Des rêves au réel: cinq siècles de Faust. Littérature, idéologie et mythe . Par André Dabezies

Abstract

This study supports the view that myths confirm existential experiences common to large social groups. André Dabezies presents ‘Faust’ as the key myth of the modern world, arguing that the cultural history of the last five hundred years can be traced via ever-shifting perceptions of a figure who, for some, embodies a blueprint of man’s aspirations while remaining, for others, a caricature or spectre. It is a theme with which the author has wrestled for half a century: his Visages de Faust au xxe siècle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1967) was adapted from a thesis; Le Mythe de Faust followed later (Paris: Armand Colin, 1973). The present volume provides an expanded update to both. Useful light is cast on the under-researched baroque period, with its little-known broadsheets, musical variety plays, and puppet-theatre productions that helped to keep the tradition alive between Marlowe and Lessing. Sixty pages are given over to Goethe, in whose work the author discerns an epic structure. It would be rash to attempt to read Faust’s mind at any point in the text, least of all in ‘Marthens Garten’, where Faust is accused of hiding behind poetic vocabulary: he could hardly do otherwise whilst speaking in verse. On the question of Faust’s overall sincerity, Dabezies concludes that the text preserves ‘la spontanéité des souvenirs de jeunesse de l’auteur’ (p. 137). Of Part II he observes that it is neither an allegory replete with secret symbols nor a work of philosophy, but an incommensurate structure that subsequent generations of Germans were happy to embrace as their national myth. Numerous operas and films are summarized, as are derivatives such as Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. The political repercussions of Goethe’s drama during and after both World Wars receive due attention. In the end, Dabezies distinguishes between three types of Faust figure: lover, hero, and tragic victim, most of whom abandon their initial fervour all too quickly after making contact with their adversary and must learn to accept their various limitations. The text is over-generous in its use of rhetorical questions and exclamation marks, and lapses into chatty asides, such as, ‘Nietzsche aurait vomi avec horreur, sans doute!’ (p. 547). While the author deserves praise for the sheer mass of information he has put together, uncritical reliance on the work of one ‘Hans Schwerte’ is an embarrassment. Schwerte’s true identity made headlines some twenty years before this book went to print; that ex-Hauptsturmführer and propagandist Hans Ernst Schneider should have chosen to reinvent himself as a Faust exegete may — along with the career of Gustaf Gründgens — be taken as evidence of the diabolical legacy of the original myth. It is hard to overlook the many misprints, especially in proper names, footnotes, and references: ‘Annäherungen an einem [for “einen”] Mythos’, ‘Wolffentbütteler’, ‘Strabourg’, ‘Wolz’ (for ‘Volz’), ‘Okober’ (pp. 6, 37, 129, 461, 510). Hungarian diacritics should be acute rather than grave (passim). The price is on the high side for a paperback volume without illustrations.