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Faust Part Two

This discussion covers Act III � V, pp. 241 � 344, lines 8488 - 12111

Conclusions and the two plays as a whole.

These comments have been relocated here from the Week Three discussion:


Barbara wrote:
Did anyone like Part Two better than Part One?

I found the two parts to be very different from each other in many ways (and of course there were many similarities as well.)

I'm very glad there was a Part Two to this story. While I tremendously enjoyed Part One, I felt that Part Two sort of "wrapped-up" the whole story.

Anyone else?


Jim wrote:
Barbara wrote: "Whitney, I agree that there are many scenes (in both Part I and Part II) that are left abandoned without a conclusion..."

What I wonder about with Part Two is if he maybe strayed into an overly large scope. So many characters and stories jammed into the play. I wonder what it's like if/when it's performed?

If he had been able to finish the play to his satisfaction, I suspect it would be different than what we're reading. As Whitney mentions, it's much easier to approach Part two as a poem than as a play.


Barbara wrote:
Funny -- I just realized that while I was reading Part Two I forgot that I was reading a play!! (Actually, even throughout Part One I thought of Goethe's Faust as more of a poem than a play.)

I found some of Goethe's poetry on my Nook, and I find that he uses a very similar style in his poems (but I need to read them again -- it was late at night and I was tired when I was reading them.)

Although I'm aware that Part One was often performed alone, without Part Two, I personally found Part Two to be absolutely necessary. Part Two should have been shorter, but the final scene was necessary. I like the concept of forgiveness and salvation, which Faust did not get in Marlowe's play. Also, I like the fact that God and the angels are more powerful than the devil, which Goethe makes a very clear point of in the final scene of Part Two.

Whitney wrote:
I agree. There seemed an awful lot of beside-the-point waffling about in part 2, but the end summed up the main story very satisfyingly. I generally have nothing against characters coming to bad ends, but in this case I quite liked the "love conquers all" finale and the return of Gretchen to guide Faust's spirit.

Reminder: Tomorrow, March 4th, we begin our discussion of F.W. Murnau's movie, Faust.

The discussion thread can be found here:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...