Lecture II

You see, a writer who is not an artist can produce a drama gradually without difficulty, one page at a time; he can do this perfectly well. The great poet cannot; he needs to be deeply rooted in life. For this reason, Goethe could bring the most profound truths to expression in his Faust in relatively early youth, truths that ranged far above the capacities of his soul, but he had to set forth a rejuvenation of Faust. Just bear in mind that Faust had to come into an entirely different mood in spite of the fact that his nature was so deeply formed. In the end, in spite of all his depth, what he had taken into his soul up to that time had brought him near to suicide. He had to be rejuvenated. A lesser individual can describe perfectly well, and even in pretty verses, how a man is rejuvenated. Goethe could not do this so simply; he first had to experience his own rejuvenation in Rome. It is for this reason that the rejuvenation scene, The Witch's Kitchen, was written in Rome in the Villa Borghese.[^19] Goethe would not have ventured to write this scene earlier.