Faust: Part II, by J.W. von Goethe, trans. Martin Greenwood Yale, 253pp, £20/£9.50 in UK
Referring to Faust II, Goethe remarked to Eckermann on February 13th, 1831: "In such compositions what really matters is that the single masses should be clear and significant, while the whole remains incommensurable; and by that very reason, like an unsolved problem, constantly draws mankind to study it again and again."
He certainly knew what he was talking about. Faust II is clearly one of the most difficult and complex dramatic works we have. The main reason for its complexity is that the play represents a dramaturgy of consciousness whose aesthetic presentation is one of simultaneity, relying on the spatialisation of time as well as the temporalisation of space. A consecutive development of plot has been abandoned; instead, the playwright offers a phenomenology of the ways of the world in selective arrangements combined with the allegory of Faust's life.
This type of dramaturgy, immensely modern, had a considerable impact. Richard Wagner recognised its aesthetically innovative nature. So did Thomas Mann, calling Faust II an "impenetrable time growth, half spectacular revue, half world poem that deserves love rather than deep respect". The surrealists and the abstractionists - Goethe put them all in the shade, proffering dreamworld orgies, allegorical abstraction, perspectivism of the centuries, the boldest reach into the musee imaginaire, the freest play of forms.
Faust II is the omnium gatherum of Western traditions: ancient-mediaeval-modern; pagan-Christian-post-Christian; Northern-Mediterranean; Classical-Romantic; thought-action; subject-object. Faust here is no longer the human individual he was in Part I, but an embodiment of something more abstract, more withdrawn into thought - an ever-thriving spirit that helps win redemption for his soul when dying.
Faust II is a work defying all decorum. Most puzzling is its joking, frivolous tone, its banter, satire and parody. Take Mephistopheles, a sinister figure in Part I, the spirit of negation. He fools his way through Part II and is himself made a fool of twice. Goethe was eighty-two when he finished the play in August 1931. He had been working on its two parts on and off for sixty years.
Greenwood states that he has tried to cast the verse in a "language really spoken by men", thus echoing Wordsworth. He wanted to avoid strained syntax and diction. He has succeeded admirably in his aim, not least because he has dispensed with Goethe's rhyme scheme, which would have been extremely difficult, if not altogether impossible, in English and would have led to textual distortions. Instead, he has employed half-rhyme which has enabled him to maintain a greater fidelity to the Goethean line and to follow Goethe's metres closely, except for Act III,i, where classical hexameters have been replaced by pentameters, and for the choral odes of Act III, which lack the complex music they possess in German and are odes only to the eye.
One problem which the translator of older texts inevitably faces is that words may have changed their meanings. The last stanza of Faust II offers a case in point. The Chorus Mysticus states that in the realm of the divine "Das Unzulangliche,/Hier wird's Ereignis". In present-day German, "das Unzulangliche" refers to that which is "insufficient" or "inadequate". A modern German/English dictionary offers those two terms. Not surprisingly, therefore, in Philip Wayne's translation (Penguin Classics), the two lines are rendered thus: "Earth's insufficiency/Here finds fulfil- ment". For Goethe, though, "das Unzulangliche"
would have been that which cannot be grasped, is out of reach, is inaccessible (from "zulangen", to grab at something). Greenberg is quite correct to opt for "The inaccessible/Here is known finally". The second line literally means "Here is (or has) become fact or an event", meaning that it is realised. But Greenwood's "Here is known .. ." ties up nicely with the concept of "the inaccessible".
In the last four lines of the play, Wayne introduces the idea of love, which is not at all to be found in the original text, with regard to the "ineffable" (actually "the inexpressible") in order to be able to let "Eternal Woman- hood/Lead us above". Greenwood is much closer to Goethe: "The inexpressible/Here's acted, done;/The eternal feminine/Beckons us on." Never mind that "the eternal feminine" does not scan properly.
Its interminable length as well as its myriad difficulties, textual and otherwise, make the translating of Faust II an utterly daunting undertaking. Greenwood has certainly stood up to the challenge with bravura, and how fitting that the book should be dedicated to a "faithful reader" called Gabriel.