The literary merits of Goethe’s Faust correspond accurately with its philosophical excellences. In the prologue in the theatre Goethe himself has described them; much scenery, much wisdom, some folly, great wealth of incident and characterization; and behind, the soul of a poet singing with all sincerity and fervour the visions of his life. Here is profundity, inwardness, honesty, waywardness; here are the most touching accents of nature, and the most varied assortment of curious lore and grotesque fancies. This work, says Goethe (in a quatrain intended as an epilogue, but not ultimately inserted in the play),—this work is like human life: it has a beginning, it has an end; but it has no totality, it is not one whole.[29] How, indeed, should we draw the sum of an infinite experience that is without conditions to determine it, and without goals in which it terminates? Evidently all a poet of pure experience can do is to represent some snatches of it, more or less prolonged; and the more prolonged the experience represented is the more it will be a collection of snatches, and the less the last part of it will have to do with the beginning. Any character which we may attribute to the whole of what we have surveyed would fail to dominate it, if that whole had been larger, and if we had had memory or foresight enough to include other parts of experience differing altogether in kind from the episodes we happen to have lived through. To be miscellaneous, to be indefinite, to be unfinished, is essential to the romantic life. May we not say that it is essential to all life, in its immediacy; and that only in reference to what is not life—to objects, ideals, and unanimities that cannot be experienced but may only be conceived—can life become rational and truly progressive? Herein we may see the radical and inalienable excellence of romanticism; its sincerity, freedom, richness, and infinity. Herein, too, we may see its limitations, in that it cannot fix or trust any of its ideals, and blindly believes the universe to be as wayward as itself, so that nature and art are always slipping through its fingers. It is obstinately empirical, and will never learn anything from experience.
[1] Eckermann, Conversation of May 6, 1827: “Das ist zwar ein wirksamer, manches erklärender, guter Gedanke, aber es ist keine Idee die dem Ganzen ... zugrunde liege.”
[2] Faust, Part it-i. Act v. 375-82:
Ich bin nur durch die Welt gerannt;
Ein jed’ Gelüst ergriff ich bei den Haaren,
Was nicht genügte, liess ich fahren,
Was mir entwischte, liess ich ziehn.
Ich habe nur begehrt und nur vollbracht
Und abermals gewünscht und so mit Macht
Mein Leben durchgestürmt; erst gross und mächtig,
Nun aber geht es weise, geht bedächtig.
[3] Faust, Part i., Studierzimmer, i.:
Welch Schauspiel! aber, ach! ein Schauspiel nur!
Wo fass’ ich dich, unendliche Natur?
Euch, Brüste, wo?
[4] Faust, Part i., Studierzimmer:
Du, Geist der Erde, bist mir näher;
Schon fühl’ ich meine Kräfte höher,
Schon glüh’ ich wie von neuem Wein;
Ich fühle Mut, mich in die Welt zu wagen,
Der Erde Weh, der Erde Glück zu tragen,...
Mit Stürmen mich herumzuschlagen
Und in des Schiffbruchs Knirschen nicht zu zagen.
[5] Faust, Prolog im Himmel: