design; while that of Dr. Anster, the most readable of all, and showing a further insight into the meaning, is a very loose paraphrase, rather than a translation. The original metres, which are here even more important than in the First Part, have been retained by no translator. I do not wish to be understood as passing an unfriendly judgment upon the labors of my predecessors; for I have learned what difficulties stood in their way, and also how easy it is, in the perplexing labyrinth of German comment, to miss the simplest and surest key to Goethe’s many-sided allegories.
The first mistake which many of the critics have made is in attempting any comparison of the two parts. While the moral and intellectual problem, which is first stated in the Prologue in Heaven, advances through richer and broader phases of development to its final solution, the story which comes to an end in Margaret’s dungeon is not resumed. The Second Part opens abruptly in a broad, bright, crowded world; we not only breathe a new atmosphere, but we come back to Faust and Mephistopheles as if after a separation of many years, and find that our former acquaintances have changed in the interval, even as ourselves. “It must be remembered,” says Goethe, “that the First Part is the development of a somewhat obscure individual condition. It is almost wholly subjective; it is the expression of a confused, restricted, and passionate nature.” On the other hand, we learn from the study of Goethe’s life
