ernment; Acts II. and III. the development of the Idea of the Beautiful as the highest human attribute, with almost a saving power; Act IV., War; and Act V., Beneficent Activity, crowned by Grace and Redemption. The financial scheme, the discussion of geological theories, the union of the Classic and Romantic, and the introduction of those three tricksy spirits, the Boy Charioteer, Homunculus, and Euphorion (whom I have interpreted as different personifications of Goethe’s own Poetic Genius), must be considered as digressions from the direct course of the plot. In order to understand how they originated, and the probable raisons d’être by which the author justified them to his own mind, I refer the reader to the Notes, which will be found indispensable. I might, indeed, have greatly added to the latter, had I not felt obliged to consider that those to whom the material is not familiar may as easily lose their clew through too much detail of interpretation as from the unexplained text.
Goethe’s chief offence is the license which he allows himself in regard to his language. We find, especially in those portions which were last written, frequent instances of crabbed, arbitrary construction, words and compounds invented in defiance of all rule, and various other deviations from his own full, clear, and rounded style.[1] This
- ↑ “That which first repels the reader in this second Faust-drama is the philological element, which is found throughout the greater part of it. A dragging march of the
