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Faust Analysis Order Number A
Central Themes of Faust
Central Themes of Faust, Part One
Discuss this passage and relate it to the central themes of Faust, Part One.
From the Original German:
Zwei seelen wohnen, ach! In meiner Brust Die Eine will sich von der ander trennen: Die eine halt, in derber Liebeslust, Sich an die Welt mit klammernden Organen; Die andre hebt gewaltsam sich vom Dust Zu den Gefilden hoher Ahnen. -- Goethe's Faust
English Translation:
Two souls alas! are dwelling in my breast; And each is fain to leave its brother.
The one, fast clinging, to the world adheres With clutching organs, in love's sturdy lust;
The other strongly lifts itself from dust. To yonder high, ancestral spheres.
Abstract
20th Century Science Fiction novelist Philip K. Dick in his semi-autobiographical work, A Scanner Darkly, quotes extensively from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1808 masterpiece, Faust, a work that is also alluded to in at least four of Dick's other works. The key excerpt, though, is clearly the fourth which, in English translation, finds Faust saying to Wagner, his assistant:
Two souls alas! are dwelling in my breast; And each is fain to leave its brother.
The one, fast clinging, to the world adheres With clutching organs, in love's sturdy lust;
The other strongly lifts itself from dust. To yonder high, ancestral spheres.
Hugo Award winning novelist Robert Silverberg praised the Dick's "demonic intensity" and deemed A Scanner Darkly, "a masterpiece of sorts."
Dick's novel is about an undercover narcotics agent living in a hippie commune who becomes addicted to illegal drugs....
Thus, two souls dwell in his breast.
Thus, the theme romantically articulated by Goethe more than 200 years ago prove relevant in modern days as well. Human beings are conflicted -- two souls seemingly dwell in each individual's breast. And therein one sees the essence of the human condition.
Main Body
The theme romantically articulated by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe more than 200 years ago prove relevant in modern days as well. Human beings are conflicted -- two souls seemingly dwell in each individual's breast. And therein one sees the essence of the human condition.
20th Century Science Fiction novelist Philip K. Dick in his semi-autobiographical work, A Scanner Darkly, quotes extensively from Goethe's 1808 masterpiece, Faust, a work that is also alluded to in at least four of Dick's other works. The key excerpt, though, is clearly the fourth which, in English translation, finds Faust saying to Wagner, his assistant:
Two souls alas! are dwelling in my breast; And each is fain to leave its brother.
The one, fast clinging, to the world adheres With clutching organs, in love's sturdy lust;
The other strongly lifts itself from dust. To yonder high, ancestral spheres.
Hugo Award winning novelist Robert Silverberg praised the Dick's "demonic intensity" and deemed A Scanner Darkly, "a masterpiece of sorts."
Dick's novel is about an undercover narcotics agent living in a hippie commune who becomes addicted to illegal drugs. Thus, two souls dwell in his breast.
Goethe's Faust -- as referred to by Philip K. Dick in the 1970s, and in the original German of 1808 -- is man. He is everyman. Faust pursues life, but finds himself constantly conflicted. No…
REFERENCES
1. Goethe, Johann von Wolfgang. "Faust." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2nd. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002
2. Goethe's Faust: a literary analysis, SP Atkins - 1958 - Harvard University Press
3. Goethe's Faust: the German tragedy, JK Brown - 1986 - Cornell Univ Press
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