13. Book Reviews IX: German Literature (Freud, Goethe, Schiller, Holderlin)
The Wolfman and Other Cases, by Sigmund Freud
The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Goethe
Faust Johann Goethe
The Robbers and Wallenstein by Friedrich Schiller
Selected Poems and Fragments by Friedrich Holderlin
The Wolfman and Other Cases
By Sigmund Freud
10/29/2025
1. Some people have neurological disorders, or disorders of the nervous system, which can make them behave in abnormal ways.
2. Some people display negative behavior because their physical state is very poor.
3. The boy’s parents explained to him what the biological purpose of sex was, what it meant to have sexual dysfunction, and indicated that it was okay to have sexual dysfunction, and that you shouldn’t let it overcome your life.
4. Many men who display abnormal behavior, excessive confusion, or sexual deviance, were actually born as women, and are having problems from the transformative surgery.
5. Some women have had one or more ovaries removed in surgery, which can negatively affect their behavior.
6. Some men and women experience a sense of uneasiness, detachment, or displacement from reality, from the general concept of reality.
10/25/2025
1. The woman dressed like a man, had a man's haircut, and she also knew how to behave like a man.
2. The man dressed up like a clown, and also knew how to wear makeup.
3. I told him don't go too close to the ledge on the roof, because you could fall over. But his repressed desires to be daring were overwhelming.
4. Omitted.
5. Teach children that just as they grow, develop, and go through phases, their family also grows, develops, and goes through phases.
6. Teach children that as they may have gotten everything they wanted as young boys or girls, they cannot get everything they want as they grow older.
7. When children are faced with the realities of life, and how they will survive as they grow into adults.
8. Frustration and fear at the upcoming birth of a new baby sister.
9. Defiance in children, or when children defy their parents.
10. Quick displays of aggression and hostility in males.
11. The stork is very slow and methodical about how it picks up and puts down stones with its beak onto its nest.
12. When people have difficulty adjusting to city life.
13. Phobias and anxiety that accompany city life can be numerous.
14. Abnormal sexual behavior may be able to be controlled by counseling and medication.
15. The man told his psychiatrist his experiences, then his psychiatrist interpreted them in his office.
16. It was common for the psychiatrist to have his clients' paperwork, so that he could easily pull up information about his client.
17. The man spent a lot of time around women, and other people thought that this was a problem.
18. Men are known to compete for the love of a woman.
19. In psychiatry, there are exceptional individuals, who are unique for different reasons.
20. In counseling, sometimes subjects repeat themselves.
21. After counseling and scenarios at home with his family, the patient was cured of his psychiatric disorder.
22. “I know that I am assuming a great deal as regards the reasoning powers of a child of four or five, but I am allowing myself to be guided by recent discoveries…”
23. The child spoke at a very high pitch.
24. “What influence tipped the scales, in the situation we have described…is a difficult question to answer and could no doubt only be decided by comparing this case with several other similar analyses...”
25. The man was a lot like a woman, even in his sex life.
26. The woman was very masculine in her life.
27. One of the men was feminine, and one of the men was masculine.
28. The horse carriages of NYC date back to old towns in Italy. The Italians had a culture around horses, and sometimes they would even play games of horsey with their family.
29. Italians sometimes had irrational fears, or phobias about horses.
30. Some games are purely fantasy, and have no equivalent in reality.
31. "A boy can have children, you know?” “No, a boy can’t have children.”
32. Sigmund Freud had a patient who was an old woman who had old, used underwear that she would regularly wash in her sink and dry at home.
33. The man's psychiatrist regularly asked him about his sex life, and then interpreted these comments in relation to his treatment.
34. Human sometimes make up psychological problems about themselves, which are really not true psychological problems that they have.
35. Examine patient's relationships with the opposite sex.
36. Examine patient's level of experience and wisdom in life.
37. "He follows some of my ideas, but some of them get past him."
38. Obsessive compulsion with cosmetic surgery and liposuction.
39. Indirect suicide, or suicide which occurs over a great deal of time.
40. Obsessive compulsive shows of excessive love and affection.
41. Omitted.
42. Obsessive compulsive shows of excessive mourning at funerals.
43. Obsessive compulsive shows of excessive sympathy for others.
44. Repressing or forgetting past criminal behavior.
45. The surprise thought scenario - when you’re with someone and surprise, totally irrelevant thoughts come up in your discussion.
46. The man looked like he needed to bathe more regularly and shave more regularly.
47. He claimed that his memory was mostly dreams, hallucinations, and visions, instead of realistic events.
48. His family regularly asked him about his experience in the army.
49. Sudden expressions of rage or anger displayed by some psychiatric patients.
50. Using evidence and other information to prove a case against someone.
51. Using the credibility, wisdom, and experience of one person over another person to judge a case.
52. The man was willing to fight, rather than being viewed as weak. He didn’t want his father or cousins to beat him up, and he didn’t want to lose his intellectual beliefs or his material possessions.
53. It is difficult for some people to answer a direct question directly. —Sigmund Freud
54.Some people display defiance of authority figures in police or government.
55. Adults should act like wise and experienced men and women.
56. Adults should display wise and experienced behavior in their relationships with others.
57. The man had a fantasy with the connection between science fiction and real life. This was a detachment from reality.
58. A more far-reaching attempt to interpret the patient's dreams on this subject produced the clearest indications of a poetic fantasy, which we might term epic in scope...
59. Scientific inquiry on the basis of psychoanalysis is at present merely a by-product of therapeutic endeavour, after all, and for that reason the yield is often greatest in the case of patients whose treatment is unsuccessful.
60. The man was fond of bringing up childhood memories in his discussions.
61. Problems with compulsive thinking and compulsive ideas.
62. You may not be mentally ill, if you have attended mental health classes for years, and your classmates believe that you are a normal person.
63. The other man was tough on him, since the man had a high-pitched voice, was "half-man and half-woman," and not a real man.
64. The patient had displayed a psychological disorder, or an obsessive-compulsive neurosis, characterized by thoughts which displayed a displacement with reality.
65. The patient's neurosis included distorted thoughts about reality.
66. The patient's neurosis, characterized by a displacement with reality, could have caused the patient to harm himself or others.
67. The patient's neurosis included childlike behaviors.
68. The patient would sometimes become fixated on little sleights of the hand when engaged in discussions.
69. The patient would sometimes laugh and make irrational jokes.
70. The patient's neurosis was characterized by severe mood swings.
71. The doctor had tried to uncover the root of his patient's childlike behavior.
72. "As I made clear earlier, in this disorder repression does not take place through amnesia, but through the destruction of causal connections consequent upon the withdrawal of the accompanying emotion."
73. "It would seem that these repressed relationships retain a certain warning power - which I have compared elsewhere to an endopsychic perception - so that they are made to enter the outside world by means of projection and there bear witness to what has failed to occur in the psychic sphere."
74. Omitted.
75. "He was obliged to recall what had been forgotten and to establish what he had neglected to find out."
76. "The particular fondness that the patient suffering from obsessive-compulsive neurosis feels for uncertainty and doubt provides him with a motive...Such topics are pre-eminently paternity, life expectancy, the afterlife and memory - to which we generally give credence without possessing the faintest proof of its reliability."
77. "Obsessive-compulsive neurosis make substantial use of the uncertainty of memory in symptom formation; the role played by life expectancy and the afterlife in the content of the patient's thinking is something we shall shortly discover."
78. "First, though, as the most appropriate transition to that topic, I shall discuss the characteristic tendency to superstition in our patient, my earlier reference to which will no doubt have disconcerted more than one reader."
79. "I am referring to the omnipotence he claims for his thoughts and feelings, his good and evil wishes. It is certainly no small temptation to declare this idea to be a delusion that goes far beyond the limits characteristic of obsessive-compulsive neurosis; except that I have encountered this same conviction in another patient suffering from compulsive disorders who has long since recovered and now leads a normal, active life, and in fact all those suffering from obsessive-compulsive neurosis conduct themselves as if they shared this conviction"
80. "The mother and father taught their son how to correct his abnormal behaviors. The psychiatrist also helped them with this."
81. Sigmund Freud and Oliver Sacks were psychiatrists who kept detailed case notes about their patients and their paychological problems and their abnormal behaviors. Freud and Sacks also suggest that everyone has abnormal behavior: doctors, teachers, lawyers, bankers, police officers, etc.
82. In treating one of Freud's patients, the family used the scene from Little Red Riding Hood, where, in the end, the big bad wolf dresses up in grandmother's clothes, and sleeps in grandmother's bed.
83. Sigmund Freud discusses physical intimidation.
84. Due to surgery, some people do not have a sex drive.
85. Some people’s sex drive declines over time.
86. Sometimes, the father plays a mysterious part in the child’s life.
87. What is considered a sexual act to some, is considered totally normal to others.
88. His family and psychiatrist would deliberately trigger him, for a psychoanalytical experiment.
89. He was arrested on the basis of one minuscule piece of evidence.
90. Paranoia was also a factor in his arrest.
91. Many people in his family also had psychological problems that would often arise.
92. Several factors caused his arrest.
93. Why couldn’t his family just act normally?
94. The hero had a beautiful mind, his thoughts and internal voice were brilliant.
95. Declaring independence from one’s parents as a behavior of many human beings. This can be painful but it is necessary for normal adults.
96. Omitted.
97. Discusses the differences between the generations.
98. He was a rich man, but he didn’t know how to wisely manage his finances.
99. When he died, his money was divided between his mother and his older sister.
100. Discusses differences between children and their parents: ideological, social, etc.
101. Displaying abnormal behavior at night, and displaying bouts of shouting and aggression at night, as signs of neurosis in psychiatric patients.
102. Being in an irrational dreamlike, or fantasy state, as a sign of neurosis in psychiatric patients.
103. A person should not display anger or aggression toward other people.
104. Irrational obsession about the body movements of other people.
105. Irrational obsession about getting other people to talk when they don’t want to.
106. Irrational obsession about wanting to control other people.
107. Irrational obsession about different events in other people’s lives.
108. Irrational obsession about rushing a person and trying to make them behave faster.
109. Irrational obsession about involving several family members in the experiences in your life.
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Johann Goethe
1. Life involves complex emotions and complex behaviors.
2. The Count laid out architectural plans for the design of the city.
3. I am alone, but I am happy. There are many moments in my day that I find happiness.
4. Even though our lives are rough, there are moments of happiness in our lives. Nature, hard work, and friendship, are reasons to be happy, for example.
5. Continuous happiness is elusive.
6. "My dear, even though our lives are rough, we get to smile and laugh sometimes."
7. I tickled the children fast and then let them go.
8. The affection and simplicity which she displayed charmed me.
9. Learn how to enjoy your life.
10. If they're your friends, then you're happy around them.
11. A good friend stands by you in good times as well as bad times.
12. Determine if your moral views and your lifestyle match or are compatible with the area that you live in.
13. She believed that he was an unstable young man.
14. This evil being, he eats entire forests, consumes entire planets, entire solar systems. He will not stop unless the angelic figure of good is victorious.
15. The conflict between people who want us to make noise, and people who want to stay quiet.
16. Simply living and breathing are reasons to be happy. I'm happy just to be alive on God's green earth.
17. I like the glow of the sun.
18. Each day is different, and we can also feel different each day.
19. I don't know, and let us not worry each other with analogies, Wilhelm.
20. Human nature has its limits. It can bear joy, sorrow, pain to a certain degree and founders when that limit is exceeded.
21. So now I recite the whole thing in a sing-song voice, which is quite entertaining.
22. Examines the competitive personality versus the non-competitive personality.
23. The competitive personality feels very often that he or she lacks this or that.
24. "He took a great interest in me and we knew that we understood each other."
25. Many a king is ruled by his minister and many a minister by his secretary. Who then is the top man?
26. Other people were living through the man's memories.
27. "My dear, even though our lives are rough, we get to smile and laugh sometimes."
28. Traits that all humans share are: faith in themselves, faith in their friends, and faith in the future. --Sorrows..., Johann Goethe
29. Her health is ruined and for that reason she has no delight in anything on God's earth.
30. He felt as though his life was a slow agonizing existence.
31. They were talking about trivial, unimportant things, such as what was on the news, for example.
32. She talked of something else so that I wouldn't develop my theme.
33. She does not see, she does not feel that she is preparing a poison that will be the undoing of me and of her...
34. She tried to speak as quietly as possible.
35. It seems that I shall never recover myself. Everywhere I go I have encounters that utterly discompose me.
36. Thank God that he has got to be only as bad as this.
37. They tried to help the sick man get better.
38. The man had a passion for her which sent him raving mad.
39. The children were playing, dressing their toy doll.
40. What is this thing, the vaunted demigod, a man?
41. I have made it my business to gather exact information from the mouths of those who could have a good knowledge of his story -- which is straightforward, and except in a few trivial details all versions of it tally.
42. Werther was unhappy. The harmony of his mind was quite destroyed, an inward heat and vehemence, which wrought up and disarrayed all his natural energies, causing the most unpleasant reactions in him, exhausting him, and by his efforts to rise up again his courage was sapped even more than by the troubles he had fought against so far.
43. He had not changed in so short a time, he was the same man Werther had known from the beginning and had so esteemed and honoured.
44. Living himself in an eternal discontenment, the state other people were in also seemed to him more worrying and confused.
44. Love and fidelity are the finest human feelings.
45. With the greatest liveliness, passion, and truth he spoke.
46. ...sometimes he would break off the conversation or change topics.
47. I swear this to you in a way that is pure, holy, and brotherly.
48. Tell my mother to pray for her son and that I ask forgiveness for all the trouble I have caused her.
Faust: Part One
Johann Goethe
1. Studying Nature's sacred cyclic laws. He practiced in the laboratory, mixing, by this or that strange recipe, elements in an ill-assorted brew.
2. The very thing one needs one does not know,
And what one knows is needless information.
3. Evening has come, our sun is westering now--
But it speeds on to bring new life elsewhere.
4. But the pursuit of intellectual things
From book to book, from page to page--what joys that yields!
How fine and snug the winter nights become,
What sweet life courses through one's veins.
5. Division tears my life in two.
One loves the world, it clutches her, it binds
Itself to her, clinging with furious lust;
The other longs to soar beyond the dust
Into the realm of high ancestral minds.
Are there no spirits moving in the air,
Ruling the region between the earth and sky?
6. Give me a magic cloak to carry me
Away to some far place, some land untold...
7. Their spiteful ears are open to obey
Our summons, for they love to harm and cheat...
Is false, their lisping voice is sweet.
8. Different breeds of dogs have different characteristics.
9. There is some other rendering,
Which with the spirit's guidance I must find.
We read: 'In the beginning was the Mind,'
Before you write this first phrase, think again;
Good sense eludes the overhasty pen.
10. Can it be happening naturally?
Is it real? Is it a dream or not?
11. Some dogs are faster than others.
12. Let a dog lie down on a folded blanket or a pillow as a bed.
13. I can't recall specific examples of times, but generally speaking, we had good times together, it was a good relationship, so we stayed together happily. -
14. There are simple jobs, and there are complex jobs.
15. "The whole room is filled with this devil-dog.
He wants to dissolve into a fog."
16. "You made me sweat, I must admit it."
17. "You seem complete and whole, yet you say that you are a part."
18. "The Something, this coarse world, this mess,
Stands in the way of nothingness."
19. Strange son of chaos! think again.
20. Some dog breeds are more playful than other dog breeds.
21. The world has laws.
22. "Excuse me now: I soon will reappear And tell you anything you wish to hear.
23. "Where love and beauty are far beyond speech."
24. The earth's a home -- man is always in it.
25. What satisfaction can life hold?
26. A human mind is creative.
27. Thus by existence tortured and oppressed, I crave for death, I long for rest.
28 - 35. Omitted.
35. Frosh: Let me be. Greetings and kisses she shall have from me. Oh let me in, the moon is high.
36. Round in this narrow ring they dance their measure, Like kittens chasing their own tails. This carefree idyll never fails.
37. Those two are travellers, you can see, That's why their acting so peculiarly. They've only just arrived, I'd guess. You're right; one up to Leipzig. It's no less...
38. The concept of an education is different based on time period and geographic location.
39. They're from a noble family, I'd swear-- They've got that arrogant ill-tempered air.
40. Mephistopheles: There was a king who reigned over us, He had a great big flea. --Hear that? A flea! Let's listen to the rest. A flea's a cheerful sort of guest.
41. His cousins at the court they were, All ministers as well...Yet no one dared to kill those fleas, or dared to make a fuss. But we can pick them off and squeeze them dead when they bite us.
42. --Destruction to all fleas I say. --Catch 'em and squash 'em, that's the way. --Now that's enough from you, Mr Pernickety.
43. Some climates, such as Italy and Spain, are better for producing wine.
44. Mephistopheles: Now, which wine do you fancy?
Brander: I'll have champagne, if you don't mind; The very finest, the real bubbly kind.
Siebel: I must confess, dry wines are not for me; Give me a glass of something really sweet. Mephistopheles: Today shall flow for you; just keep your seat.
Altmayer: Gentlemen, tell me honestly-- You're surely just playing a joke on us.
45. Mephistopheles: So tell me, without more ado, What wine can I now offer you?
Altmayer: Any you like, let's not waste time.
46. After drinking a few glasses of wine, the men turn into beasts and begin to have fun.
47. Brander: Look, under all these green leaves, see These vines, these juicy grapes, bless me. [He takes hold of Siebel by the nose. The rest do the same to each other and raise their hands.]
48. Altmayer: I saw him put the cellar door behind him. I've got lead weights in both my feet.
49. In body and mind, be bound within, Eat food that's plain and simple, live like cattle with the cattle...
50. The friends begin a simple game: to rhyme with each other.
51. "Get away from me you skinny stick!"
52. Besides, civilization, which now licks Us all so smooth, has taught even the Devil tricks.
53. The Devil Mephistopheles takes human form as The Baron.
54. Mephistopheles: A good glass of the you-know-what; But please, the oldest vintage you have got-- Years give it strength in double measure. The Witch: Certainly. I've a bottle on this shelf, I sometimes take a swig from it myself...But as you know, it's not for casual drinking....
55. Mephistophele: We must wait our chance. Faust: I'll take her a present; get one at once. Mephistopheles: Presents already? Very charming; he'll succeed.
56. Margareta: I'd like to find out, I must say, Who that gentleman was today. A handsome man, I do admit, And a nobleman by the looks of it.
57. Magareta: I've got a feeling something's wrong.
58. Magareta: [She opens the cupboard to put her clothes in, and sees the kewel-case.] What's this? Oh God in heaven, just look. I've never seen such things before. These jewels would be what a princess wore at eh highest feast in the feast-day book. I wonder how this necklace would suit me?
58. Everyone can wear jewelry, but only a few people can wear jewelry like a real princess.
59. Some people's noses are not suited for sweet-smelling things. The Neighbour's House
60. Martha: My husband, may God pardon him! He didn't treat me right. For shame! Just went off into the world one day, Left me a grass widow, as they say. Yet I've never done him any wrong; I loved him truly all along.
61. Martha [trying out some of the jewels on her]. Aren't you a lucky little miss. Margareta: But I can't wear them in the street, or go to church and be seen in them, you know.]
62. He asks her to forgive him, she asks him to forgive her, they make up, and are happy again.
63. Faust: When I speak, I shouldn't use such complex language.
64. Faust: ...Insist on being right, and merely have a tongue.
65. Magareta: [She picks a daisy and begins pulling off the petals one by one.] He loves me--loves me not--loves me--not--loves me--not--He loves me!
66. Faust: [He clasps both her hands in his.]
Magareta: I'm tremblng all over!
Faust: Don't be afraid. [He stands lost in thought for a moment, then follows her. Martha enters with Mephistopheles.]
67. Magareta: Oh goodness gracious, what a lot of clever thoughts in his head he's got! I'm so ashamed, I just agree with all he says, poor silly me...How can he find me so interesting?
68. Faust: Oh sublime Spirit! You have given me all I asked for. You gave me Nature's splendour for my kingdom, And strength to grasp it with my heart.
69. Faust: Then in this cavern's refuge, where you lead me, You show me to myself, and my own heart's Profound mysterious wonders are disclosed.
70. Faust: To such happiness, you added a companion, who with one breath can destroy me in my own eyes, and turn your gifts to nothing.
71. Mephistopheles: Well, have you not tired yet of this life-style? How strange that it still interest you. No doubt it's good to try once in a while, till one moves on to something new.
72. Mephistopheles: What sort of life would you have had -- just tell me that poor earthling. For some time I've cured your scribble-scrabbling fancies; why, if I'd not been there, rest assured you'd have already bid this world goodbye.
73. If you walk, then walk to increase your strength.
74. She passes the time patiently. She's watching the clouds; at her window she stands, as they drift over the old town wall; she's all alone; all day and half the night she sings: If only i had a little bird's wings.
75. Faust: Clear off, disgusting pimp! Mephistopheles: God himself, who made man and woman, created man and woman to be good to each other.
76. The man worked around a lot of women, and naturally, the women had a way about them. For example, sometimes they would confuse him or play little tricks on him.
77. Goethe originally intended a further scene at this point, to end with a satanistic ritual at the top of the mountain.
78. In the end, the prisoner was tied to a chair and beheaded with a special executioner's sword.
79. Omitted.
80. The man’s thoughts were almost always dark and unhappy.
1. Mephistopheles: What a charming child you are, I'd say. You deserve to be married straight away.
2. Mephistopheles: He's a fine lad; seen the world all right; Very nice to ladies, very polite.
3. In order to speak clearer, he didn't search for words for too long.
4. Discusses the universal struggle of men.
5. Well, you know, some people are just rather odd.
6. The house was lit with lamps, but they were dim and weak, and the family wanted a brighter home.
7. Faust: Was there no jewellery you could find? My mistress loves those golden toys.
8. There was a sort of social structure in the workplace.
9. Valentine: Even into the light of day; It's bigger, but it's ugly still. The filthier its face has grown, The more it must be seen and shown.
10. It feels like my own neck is choking me.
11. The vaulted roof crushes me. Give me air!
12. But the whole mountain's magic-mad tonight, good sir, And you must not be too particular.
13. Witches: Where have the broken witches been? Now we meet again, and up we ride. Lord Capercailzie will preside.
14. Warlocks: Why worry? We still win these races. A woman's mile's a thousand paces: But let her hurry as she can-- One jump's enough if you're a man.
15. Mephistopheles: With one leap, we'll escape from this canaille; It's all too crazy, even for my taste.
16. The old women sometimes told old wives tales.
17. Mephistopheles: But here my cloven hoof will stand me in good stead. Look at that big fat snail crawling our way...Disguise is useless here, try as one may.
18. Mephistopheles: Adam's first wife, beware. There is strong magic in her hair. She needs no ornament. That net can catch young men, and doesn't let her victims go again so easily.
19. Yes! You're a strong man -- I know!
20. Mephistopheles: He gets relief. Fat leeches make a meal of his backside, and so his spirits heal. His visions and his brains all melt away. Faust: Ugh, as she sang, didn't you see? A red mouse jumped out of her mouth!
21. Faust: Mephisto, look. Right over there: A young girl stands so pale, so fair, All by herself! How slowly she moves now, As if her feet were fastened somehow! And as I look, it seems to me It's poor Gretchen that I see.
22. Mephistopheles: Let it alone. That is no wholesome vision, But a dead thing, a magic apparition: I wanr you to avoid it. Come, and keep your distance.
23. Yes, yes, I see it too. She can transport her head under her arm if you prefer...You are obsessed by these illusions still. Come, let's just climb this little hill.
24. Sometimes their neighbor tries to resolve the conflict between the husband and the wife.
25. Look, here comes Mr Bagpipe-Squeeze, He has to whinge and whine and wheeze, His nose gives him trouble.
26. The woman used powder on her face to make her look more attractive.
27. The woman used fragrant perfume.
28. When fishing for men's souls, one tries both clear and troubled waters.
29. There are better pursuits in life than our present condition.
30. She lay flat in the grass.
31. A Gloomy Day in Open Country
32. Don't let him rot away in prison all his life, he's a human being, please free him.
33. That's the way of tyrants, venting all the time.
34. It is you, oh, tell me once again. Where are my chains, my prison and my fear? It's you. You've come to rescue me from here.
35. Margareta: Come, follow me, you must be bold. I'll hug you later ten-thousand fold.
36. Margareta: I'm sorry, I'm a bad kisser.
37. Margareta: I can't leave; for me there's no hope any more. What's the use of escaping? They'll be watching for me...In the end they'll catch me anyway.
38. When she was home, the mother with her little baby invited her brother over regularly.
39. Margareta: ...Heinrich! You frighten me. Mephistopheles: [He vanishes with Faust.]
40.Explanatory Notes
41. in the traditional medieval division of the acdemic faculties, 'Philosophy' embraced the Arts subjects, in which Faust has taken the degree of Master: he is also Doctor in the three higher faculties, of Law, Medicine, and Theology.
42. Nostradamus: Michel de Notredame, a sixteenth-century French astrologer. His work, which includes no known books on magic, was not directly known to Goethe, who here fictionally associates him with Faust.
43. In the traditional language of such studies, the 'great order' (macrocosm) of Nature was distinguished from the human 'little order' (microcosm), and the two were held to be magically related in complex ways which could be represented in signs and diagrams.
44. ironic scold: Schalk in modern German has come to mean merely 'mischevious rogue', but Goethe is here probably using it in an idiosyncratic sense which implies someone possessed by esprit de conradiction and given to mocking, negativistic attitudes. Goethe drew attention to this special sense of Schalk in a minor literary work written a year or two after the Prologue, called The Good Women, a short story or conversation-piece in which the concept Schalk is lightheartedly analysed with application to one of the female characters. In the case of Mephistopheles the word emphasizes his negative and sardonic view of things and his usual expression of this in cold and witty intellectual irony.
45. For the translation 'the ironic scold' an acceptable though less exact altrnative would be 'the Ironist'.
46. als Teufel schaffen could mean 'create (be creative) as the Devil (i.e. in his devilish fashion)' or 'be busily active (in devilish fashion)'; both senses are probably intended.
47. the Urfaust begins with this sequence, and thus rather more than half of the scene Nacht consists of material originally written between 1772 and 1775. Goethe followed the puppet-play tradition (derived from Marlowe) of introducing Faust with his monologue about the futility of learning.
48. no precise antecedent or source is known for the 'Earth Spirit' which Faust here invokes, and it seems to be essentially an original invention by young Goethe. Its status and its relationship to Faust and Mephistopheles are only ambiguously indicated in the text, and this question has been endlessly discussed. In the Spirit's self-definition, which is perhaps the key passage, it appears as the creative and destructive force of terrestial Nature, weaving 'the living garment of God' in another Urfaust scene. Faust remembers it as a 'great, splendid' spirit. On the other hand, it was in some way his master. It is a 'spirit of the earth', not of heaven.
49. In biblical tradition the Devil is a god or ruler of 'this world', and in the Faust chapbook which Goethe had read he is twice referred to as 'the earthly god'.
50. Different animals have different characteristics, many of which are common to their geographic area of origin.
51. The patient had a dependency on prescription medication.
52. For his stage and dialogue directions Goethe uses the full form of the hero's name instead of his nickname.
53. Even though the country was divided into two groups, it was hard to tell who was on which side.
54. the lottery: this is thought to allude to the passion for gambling current in Italy at the time of Goethe's visit.
55. in Book VI of his autobiography Goethe later recalled the Leipzig foundation-course in logic:...I found it strange to be told that those mental operations which I had performed with the greatest ease since childhood must be pulled apart, isolated and virtually destroyed if I was to understand how to carry them out [as an adult].
56. encheirisis naturae: 'an intervention by the hand of Nature'--a pompous pseudo-explanatory concept (used by one of Goethe's teachers at Strasbourg) which made nonsense of the scientist's claim to have discovered the essential truth.
57. it was then customary for students to carry autograph books in which to collect the signatures of academics. Mephistopheles writes the words of the Serpent in Eden (Genesis 3:5, 'you shall be as God, knowing good and evil').
58. a linking passage added for the 1790 Fragment. In 2069 Goethe alludes to a technological breakthrough of that age, the first hot-air balloon flights by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783; similar balloon experiments were now also being conducted by the Weimar court apothecary Buchholz.
59. the tavern scene, like the scene with the Student, is Urfaust material, recalling Goethe's university days at Leipzig. Auerbach's wine-cellar near the market-place was a well-known meeting-place for students, with sixteenth-century murals depicting scenes from thr Faust legend.
60. an allusion to the student custom of electing as 'king' or 'pope' the performer of the most impressive drinking feat.
61. the magical trick of extracting wine from a table (performed in the original version of the scene by Faust himself) is Faust-book material, as is the motif (featured in one of the Auerbach murals) of Faust riding astride a wine-cask.
62. Refers to the mixture of different elements in our lives.
63. Goethe may have derived the baboons and their antics (the ape playing with the globe for instance) from certain grotesque motifs in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Flemish painting, examples of which he could have seen in Dresden.
64. charity soup: the word Bettelsuppe was later used by Goethe in a letter to Schiller referring to a literary work of very inferior quality as 'real soup-kitchen stuff, suited to the taste of the German public.'
65. Compare the kings and queens of developing nations to the king and queen of European nations.
66. syphilis, thought to have been brought back from Haiti in 1493 by Columbus's first expedition, broke out seriously in Naples when the city was beseiged by the French in 1495. It became widely known as le mal de Naples, the Neopolitan disease, and was a dreaded scourge of sixteenth-century Europe.
67. Discusses the presence of different cultures who appropriated elements from the parent culture, in order to create new legends, but not quite in a logical and accurate manner.
68. Discusses dress codes in the workplace, or standards for dressing in the workplace.
69. the sumptuary laws of Goethe's day forbade or strictly limited the wearing of jewellery by girls of modest social station (by a Frankfurt police regulation, for instance, a manual worker's daughter was allowed only one gold chain and one gold ring, of a total value not exceeding 50 florins, and a maidservant no ornament at all). Gretchen is also not entitled to be addressed as Fraulein ('young lady', as in 2605 or 2906) but only as Jungfer or Jungfrau (young woman).
The Robbers and Wallenstein
Friedrich Schiller
1. Coming soon.
Selected Poems and Fragments
Friedrich Holderlin
1. Coming soon.
Top of page
The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Goethe
Faust Johann Goethe
The Robbers and Wallenstein by Friedrich Schiller
Selected Poems and Fragments by Friedrich Holderlin
The Wolfman and Other Cases
By Sigmund Freud
10/29/2025
1. Some people have neurological disorders, or disorders of the nervous system, which can make them behave in abnormal ways.
2. Some people display negative behavior because their physical state is very poor.
3. The boy’s parents explained to him what the biological purpose of sex was, what it meant to have sexual dysfunction, and indicated that it was okay to have sexual dysfunction, and that you shouldn’t let it overcome your life.
4. Many men who display abnormal behavior, excessive confusion, or sexual deviance, were actually born as women, and are having problems from the transformative surgery.
5. Some women have had one or more ovaries removed in surgery, which can negatively affect their behavior.
6. Some men and women experience a sense of uneasiness, detachment, or displacement from reality, from the general concept of reality.
10/25/2025
1. The woman dressed like a man, had a man's haircut, and she also knew how to behave like a man.
2. The man dressed up like a clown, and also knew how to wear makeup.
3. I told him don't go too close to the ledge on the roof, because you could fall over. But his repressed desires to be daring were overwhelming.
4. Omitted.
5. Teach children that just as they grow, develop, and go through phases, their family also grows, develops, and goes through phases.
6. Teach children that as they may have gotten everything they wanted as young boys or girls, they cannot get everything they want as they grow older.
7. When children are faced with the realities of life, and how they will survive as they grow into adults.
8. Frustration and fear at the upcoming birth of a new baby sister.
9. Defiance in children, or when children defy their parents.
10. Quick displays of aggression and hostility in males.
11. The stork is very slow and methodical about how it picks up and puts down stones with its beak onto its nest.
12. When people have difficulty adjusting to city life.
13. Phobias and anxiety that accompany city life can be numerous.
14. Abnormal sexual behavior may be able to be controlled by counseling and medication.
15. The man told his psychiatrist his experiences, then his psychiatrist interpreted them in his office.
16. It was common for the psychiatrist to have his clients' paperwork, so that he could easily pull up information about his client.
17. The man spent a lot of time around women, and other people thought that this was a problem.
18. Men are known to compete for the love of a woman.
19. In psychiatry, there are exceptional individuals, who are unique for different reasons.
20. In counseling, sometimes subjects repeat themselves.
21. After counseling and scenarios at home with his family, the patient was cured of his psychiatric disorder.
22. “I know that I am assuming a great deal as regards the reasoning powers of a child of four or five, but I am allowing myself to be guided by recent discoveries…”
23. The child spoke at a very high pitch.
24. “What influence tipped the scales, in the situation we have described…is a difficult question to answer and could no doubt only be decided by comparing this case with several other similar analyses...”
25. The man was a lot like a woman, even in his sex life.
26. The woman was very masculine in her life.
27. One of the men was feminine, and one of the men was masculine.
28. The horse carriages of NYC date back to old towns in Italy. The Italians had a culture around horses, and sometimes they would even play games of horsey with their family.
29. Italians sometimes had irrational fears, or phobias about horses.
30. Some games are purely fantasy, and have no equivalent in reality.
31. "A boy can have children, you know?” “No, a boy can’t have children.”
32. Sigmund Freud had a patient who was an old woman who had old, used underwear that she would regularly wash in her sink and dry at home.
33. The man's psychiatrist regularly asked him about his sex life, and then interpreted these comments in relation to his treatment.
34. Human sometimes make up psychological problems about themselves, which are really not true psychological problems that they have.
35. Examine patient's relationships with the opposite sex.
36. Examine patient's level of experience and wisdom in life.
37. "He follows some of my ideas, but some of them get past him."
38. Obsessive compulsion with cosmetic surgery and liposuction.
39. Indirect suicide, or suicide which occurs over a great deal of time.
40. Obsessive compulsive shows of excessive love and affection.
41. Omitted.
42. Obsessive compulsive shows of excessive mourning at funerals.
43. Obsessive compulsive shows of excessive sympathy for others.
44. Repressing or forgetting past criminal behavior.
45. The surprise thought scenario - when you’re with someone and surprise, totally irrelevant thoughts come up in your discussion.
46. The man looked like he needed to bathe more regularly and shave more regularly.
47. He claimed that his memory was mostly dreams, hallucinations, and visions, instead of realistic events.
48. His family regularly asked him about his experience in the army.
49. Sudden expressions of rage or anger displayed by some psychiatric patients.
50. Using evidence and other information to prove a case against someone.
51. Using the credibility, wisdom, and experience of one person over another person to judge a case.
52. The man was willing to fight, rather than being viewed as weak. He didn’t want his father or cousins to beat him up, and he didn’t want to lose his intellectual beliefs or his material possessions.
53. It is difficult for some people to answer a direct question directly. —Sigmund Freud
54.Some people display defiance of authority figures in police or government.
55. Adults should act like wise and experienced men and women.
56. Adults should display wise and experienced behavior in their relationships with others.
57. The man had a fantasy with the connection between science fiction and real life. This was a detachment from reality.
58. A more far-reaching attempt to interpret the patient's dreams on this subject produced the clearest indications of a poetic fantasy, which we might term epic in scope...
59. Scientific inquiry on the basis of psychoanalysis is at present merely a by-product of therapeutic endeavour, after all, and for that reason the yield is often greatest in the case of patients whose treatment is unsuccessful.
60. The man was fond of bringing up childhood memories in his discussions.
61. Problems with compulsive thinking and compulsive ideas.
62. You may not be mentally ill, if you have attended mental health classes for years, and your classmates believe that you are a normal person.
63. The other man was tough on him, since the man had a high-pitched voice, was "half-man and half-woman," and not a real man.
64. The patient had displayed a psychological disorder, or an obsessive-compulsive neurosis, characterized by thoughts which displayed a displacement with reality.
65. The patient's neurosis included distorted thoughts about reality.
66. The patient's neurosis, characterized by a displacement with reality, could have caused the patient to harm himself or others.
67. The patient's neurosis included childlike behaviors.
68. The patient would sometimes become fixated on little sleights of the hand when engaged in discussions.
69. The patient would sometimes laugh and make irrational jokes.
70. The patient's neurosis was characterized by severe mood swings.
71. The doctor had tried to uncover the root of his patient's childlike behavior.
72. "As I made clear earlier, in this disorder repression does not take place through amnesia, but through the destruction of causal connections consequent upon the withdrawal of the accompanying emotion."
73. "It would seem that these repressed relationships retain a certain warning power - which I have compared elsewhere to an endopsychic perception - so that they are made to enter the outside world by means of projection and there bear witness to what has failed to occur in the psychic sphere."
74. Omitted.
75. "He was obliged to recall what had been forgotten and to establish what he had neglected to find out."
76. "The particular fondness that the patient suffering from obsessive-compulsive neurosis feels for uncertainty and doubt provides him with a motive...Such topics are pre-eminently paternity, life expectancy, the afterlife and memory - to which we generally give credence without possessing the faintest proof of its reliability."
77. "Obsessive-compulsive neurosis make substantial use of the uncertainty of memory in symptom formation; the role played by life expectancy and the afterlife in the content of the patient's thinking is something we shall shortly discover."
78. "First, though, as the most appropriate transition to that topic, I shall discuss the characteristic tendency to superstition in our patient, my earlier reference to which will no doubt have disconcerted more than one reader."
79. "I am referring to the omnipotence he claims for his thoughts and feelings, his good and evil wishes. It is certainly no small temptation to declare this idea to be a delusion that goes far beyond the limits characteristic of obsessive-compulsive neurosis; except that I have encountered this same conviction in another patient suffering from compulsive disorders who has long since recovered and now leads a normal, active life, and in fact all those suffering from obsessive-compulsive neurosis conduct themselves as if they shared this conviction"
80. "The mother and father taught their son how to correct his abnormal behaviors. The psychiatrist also helped them with this."
81. Sigmund Freud and Oliver Sacks were psychiatrists who kept detailed case notes about their patients and their paychological problems and their abnormal behaviors. Freud and Sacks also suggest that everyone has abnormal behavior: doctors, teachers, lawyers, bankers, police officers, etc.
82. In treating one of Freud's patients, the family used the scene from Little Red Riding Hood, where, in the end, the big bad wolf dresses up in grandmother's clothes, and sleeps in grandmother's bed.
83. Sigmund Freud discusses physical intimidation.
84. Due to surgery, some people do not have a sex drive.
85. Some people’s sex drive declines over time.
86. Sometimes, the father plays a mysterious part in the child’s life.
87. What is considered a sexual act to some, is considered totally normal to others.
88. His family and psychiatrist would deliberately trigger him, for a psychoanalytical experiment.
89. He was arrested on the basis of one minuscule piece of evidence.
90. Paranoia was also a factor in his arrest.
91. Many people in his family also had psychological problems that would often arise.
92. Several factors caused his arrest.
93. Why couldn’t his family just act normally?
94. The hero had a beautiful mind, his thoughts and internal voice were brilliant.
95. Declaring independence from one’s parents as a behavior of many human beings. This can be painful but it is necessary for normal adults.
96. Omitted.
97. Discusses the differences between the generations.
98. He was a rich man, but he didn’t know how to wisely manage his finances.
99. When he died, his money was divided between his mother and his older sister.
100. Discusses differences between children and their parents: ideological, social, etc.
101. Displaying abnormal behavior at night, and displaying bouts of shouting and aggression at night, as signs of neurosis in psychiatric patients.
102. Being in an irrational dreamlike, or fantasy state, as a sign of neurosis in psychiatric patients.
103. A person should not display anger or aggression toward other people.
104. Irrational obsession about the body movements of other people.
105. Irrational obsession about getting other people to talk when they don’t want to.
106. Irrational obsession about wanting to control other people.
107. Irrational obsession about different events in other people’s lives.
108. Irrational obsession about rushing a person and trying to make them behave faster.
109. Irrational obsession about involving several family members in the experiences in your life.
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Johann Goethe
1. Life involves complex emotions and complex behaviors.
2. The Count laid out architectural plans for the design of the city.
3. I am alone, but I am happy. There are many moments in my day that I find happiness.
4. Even though our lives are rough, there are moments of happiness in our lives. Nature, hard work, and friendship, are reasons to be happy, for example.
5. Continuous happiness is elusive.
6. "My dear, even though our lives are rough, we get to smile and laugh sometimes."
7. I tickled the children fast and then let them go.
8. The affection and simplicity which she displayed charmed me.
9. Learn how to enjoy your life.
10. If they're your friends, then you're happy around them.
11. A good friend stands by you in good times as well as bad times.
12. Determine if your moral views and your lifestyle match or are compatible with the area that you live in.
13. She believed that he was an unstable young man.
14. This evil being, he eats entire forests, consumes entire planets, entire solar systems. He will not stop unless the angelic figure of good is victorious.
15. The conflict between people who want us to make noise, and people who want to stay quiet.
16. Simply living and breathing are reasons to be happy. I'm happy just to be alive on God's green earth.
17. I like the glow of the sun.
18. Each day is different, and we can also feel different each day.
19. I don't know, and let us not worry each other with analogies, Wilhelm.
20. Human nature has its limits. It can bear joy, sorrow, pain to a certain degree and founders when that limit is exceeded.
21. So now I recite the whole thing in a sing-song voice, which is quite entertaining.
22. Examines the competitive personality versus the non-competitive personality.
23. The competitive personality feels very often that he or she lacks this or that.
24. "He took a great interest in me and we knew that we understood each other."
25. Many a king is ruled by his minister and many a minister by his secretary. Who then is the top man?
26. Other people were living through the man's memories.
27. "My dear, even though our lives are rough, we get to smile and laugh sometimes."
28. Traits that all humans share are: faith in themselves, faith in their friends, and faith in the future. --Sorrows..., Johann Goethe
29. Her health is ruined and for that reason she has no delight in anything on God's earth.
30. He felt as though his life was a slow agonizing existence.
31. They were talking about trivial, unimportant things, such as what was on the news, for example.
32. She talked of something else so that I wouldn't develop my theme.
33. She does not see, she does not feel that she is preparing a poison that will be the undoing of me and of her...
34. She tried to speak as quietly as possible.
35. It seems that I shall never recover myself. Everywhere I go I have encounters that utterly discompose me.
36. Thank God that he has got to be only as bad as this.
37. They tried to help the sick man get better.
38. The man had a passion for her which sent him raving mad.
39. The children were playing, dressing their toy doll.
40. What is this thing, the vaunted demigod, a man?
41. I have made it my business to gather exact information from the mouths of those who could have a good knowledge of his story -- which is straightforward, and except in a few trivial details all versions of it tally.
42. Werther was unhappy. The harmony of his mind was quite destroyed, an inward heat and vehemence, which wrought up and disarrayed all his natural energies, causing the most unpleasant reactions in him, exhausting him, and by his efforts to rise up again his courage was sapped even more than by the troubles he had fought against so far.
43. He had not changed in so short a time, he was the same man Werther had known from the beginning and had so esteemed and honoured.
44. Living himself in an eternal discontenment, the state other people were in also seemed to him more worrying and confused.
44. Love and fidelity are the finest human feelings.
45. With the greatest liveliness, passion, and truth he spoke.
46. ...sometimes he would break off the conversation or change topics.
47. I swear this to you in a way that is pure, holy, and brotherly.
48. Tell my mother to pray for her son and that I ask forgiveness for all the trouble I have caused her.
Faust: Part One
Johann Goethe
1. Studying Nature's sacred cyclic laws. He practiced in the laboratory, mixing, by this or that strange recipe, elements in an ill-assorted brew.
2. The very thing one needs one does not know,
And what one knows is needless information.
3. Evening has come, our sun is westering now--
But it speeds on to bring new life elsewhere.
4. But the pursuit of intellectual things
From book to book, from page to page--what joys that yields!
How fine and snug the winter nights become,
What sweet life courses through one's veins.
5. Division tears my life in two.
One loves the world, it clutches her, it binds
Itself to her, clinging with furious lust;
The other longs to soar beyond the dust
Into the realm of high ancestral minds.
Are there no spirits moving in the air,
Ruling the region between the earth and sky?
6. Give me a magic cloak to carry me
Away to some far place, some land untold...
7. Their spiteful ears are open to obey
Our summons, for they love to harm and cheat...
Is false, their lisping voice is sweet.
8. Different breeds of dogs have different characteristics.
9. There is some other rendering,
Which with the spirit's guidance I must find.
We read: 'In the beginning was the Mind,'
Before you write this first phrase, think again;
Good sense eludes the overhasty pen.
10. Can it be happening naturally?
Is it real? Is it a dream or not?
11. Some dogs are faster than others.
12. Let a dog lie down on a folded blanket or a pillow as a bed.
13. I can't recall specific examples of times, but generally speaking, we had good times together, it was a good relationship, so we stayed together happily. -
14. There are simple jobs, and there are complex jobs.
15. "The whole room is filled with this devil-dog.
He wants to dissolve into a fog."
16. "You made me sweat, I must admit it."
17. "You seem complete and whole, yet you say that you are a part."
18. "The Something, this coarse world, this mess,
Stands in the way of nothingness."
19. Strange son of chaos! think again.
20. Some dog breeds are more playful than other dog breeds.
21. The world has laws.
22. "Excuse me now: I soon will reappear And tell you anything you wish to hear.
23. "Where love and beauty are far beyond speech."
24. The earth's a home -- man is always in it.
25. What satisfaction can life hold?
26. A human mind is creative.
27. Thus by existence tortured and oppressed, I crave for death, I long for rest.
28 - 35. Omitted.
35. Frosh: Let me be. Greetings and kisses she shall have from me. Oh let me in, the moon is high.
36. Round in this narrow ring they dance their measure, Like kittens chasing their own tails. This carefree idyll never fails.
37. Those two are travellers, you can see, That's why their acting so peculiarly. They've only just arrived, I'd guess. You're right; one up to Leipzig. It's no less...
38. The concept of an education is different based on time period and geographic location.
39. They're from a noble family, I'd swear-- They've got that arrogant ill-tempered air.
40. Mephistopheles: There was a king who reigned over us, He had a great big flea. --Hear that? A flea! Let's listen to the rest. A flea's a cheerful sort of guest.
41. His cousins at the court they were, All ministers as well...Yet no one dared to kill those fleas, or dared to make a fuss. But we can pick them off and squeeze them dead when they bite us.
42. --Destruction to all fleas I say. --Catch 'em and squash 'em, that's the way. --Now that's enough from you, Mr Pernickety.
43. Some climates, such as Italy and Spain, are better for producing wine.
44. Mephistopheles: Now, which wine do you fancy?
Brander: I'll have champagne, if you don't mind; The very finest, the real bubbly kind.
Siebel: I must confess, dry wines are not for me; Give me a glass of something really sweet. Mephistopheles: Today shall flow for you; just keep your seat.
Altmayer: Gentlemen, tell me honestly-- You're surely just playing a joke on us.
45. Mephistopheles: So tell me, without more ado, What wine can I now offer you?
Altmayer: Any you like, let's not waste time.
46. After drinking a few glasses of wine, the men turn into beasts and begin to have fun.
47. Brander: Look, under all these green leaves, see These vines, these juicy grapes, bless me. [He takes hold of Siebel by the nose. The rest do the same to each other and raise their hands.]
48. Altmayer: I saw him put the cellar door behind him. I've got lead weights in both my feet.
49. In body and mind, be bound within, Eat food that's plain and simple, live like cattle with the cattle...
50. The friends begin a simple game: to rhyme with each other.
51. "Get away from me you skinny stick!"
52. Besides, civilization, which now licks Us all so smooth, has taught even the Devil tricks.
53. The Devil Mephistopheles takes human form as The Baron.
54. Mephistopheles: A good glass of the you-know-what; But please, the oldest vintage you have got-- Years give it strength in double measure. The Witch: Certainly. I've a bottle on this shelf, I sometimes take a swig from it myself...But as you know, it's not for casual drinking....
55. Mephistophele: We must wait our chance. Faust: I'll take her a present; get one at once. Mephistopheles: Presents already? Very charming; he'll succeed.
56. Margareta: I'd like to find out, I must say, Who that gentleman was today. A handsome man, I do admit, And a nobleman by the looks of it.
57. Magareta: I've got a feeling something's wrong.
58. Magareta: [She opens the cupboard to put her clothes in, and sees the kewel-case.] What's this? Oh God in heaven, just look. I've never seen such things before. These jewels would be what a princess wore at eh highest feast in the feast-day book. I wonder how this necklace would suit me?
58. Everyone can wear jewelry, but only a few people can wear jewelry like a real princess.
59. Some people's noses are not suited for sweet-smelling things. The Neighbour's House
60. Martha: My husband, may God pardon him! He didn't treat me right. For shame! Just went off into the world one day, Left me a grass widow, as they say. Yet I've never done him any wrong; I loved him truly all along.
61. Martha [trying out some of the jewels on her]. Aren't you a lucky little miss. Margareta: But I can't wear them in the street, or go to church and be seen in them, you know.]
62. He asks her to forgive him, she asks him to forgive her, they make up, and are happy again.
63. Faust: When I speak, I shouldn't use such complex language.
64. Faust: ...Insist on being right, and merely have a tongue.
65. Magareta: [She picks a daisy and begins pulling off the petals one by one.] He loves me--loves me not--loves me--not--loves me--not--He loves me!
66. Faust: [He clasps both her hands in his.]
Magareta: I'm tremblng all over!
Faust: Don't be afraid. [He stands lost in thought for a moment, then follows her. Martha enters with Mephistopheles.]
67. Magareta: Oh goodness gracious, what a lot of clever thoughts in his head he's got! I'm so ashamed, I just agree with all he says, poor silly me...How can he find me so interesting?
68. Faust: Oh sublime Spirit! You have given me all I asked for. You gave me Nature's splendour for my kingdom, And strength to grasp it with my heart.
69. Faust: Then in this cavern's refuge, where you lead me, You show me to myself, and my own heart's Profound mysterious wonders are disclosed.
70. Faust: To such happiness, you added a companion, who with one breath can destroy me in my own eyes, and turn your gifts to nothing.
71. Mephistopheles: Well, have you not tired yet of this life-style? How strange that it still interest you. No doubt it's good to try once in a while, till one moves on to something new.
72. Mephistopheles: What sort of life would you have had -- just tell me that poor earthling. For some time I've cured your scribble-scrabbling fancies; why, if I'd not been there, rest assured you'd have already bid this world goodbye.
73. If you walk, then walk to increase your strength.
74. She passes the time patiently. She's watching the clouds; at her window she stands, as they drift over the old town wall; she's all alone; all day and half the night she sings: If only i had a little bird's wings.
75. Faust: Clear off, disgusting pimp! Mephistopheles: God himself, who made man and woman, created man and woman to be good to each other.
76. The man worked around a lot of women, and naturally, the women had a way about them. For example, sometimes they would confuse him or play little tricks on him.
77. Goethe originally intended a further scene at this point, to end with a satanistic ritual at the top of the mountain.
78. In the end, the prisoner was tied to a chair and beheaded with a special executioner's sword.
79. Omitted.
80. The man’s thoughts were almost always dark and unhappy.
1. Mephistopheles: What a charming child you are, I'd say. You deserve to be married straight away.
2. Mephistopheles: He's a fine lad; seen the world all right; Very nice to ladies, very polite.
3. In order to speak clearer, he didn't search for words for too long.
4. Discusses the universal struggle of men.
5. Well, you know, some people are just rather odd.
6. The house was lit with lamps, but they were dim and weak, and the family wanted a brighter home.
7. Faust: Was there no jewellery you could find? My mistress loves those golden toys.
8. There was a sort of social structure in the workplace.
9. Valentine: Even into the light of day; It's bigger, but it's ugly still. The filthier its face has grown, The more it must be seen and shown.
10. It feels like my own neck is choking me.
11. The vaulted roof crushes me. Give me air!
12. But the whole mountain's magic-mad tonight, good sir, And you must not be too particular.
13. Witches: Where have the broken witches been? Now we meet again, and up we ride. Lord Capercailzie will preside.
14. Warlocks: Why worry? We still win these races. A woman's mile's a thousand paces: But let her hurry as she can-- One jump's enough if you're a man.
15. Mephistopheles: With one leap, we'll escape from this canaille; It's all too crazy, even for my taste.
16. The old women sometimes told old wives tales.
17. Mephistopheles: But here my cloven hoof will stand me in good stead. Look at that big fat snail crawling our way...Disguise is useless here, try as one may.
18. Mephistopheles: Adam's first wife, beware. There is strong magic in her hair. She needs no ornament. That net can catch young men, and doesn't let her victims go again so easily.
19. Yes! You're a strong man -- I know!
20. Mephistopheles: He gets relief. Fat leeches make a meal of his backside, and so his spirits heal. His visions and his brains all melt away. Faust: Ugh, as she sang, didn't you see? A red mouse jumped out of her mouth!
21. Faust: Mephisto, look. Right over there: A young girl stands so pale, so fair, All by herself! How slowly she moves now, As if her feet were fastened somehow! And as I look, it seems to me It's poor Gretchen that I see.
22. Mephistopheles: Let it alone. That is no wholesome vision, But a dead thing, a magic apparition: I wanr you to avoid it. Come, and keep your distance.
23. Yes, yes, I see it too. She can transport her head under her arm if you prefer...You are obsessed by these illusions still. Come, let's just climb this little hill.
24. Sometimes their neighbor tries to resolve the conflict between the husband and the wife.
25. Look, here comes Mr Bagpipe-Squeeze, He has to whinge and whine and wheeze, His nose gives him trouble.
26. The woman used powder on her face to make her look more attractive.
27. The woman used fragrant perfume.
28. When fishing for men's souls, one tries both clear and troubled waters.
29. There are better pursuits in life than our present condition.
30. She lay flat in the grass.
31. A Gloomy Day in Open Country
32. Don't let him rot away in prison all his life, he's a human being, please free him.
33. That's the way of tyrants, venting all the time.
34. It is you, oh, tell me once again. Where are my chains, my prison and my fear? It's you. You've come to rescue me from here.
35. Margareta: Come, follow me, you must be bold. I'll hug you later ten-thousand fold.
36. Margareta: I'm sorry, I'm a bad kisser.
37. Margareta: I can't leave; for me there's no hope any more. What's the use of escaping? They'll be watching for me...In the end they'll catch me anyway.
38. When she was home, the mother with her little baby invited her brother over regularly.
39. Margareta: ...Heinrich! You frighten me. Mephistopheles: [He vanishes with Faust.]
40.Explanatory Notes
41. in the traditional medieval division of the acdemic faculties, 'Philosophy' embraced the Arts subjects, in which Faust has taken the degree of Master: he is also Doctor in the three higher faculties, of Law, Medicine, and Theology.
42. Nostradamus: Michel de Notredame, a sixteenth-century French astrologer. His work, which includes no known books on magic, was not directly known to Goethe, who here fictionally associates him with Faust.
43. In the traditional language of such studies, the 'great order' (macrocosm) of Nature was distinguished from the human 'little order' (microcosm), and the two were held to be magically related in complex ways which could be represented in signs and diagrams.
44. ironic scold: Schalk in modern German has come to mean merely 'mischevious rogue', but Goethe is here probably using it in an idiosyncratic sense which implies someone possessed by esprit de conradiction and given to mocking, negativistic attitudes. Goethe drew attention to this special sense of Schalk in a minor literary work written a year or two after the Prologue, called The Good Women, a short story or conversation-piece in which the concept Schalk is lightheartedly analysed with application to one of the female characters. In the case of Mephistopheles the word emphasizes his negative and sardonic view of things and his usual expression of this in cold and witty intellectual irony.
45. For the translation 'the ironic scold' an acceptable though less exact altrnative would be 'the Ironist'.
46. als Teufel schaffen could mean 'create (be creative) as the Devil (i.e. in his devilish fashion)' or 'be busily active (in devilish fashion)'; both senses are probably intended.
47. the Urfaust begins with this sequence, and thus rather more than half of the scene Nacht consists of material originally written between 1772 and 1775. Goethe followed the puppet-play tradition (derived from Marlowe) of introducing Faust with his monologue about the futility of learning.
48. no precise antecedent or source is known for the 'Earth Spirit' which Faust here invokes, and it seems to be essentially an original invention by young Goethe. Its status and its relationship to Faust and Mephistopheles are only ambiguously indicated in the text, and this question has been endlessly discussed. In the Spirit's self-definition, which is perhaps the key passage, it appears as the creative and destructive force of terrestial Nature, weaving 'the living garment of God' in another Urfaust scene. Faust remembers it as a 'great, splendid' spirit. On the other hand, it was in some way his master. It is a 'spirit of the earth', not of heaven.
49. In biblical tradition the Devil is a god or ruler of 'this world', and in the Faust chapbook which Goethe had read he is twice referred to as 'the earthly god'.
50. Different animals have different characteristics, many of which are common to their geographic area of origin.
51. The patient had a dependency on prescription medication.
52. For his stage and dialogue directions Goethe uses the full form of the hero's name instead of his nickname.
53. Even though the country was divided into two groups, it was hard to tell who was on which side.
54. the lottery: this is thought to allude to the passion for gambling current in Italy at the time of Goethe's visit.
55. in Book VI of his autobiography Goethe later recalled the Leipzig foundation-course in logic:...I found it strange to be told that those mental operations which I had performed with the greatest ease since childhood must be pulled apart, isolated and virtually destroyed if I was to understand how to carry them out [as an adult].
56. encheirisis naturae: 'an intervention by the hand of Nature'--a pompous pseudo-explanatory concept (used by one of Goethe's teachers at Strasbourg) which made nonsense of the scientist's claim to have discovered the essential truth.
57. it was then customary for students to carry autograph books in which to collect the signatures of academics. Mephistopheles writes the words of the Serpent in Eden (Genesis 3:5, 'you shall be as God, knowing good and evil').
58. a linking passage added for the 1790 Fragment. In 2069 Goethe alludes to a technological breakthrough of that age, the first hot-air balloon flights by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783; similar balloon experiments were now also being conducted by the Weimar court apothecary Buchholz.
59. the tavern scene, like the scene with the Student, is Urfaust material, recalling Goethe's university days at Leipzig. Auerbach's wine-cellar near the market-place was a well-known meeting-place for students, with sixteenth-century murals depicting scenes from thr Faust legend.
60. an allusion to the student custom of electing as 'king' or 'pope' the performer of the most impressive drinking feat.
61. the magical trick of extracting wine from a table (performed in the original version of the scene by Faust himself) is Faust-book material, as is the motif (featured in one of the Auerbach murals) of Faust riding astride a wine-cask.
62. Refers to the mixture of different elements in our lives.
63. Goethe may have derived the baboons and their antics (the ape playing with the globe for instance) from certain grotesque motifs in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Flemish painting, examples of which he could have seen in Dresden.
64. charity soup: the word Bettelsuppe was later used by Goethe in a letter to Schiller referring to a literary work of very inferior quality as 'real soup-kitchen stuff, suited to the taste of the German public.'
65. Compare the kings and queens of developing nations to the king and queen of European nations.
66. syphilis, thought to have been brought back from Haiti in 1493 by Columbus's first expedition, broke out seriously in Naples when the city was beseiged by the French in 1495. It became widely known as le mal de Naples, the Neopolitan disease, and was a dreaded scourge of sixteenth-century Europe.
67. Discusses the presence of different cultures who appropriated elements from the parent culture, in order to create new legends, but not quite in a logical and accurate manner.
68. Discusses dress codes in the workplace, or standards for dressing in the workplace.
69. the sumptuary laws of Goethe's day forbade or strictly limited the wearing of jewellery by girls of modest social station (by a Frankfurt police regulation, for instance, a manual worker's daughter was allowed only one gold chain and one gold ring, of a total value not exceeding 50 florins, and a maidservant no ornament at all). Gretchen is also not entitled to be addressed as Fraulein ('young lady', as in 2605 or 2906) but only as Jungfer or Jungfrau (young woman).
The Robbers and Wallenstein
Friedrich Schiller
1. Coming soon.
Selected Poems and Fragments
Friedrich Holderlin
1. Coming soon.
Top of page
Comments
Post a Comment