The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-11-07
Faust" As INTERPRETED By
cunningham Club Woman


no great importance must be attached to
the second part.
The first part presents the problem that
is solved in the second part, the two
parts cannot be disassociated. The first
is the tragedy of egoism, the second tho
drama of altruism.
The first part presents the lesson of life
negatively and illustrates that neither the
pursuit Of worldly pleasure nor the at
tainment of great worldly knowledge is
able to yield one moment OF supreme
content
From this little world of personal ex-
perienee Faust energies to the greater
world of all experience. in which Goethe
treats the problem of human life in a
positive manner. From the negative state
of mind to which Faust is brought by Me-
phistopheles at the close of the first part,
he works out his own individuality as a
son of Cod by conforming to the one
symbolic life, he, too, becomes unit In
the brotherhood of man.
The tragedy of part one consists not
in the fate of Margaret, but of Faust.
who stands convicted of sin, forsal1en
by God and man, as he must have felt.
despair which the poet has not dared to
touch
Margaret accepts in childish faith the
vicarious sacrifice of love, and conquers
, by perfect submission.
Judgment of God to Thee myself I
give
are the words Of her simple trust Again,
IL
Henry. I shudder to look on thee"
Mephistopheles announces the verdict of
objective mind which he impersonates
throughout the poem, and says:
''She is Judged
A voice from above declares that her
Judgment is her salvation.
But what of Faust? Shall we leave him
here in the clutches of an evil power
(remorse when it is carried too far)-
hopelessly defeated, and dispute the sub
lime message of the poem that
God is able to save to the uttermost
them that are lost?
No, Goethes Faust cannot be dissected.
AS whole 1t is the most sublime crea-
ton of genius that adorns the gallery OF
human thought having for its theme the
truth of being intuitvely perceived and
artistically applied to whole lifetime OF
thought and action.
1t must be held intact and viewed as
I a whole, in order to grasp the thought
| which 1t embodies-a thought so elusive
| that Goethe said to a friend: II do not
! know myself what it is intended to con-
vey."
1t is inspired because it transcends the
| intellect that produced it, and goes beyond
the age in which 1t was written.
| 1t is scientific in the highest sense. and
| is in perfect accord with the most recent
| theories of our theistic evolutionists, as
the vulgar conjurer of the old legend be-
| comes organic mind or reason of the
| broader treatment.
At the age of As Goethe began to live
| over the past in a more real sense. trans
muting the gathered treasures of thought
into that wisdom which is the perfected
fruit of intellectual endeavor. and which
alone may judge righteously a human
act. =,
The events of his own life began to as
sumo their true relation, he took up the
poem again and made it the vehicle of his
most wonderful confession, In which he
holds nothing sacred from the morbid and
ungrateful world
In that ideallzing of the past peculiar to
all poetic natures, he began by writing
| the dedication, the spirit of which is ex-
| pressed in these lines:
| ''What possess see far distant lying,
| And what I lost grows real and undyng."
This dedication is a monody struck from
| the thousand-stringed harp of memory,
reverie in which he did not shrink to