Classics

Faust

By Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann

Translated by Douglas Langworthy

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What would you give to know everything that can be known? For the German scholar Heinrich Faust, the answer is, everything. In Goethe’s dramatic epic poem Faust, perhaps the best-known version of this age-old legend, Faust pledges his soul to Mephistopheles if—and only if—he is satisfied with the knowledge he attains.

Following the Dedication, Prelude in the Theater, and Prelude in Heaven, the action in this sprawling drama moves rapidly from scene to scene—including a witch’s kitchen, a dungeon, an imperial throne room, and, ultimately the scene of Faust’s burial. Along the way, we are treated to a variety of characters, most notably Faust himself and the sly and witty Mephistopheles. Behind the often bantering dialogue lie serious metaphysical questions on the nature of temptation, the struggle of good and evil, and humankind’s incessant striving for a rightful place in the universe.

Written over a period of some three decades, Faust is a drama of epic proportions: theatrical productions of the uncut two-part text can take more than 20 hours. In this new translation, commissioned by the Target Margin Theater and produced in 2006 at the Classic Stage Company in New York, the play was presented in two three-hour sections. In its review, The New York Times praised “the lucid and direct language” of Douglas Langworthy’s translation. Indeed, bringing a modern sound and sensibility to Goethe’s poetry, Langworthy has created a stage worthy rendition of a major literary classic.

Category: Classics
ISBN (softcover): 978-1-935238-34-8
e-ISBN: 978-1-63464-035-0
Author: Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann
Translator: Douglas Langworthy

Langworthy has expertly trimmed the gargantuan text while maintaining Goethe’s structure. Usually in the classroom, and on the rare occasions Faust is performed on the American stage, attention is paid only to the early first part of the play, which ends in Gretchen’s death. This ignores the picaresque and philosophically profound second part, where Goethe expands the Faust legend almost logarithmically. This translation, which was originally made for New York’s Target Margin Theatre, has a momentum, even in the sprawling second half, which makes it Goethe’s grand design accessible for undergraduate students and possible to produce on the American stage

— Walter Bilderback, Dramaturg, The Wilma Theater
Douglas Langworthy’s new translation of Goethe’s Faust fills an important void in American translations of German drama and presents a version of this masterpiece suitable for the stage and classroom. It is immensely readable: in place of Goethe’s rhyming knittelvers, which can sound like Dr. Seuss to American ears, Langworthy provides a rhythmic and colloquial blank verse that feels both classical and contemporary.
This has been a really interesting text for me to read -- as a poet, I can "hear" the rhythm of many of the speeches and can see how his corrections strengthened both the sound and the sense of the text. It's a terrific translation -- I would love to see it staged.

— S.B.