbolic image of the rainbow on the falling water that becomes the figure of human striving as refraction of the unbearable absolute." }, { "num": 2, "slug": "02-act-i-hall-of-the-throne", "title": "Act I — Hall of the Throne (Imperial Court)", "words": 2663, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/02-act-i-hall-of-the-throne/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/02-act-i-hall-of-the-throne.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act I — Hall of the Throne (the Imperial Court)", "blurb": "Faust and Mephistopheles at the Imperial Court. The Emperor's bankrupt treasury; Mephistopheles's proposal of *paper money* secured by undiscovered buried gold. The political-economic satire of Goethe's mature register; the Court that is Christian-feudal in form but already commodity-economic in substance." }, { "num": 3, "slug": "03-act-i-spacious-hall-masquerade", "title": "Act I — Spacious Hall (Masquerade)", "words": 6375, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/03-act-i-spacious-hall-masquerade/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/03-act-i-spacious-hall-masquerade.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act I — Spacious Hall (the Masquerade)", "blurb": "The great Carnival masquerade — Goethe's most elaborate single scene. Allegorical figures parade — Pluto, the Boy-Charioteer, the Empress, Fauns, Satyrs, Gnomes. The literary-allegorical compendium that establishes the cosmic-symbolic register of Part II as distinct from the personal-tragic register of Part I." }, { "num": 4, "slug": "04-act-i-pleasure-garden-paper-money", "title": "Act I — Pleasure-Garden (Paper Money)", "words": 7165, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/04-act-i-pleasure-garden-paper-money/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/04-act-i-pleasure-garden-paper-money.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act I — Pleasure-Garden (Paper Money)", "blurb": "The morning after the masquerade. The paper money proposal of the previous scene is realised; the court rejoices in apparent wealth. The Emperor demands new wonders; Faust is charged with summoning Helen of Troy from the past — the task that will drive Acts II and III." }, { "num": 5, "slug": "05-act-ii-laboratory-homunculus", "title": "Act II — Laboratory (Homunculus)", "words": 1569, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/05-act-ii-laboratory-homunculus/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/05-act-ii-laboratory-homunculus.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act II — Laboratory (the creation of Homunculus)", "blurb": "In Faust's old laboratory, Wagner — Faust's former assistant, now a celebrated professor — succeeds in creating the *Homunculus*, an artificial spirit-being confined to a glass phial. Goethe's strange alchemical-prophetic figure: the spirit that yearns to *become* — to take on physical embodiment through the path of evolution from the simplest forms." }, { "num": 6, "slug": "06-act-ii-classical-walpurgis-night", "title": "Act II — Classical Walpurgis-Night", "words": 7636, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/06-act-ii-classical-walpurgis-night/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/06-act-ii-classical-walpurgis-night.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act II — Classical Walpurgis-Night (the Greek mythological assembly)", "blurb": "Distinct from the Walpurgis-Night of Part I — this is the *Classical* version, set in Greece on the Pharsalian plain. Faust, Mephistopheles, and Homunculus encounter the figures of Greek mythology — Chiron, Sphinxes, Sirens, Manto, Anaxagoras, Thales. Homunculus's choice of element; the philosophical-cosmological core of Part II." }, { "num": 7, "slug": "07-act-ii-rocky-coves-of-the-aegean-sea", "title": "Act II — Rocky Coves of the Aegean Sea (Galatea)", "words": 3277, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/07-act-ii-rocky-coves-of-the-aegean-sea/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/07-act-ii-rocky-coves-of-the-aegean-sea.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act II — Rocky Coves of the Aegean Sea (Galatea)", "blurb": "Closes Act II. The festival of Galatea — Aphrodite's predecessor, mounted on her shell — pulled by Tritons across the moonlit sea. Homunculus, drawn by the spectacle, dashes himself against Galatea's chariot, his glass shatters, his spirit dissolves into the elements. The death-as-marriage with the sea — Homunculus enters embodied life." }, { "num": 8, "slug": "08-act-iii-helena", "title": "Act III — Helena", "words": 12280, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/08-act-iii-helena/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/08-act-iii-helena.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act III — Helena (the union of Faust and Helen of Troy)", "blurb": "The entire Act III — Goethe's *Helena* — a self-contained classical tragedy in five-foot iambic Greek metre. Helen returned from the underworld to her palace at Sparta; menaced by Phorkyas (Mephistopheles in disguise); rescued by Faust to his medieval castle. Their union, the birth of their son Euphorion, his fatal flight Icarus-like into the heights, Helen's return to the dead." }, { "num": 9, "slug": "09-act-iv-high-mountains", "title": "Act IV — High Mountains", "words": 8519, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/09-act-iv-high-mountains/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/09-act-iv-high-mountains.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act IV — High Mountains (the imperial campaign)", "blurb": "Faust on high mountains gazes down on the world; his great unfinished speech on the ambitions of human striving — to reclaim land from the sea, to make new earth where there was only flux. Mephistopheles arrives with martial assistance for the Emperor against a usurper; Faust earns his fief of seacoast for his service." }, { "num": 10, "slug": "10-act-v-open-country-philemon-and-baucis", "title": "Act V — Open Country (Philemon and Baucis)", "words": 2269, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/10-act-v-open-country-philemon-and-baucis/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/10-act-v-open-country-philemon-and-baucis.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act V — Open Country (Philemon and Baucis)", "blurb": "The dark chapter. Faust, lord of his reclaimed seacoast, is troubled by the small cottage of old Philemon and Baucis at the edge — the last spot not yet incorporated into his great works. Mephistopheles, sent to relocate them gently, burns them out in their cottage. Faust's troubled conscience; his refusal to look directly at what he has authorised." }, { "num": 11, "slug": "11-act-v-midnight-care", "title": "Act V — Midnight (Care)", "words": 3626, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/11-act-v-midnight-care/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/11-act-v-midnight-care.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act V — Midnight (the visit of Care)", "blurb": "The famous midnight scene. The four grey women — Want, Debt, Need, Care — approach the now-blind Faust. Three of them cannot enter (he is rich); only Care passes through the keyhole. She breathes upon him, blinds his outward eye, but the inward light burns the brighter. *Die Nacht scheint tiefer tief hereinzudringen, / Allein im Innern leuchtet helles Licht.*" }, { "num": 12, "slug": "12-act-v-mountain-gorges-redemption", "title": "Act V — Mountain-Gorges (Redemption of Faust)", "words": 53656, "url": "/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/12-act-v-mountain-gorges-redemption/", "api": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/12-act-v-mountain-gorges-redemption.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Act V — Mountain-Gorges (Redemption)", "blurb": "The closing scene of *Faust* Part II — and of Goethe's life-work. The angels carrying Faust's *immortal part* upward through the mountain gorges, contesting it with Mephistopheles's claim. The hierarchical ranks of the redeemed; Gretchen returned to intercede. The closing chorus mysticus: *Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis* — all that is transitory is only a likeness." } ] }