The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-11-29
BOOKS OF THE TIME.
Prof. Calvin Thomas's New Edition of
GOethe's Faust"

authors rendered Goethe EuDuc ana en-
| thusiastic homage in his old age; and well
might they do so, seeing what they owed
him; and that Carlyle especially. in his
peculiar fashion. proclaimed himself
jealous admre~ of the German poet. But
the reading public at large. along with its
acknowledged guides and mouthpeces in
| the realm of literary criticism, revealed
but scant understanding of Goethes true
greatness. What particularly attracted
Carlyle to Goethe was the latters force
and originality as a thinker. Now, it is
hardly possible to overestimate his merits
in this respect. but when Carlyle, lacking.
as he was, in appreciation of poetry as
such, eulogized and emphasized the impor-
lance of the philosopher in Goethe it was
but natural that lesser spirits should con-
tinue in the same direction, with the fatal
result that the commonly accepted concep-
ton of Goethe in England, and, TO some
extent America, came to be that OF a
man of undeniable wisdom, who was in the
habit Of printing this wisdom In broken
lines with rhymes tackled on TO the ENDS.
Fhe next inevitable step was for people
that very justly indeed, wish poetry TO be
above all poetical, to reject Goethe wholly,
or almost wholly, as poet, acknowledging
him only as a man who said many good
things in his conversations with Ecker
mann and his letters to Schiller and be-
sides wrote abstruse verse that nobody now
adays need bother about. This is the view
gravely maintained by Matthew Arnold in
"A French Critic on Goethe'-that amaz-
ing essay which makes it forever impossl-
BILE for any admirer of Goethe to accerf
Arnold as literary critic of high order
One reason for this colossal misapprt
hension must doubtless be looked for in tn.
well-known ignorance of foreign languages
that prevails even among such Englishmen
as lay claim to scholarship and familiarity
with foreign literatures. Evidently most
British critics of Goethe knew him only
through transations--and what transla-
tionsl OF all the versions of Faust mace
by Englishmen only two possess any value
at all-Sir Theodore Martins, which IS
upon the whole conscientious and taste
full piece of work, and John Ansters, which
is abominable wherever pathos or sentl-
ment is to be expressed, but reveals I'M
deniabe clevernesS and wit in the humor-
Gus parts, Mephistopheles speeches In
particular. Even here, however, the super
ficial acquaintance with German ldloms
crops out over and over again, as the
present writer has reason to remember
having on certain occasion, with no Ger
man text at hand, been obliged TO DOrroW
a few quotations from Anster for printed
essay on Mephistopheles-aft 10
discover that they contained one or two
biunders. 1t is to the abiding honor of the
American people that by far the best Eng
lish translation of Faust was made by
one of them, Bayard Taylor, and that
there has just been completed an editlon
of the German text for the use OF coiege
pupils and private students which is not
only far and away the most useful OF an
of it's kind, here or in England, but holds
its own very creditably If compared with
those made in the fatherland itself.
The manner in which foreign texts are
edited for the use Of Americans is by no
Oh yfncr IN
pride l am acquainted with a series. of
German texts, edited within the last rev
years by man IN a nigh educatiohal p Pc,
a widely known firm, which TEEN with
evidences of slovenlness and, perhaps,
downright ignorance But signs OF improve.
ment are everywhere percepuble. And OF
them all, none, to my mind, is OF such
wide Significance as Prof Calvin Thomass
edition Of Goethe's Faust of which the
second and last volume has just been pub
lished by Heath & Co., Boston. Such an
have people here in America who desire to
know the whole of Faust" and, secondly,
that there are native scholars among US
or, at any rate one native schoiar.capa-
BILE of meeting this desire with all the en-
cOuragement and assistance required.
Professor Thomas rightly AYERS that the
sincere interest in Goethe and his master
piece might afford to leave the second part
of Faust" unread. That there are weak
passages in the second part Thomas al
lows. He might, perhaps, a trif1e more crn-
phatically have warned critical readers
not to be discouraged by the dreary
Masked BALI and the Homunculus cpl
sode. | believe many students of the sec
ond part, after having duly gone over the
whole of it once or twice henceforth read
but Mephistopheless adventures in the
Pharsalian fields, the Helen scenes and the
divine fifth act But these portions they
read and reread more often, probably, than
anything else in the nature of printed mat
more inexhaustible has ever been written.
The present writer has more than once
had gratifying experience of the growing
interest. in Goethe, and particularly In
Faust" which is manifested almost
everywhere in Indiana where particular
care is at all bestowed upon the things of
of the members of our literary clubs and
societies, being unable to read German
with ease, have to be content with English
translations, It is. however possible to
make the study of Goethe profitable even
in this manner, at any rate, as far as
Faust is commemorative English transla-
tions of novels, and especially of the best
of these, "Werther," being unfortunately
very unsatisfactory My advice to Goethe
be to read Taylors version and use
Thomas's notes. Even though the latter
are written for the German original, they
only for a small part linguistic. What
they give is in the main a running COM
mcntary on the poem which. in connection
with the EDITORS introductions to the two
volumes. should enable any one to under
stand and enjoy "Faust'-any one, that is,
whose mental capacity is larger than
the merits of Messrs. Conan Doyle, Saw
age Gunter and Nick Carter However
it goes without saying that far more de-
lightful will Faust prove when read in
the original. and that in this case Prof.
Thomas will render still greater service
Happily the study of German in Indiana
as elsewhere in the Union, is growing
every year in width and thoroughness.
AS for criticising Thomass work in de-
TAIL it would be out of place in the col
umns of a daily paper Throughout 1t is
differ with him here and there is not to be
denied But only two small, though not
wholly unimpOrtant, matters ought mere TO
be mentioned: Page As, of the introduce
ton to the second volume, Ottilie is spoken
of as Goethes daughter" instead of
.'daughter-ir-law' Worse is it that on
p Al of the introduction to Vol. l. the
editor prints, with apparent approval, Gus
tav Freytag's designation of Mephis-
topheles as 1.-The most lovable of all
devils" Witty. smart, interesting, Mephis-
topheles is more than all other devils and,
/ fear human beings, too. But lovable is
the one thing he is not Perhaps there is
no greater proof of Goethe's genius than
that he was able to make the devil at once
equally interesting and detestable.
This I take it, is the only point on which
ANYBODY would like to take serious issue
with Professor Thomas. But American
students Of Goethe are so heavily indebted
to him that the one growl of dissatisfac-
ton would be sure to be drowned in an
ever swelling chorus of praise
JOAKIM REINHARD,
Associate Professor of German.
Purdue University, Nov. q.
nooI-. Co.. Vo.uo. DaauUa