Faust II (1832)
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.
Source context· Western European stream · Anglo-German cultural age
- Stream
- Western European
- Cultural age
- Anglo-German (5th post-Atlantean cultural age)
- Composed
- c. 1832 CE
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
What this work carries
Faust II carries forward the alchemical-Rosicrucian initiation-stream into poetic-dramatic form, transposing the older mystery-path of purification, classical encounter, and final redemption into a modern artistic vessel. The Classical Walpurgis-Night recapitulates the Greek mystery-stream; the Mountain-Gorges close transmits the Christian-Marian redemption-motif inherited through medieval mysticism.
Language frame
Late Goethean German verse drama, completed posthumously in 1832, structured in five acts spanning imperial-political, alchemical, classical-mythological, heroic, and eschatological registers. The work uses changing meters and choric forms as initiatory signatures rather than as ornament.
Steiner’s engagement
- GA 273, 1917-01-27Steiner treats the laboratory scene of Act II (Homunculus, Wagner's narrow Gothic chamber) as a concentrated image of the modern problem of generating spirit-being out of matter.
- GA 13Steiner draws on Act II of Faust II in the chapter on initiation, using Goethe's imagery to illustrate the path of higher knowledge.
- GA 59, 1910-05-12Steiner cites the closing lines of Faust II (the Chorus Mysticus, lines 12104ff.) in connection with the metamorphosis of the soul toward the eternal-feminine.
- GA 109, 1909-04-11Steiner reads the Chorus Mysticus (lines 12104–12111) as a formulation of the principle by which the transitory becomes a likeness of the eternal.
- GA 58, 1909-12-02Steiner draws on Faust II (l. 11583f., the Mountain-Gorges scene) in expounding the soul's higher transformation.
- GA 95, 1906-08-23Steiner treats Act I of Faust II — the Imperial Court and the Mothers — as a depiction of descent into the formative ground of being.
- GA 95, 1906-09-04Steiner presents the Chorus Mysticus at the close of Act V as a Rosicrucian-initiatory utterance summarizing the path of the work.
- GA 267Steiner's esoteric-training notes reference the Chorus Mysticus of Faust II Act V in the context of Rosicrucian schooling.
- GA 104a, 1909-05-13Steiner cites Faust II Act I (the Dark Gallery, line 6255) within the exposition of apocalyptic imagery.
- GA 282, 1924-09-08Steiner uses Act III scene 1 (the Helena-act) as exemplary material in the speech-and-drama course, treating the verse as a school of formed speech.
- GA 54Steiner quotes Faust II ('sounding loud to spirit-hearing, see the new-born day appearing') in his Haeckel essays as a marker of spirit-hearing beyond sense-perception.
Cross-tradition congruence
- alchemical OpusThe Homunculus episode, the descent to the Mothers, and the Classical Walpurgis-Night re-enact the stages of solve et coagula and the chymical conjunction figured in Western alchemical literature.
- Marian mysticismThe Mountain-Gorges close, with its ascending hierarchy of Pater Ecstaticus, Pater Profundus, the Marian penitents, and the Mater Gloriosa, structurally mirrors the medieval Marian-mystical ladder of ascent.
- 1Act I — A Pleasant Landscape — Act I — A Pleasant Landscape (Faust's restoration)
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.
868 words - 2Act I — Hall of the Throne (Imperial Court) — Act I — Hall of the Throne (the Imperial Court)
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.
2,663 words - 3Act I — Spacious Hall (Masquerade) — Act I — Spacious Hall (the Masquerade)
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.
6,375 words - 4Act I — Pleasure-Garden (Paper Money) — Act I — Pleasure-Garden (Paper Money)
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.
7,165 words - 5Act II — Laboratory (Homunculus) — Act II — Laboratory (the creation of Homunculus)
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.
1,569 words - 6Act II — Classical Walpurgis-Night — Act II — Classical Walpurgis-Night (the Greek mythological assembly)
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.
7,636 words - 7Act II — Rocky Coves of the Aegean Sea (Galatea) — Act II — Rocky Coves of the Aegean Sea (Galatea)
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.
3,277 words - 8Act III — Helena — Act III — Helena (the union of Faust and Helen of Troy)
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.
12,280 words - 9Act IV — High Mountains — Act IV — High Mountains (the imperial campaign)
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.
8,519 words - 10Act V — Open Country (Philemon and Baucis) — Act V — Open Country (Philemon and Baucis)
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.
2,269 words - 11Act V — Midnight (Care) — Act V — Midnight (the visit of Care)
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.
3,626 words - 12Act V — Mountain-Gorges (Redemption of Faust) — Act V — Mountain-Gorges (Redemption)
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.
53,656 words
JSON: /api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/index.json · Back to Sources.