具体描述
内容简介
Goethe's masterpiece and perhaps the greatest work in German literature, Faust has made the legendary German alchemist one of the central myths of the Western world. Here indeed is a monumental Faust, an audacious man boldly wagering with the devil, Mephistopheles, that no magic, sensuality, experience, or knowledge can lead him to a moment he would wish to last forever. Here, in Faust, Part I, the tremendous versatility of Goethe's genius creates some of the most beautiful passages in literature. Here too we experience Goethe's characteristic humor, the excitement and eroticism of the witches' Walpurgis Night, and the moving emotion of Gretchen's tragic fate.
This authoritative edition, which offers Peter Salm's wonderfully readable translation as well as the original German on facing pages, brings us Faust in a vital, rhythmic American idiom that carefully preserves the grandeur, integrity, and poetic immediacy of Goethe's words.
《浮士德》为诗体悲剧,书中描写了主人公浮士德一生探求真理的痛苦经历,反映了从文艺复兴到19世纪初整个欧洲的历史,揭示了光明与黑暗、进步与落后、科学与迷信两种势力的不断斗争。歌德借助浮士德的抱负和追求,表达了他本人对人类未来远大而美好的理想。全书由一系列叙事诗、抒情诗、戏剧、歌剧以及舞剧组成,涉及神学、神话学、哲学、科学、美学、文学、音乐以及政治经济学。 作者简介
Before he was thirty, Goethe had proven himself a master of the novel, the drama, and lyric poetry. But even more impressive than his versatility was his unwillingness ever to settle into a single style or approach; whenever he used a literary form, he made of it something new.
Born in 1749 to a well-to-do family in Frankfurt, he was sent to Strasbourg to earn a law degree. There, he met the poet-philosopher Herder, discovered Shakespeare, and began to write poetry. His play G??tz von Berlichingen (1773) made him famous throughout Germany. He was invited to the court of the duke of Sachsen-Weimar, where he quickly became a cabinet minister. In 1774 his novel of Romantic melancholy, The Sorrows of a Young Werther, electrified all of Europe. Soon as he was at work on the first version of his Faust, which would finally appear as a fragment in 1790.
In the 1780s Goethe visited England and immersed himself in classical poetry. The next decade saw the appearance of Wihelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, his novel of a young artist education, and a wealth of poetry and criticism. He returned to the Faust material around the turn of the century and completed Part 1 in 1808.
The later years of his life were devoted to a bewildering array of pursuits: research in botany and in a theory of colors, a novel (Elective Affinities), the evocative poems of the West-Easters Divan, and his great autobiography, Poetry and Truth. In his eighties he prepared a forty-volume edition of his works; the forty-first volume, published after his death in 1832, was the send part of Faust.
Goethe’s wide-ranging mind could never be confined to one form or one philosophy. When asked for the theme of his masterwork, Faust, he could only say. “From heaven through all the world to hell”; his subject was nothing smaller.
约翰·沃尔夫冈·冯·歌德,1749-1832,德国小说家,剧作家,诗人,思想家,自然科学家,博物学家,是德国和欧洲最重要的作家之一,也是世界文学领域的光辉人物。其作品充满着狂飙突进运动的反叛精神,在诗歌、戏剧、散文、自然科、博物学等方面都有较高的成就。主要著作有中篇小说《少年维特的烦恼》、诗剧《普罗米修斯》《浮士德》等,还有许多抒情诗和评论文章。 精彩书摘
Dedication One
Wavering forms, you come again;
once long ago you passed before my clouded sight.
Should I now attempt to hold you fast?
Does my heart still look for phantoms?
You surge at me! Well, then you may rule
as you rise about me out of mist and cloud.
The airy magic in your path
stirs youthful tremors in my breast.
You bear the images of happy days,
and friendly shadows rise to mind.
With them, as in an almost muted tale,
come youthful love and friendship.
The pain is felt anew, and the lament
sounds life's labyrinthine wayward course
and tells of friends who went before me
and whom fate deprived of joyous hours.
They cannot hear the songs which follow,
the souls to whom I sang my first,
scattered is the genial crowd,
the early echo, ah, has died away.
Now my voice sings for the unknown many
whose very praise intimidates my heart.
The living whom my song once charmed
are now dispersed throughout the world.
And I am seized by long forgotten yearnings
for the solemn, silent world of spirits;
as on an aeolian harp my whispered song
lingers now in vagrant tones.
I shudder, and a tear draws other tears;
my austere heart grows soft and gentle.
What I possess appears far in the distance,
and what is past has turned into reality.
Prelude in the Theater
Manager, Dramatic Poet, Comic Character.
Manager
You two who often stood by me
in times of hardship and of gloom,
what do you think our enterprise
should bring to German lands and people?
I want the crowd to be well satisfied,
for, as you know, it lives and lets us live.
The boards are nailed, the stage is set,
and all the world looks for a lavish feast.
There they sit, with eyebrows raised,
and calmly wait to be astounded.
I have my ways to keep the people well disposed,
but never was I in a fix like this.
It's true, they're not accustomed to the best,
yet they have read an awful lot of things.
How shall we plot a new and fresh approach
and make things pleasant and significant?
I'll grant, it pleases me to watch the crowds,
as they stream and hustle to our tent
and with mighty and repeated labors
press onward through the narrow gate of grace;
while the sun still shines--it's scarcely four o'clock--
they fight and scramble for the ticket window,
and as if in famine begging at the baker's door,
they almost break their necks to gain admission.
The poet alone can work this miracle
on such a diverse group. My friend, the time is now!
Poet
Oh, speak no more of motley crowds to me,
their presence makes my spirit flee.
Veil from my sight those waves and surges
that suck us down into their raging pools.
Take me rather to a quiet little cell
where pure delight blooms only for the poet,
where our inmost joy is blessed and fostered
by love and friendship and the hand of God.
Alas! What sprang from our deepest feelings,
what our lips tried timidly to form,
failing now and now perhaps succeeding,
is devoured by a single brutish moment. 70
Often it must filter through the years
before its final form appears perfected.
What gleams like tinsel is but for the moment.
What's true remains intact for future days.
Comedian
Oh, save me from such talk of future days!
Suppose I were concerned with progeny,
then who would cheer our present generation?
It lusts for fun and should be gratified.
A fine young fellow in the present tense
is worth a lot when all is said and done.
If he can charm and make the public feel at ease,
he will not mind its changing moods;
he seeks the widest circle for himself,
so that his act will thereby be more telling.
And now be smart and show your finest qualities,
let fantasy be heard with all its many voices.
Manager
Above all, let there be sufficient action!
They come to gaze and wish to see a spectacle.
If many things reel off before their eyes,
so that the mob can gape and be astounded,
then you will sway the great majority
and be a very popular man.
The mass can only be subdued by massiveness,
so each can pick a morsel for himself.
A large amount contains enough for everyone,
and each will leave contented with his share.
Give us the piece you write in pieces!
Try your fortune with a potpourri
that's quickly made and easily dished out.
What good is it to sweat and to create a whole?
The audience will yet pick the thing to pieces.
Poet
You do not feel the baseness of such handiwork.
How improper for an artist worth his salt!
I see, the botchery of your neat companions
has been the maxim of your enterprise.
Manager
Such reproaches leave me unperturbed.
A man who wants to make his mark
must try to wield the best of tools.
You have coarse wood to split, remember that;
consider those for whom you write!
A customer may come because he's bored,
another may have had too much to eat;
and what I most of all abhor:
some have just put down their evening paper.
They hurry here distracted, as to a masquerade,
and seek us out from mere curiosity.
The ladies come to treat the audience to their charms
and play their parts without a salary.
Now are you still a dreamer on poetic heights?
And yet content when our house is filled?
Observe your benefactors at close range!
Some are crude, the others cold as ice.
And when it's finished, this one wants a deck of cards
and that one pleasure in a whore's embrace.
Why then invoke and plague the muses
for such a goal as this, poor fools?
I say to you, give more and more and always more,
and then you cannot miss by very much.
You must attempt to mystify the people,
they're much too hard to satisfy--
What's got into you--are you anguished or ecstatic
Poet
Go find yourself another slave!
The poet, I suppose, should wantonly give back,
so you'd be pleased, the highest right
that Nature granted him, the right of Man!
How does the poet stir all hearts?
How does he conquer every element?
Is it not the music welling from his heart
that draws the world into his breast again?
When Nature spins with unconcern
the endless thread and winds it on the spindle,
when the discordant mass of living things
sounds its sullen dark cacophony,
who divides the flowing changeless line,
infusing life, and gives it pulse and rhythm?
Who summons each to common consecration
where each will sound in glorious harmony?
Who bids the storm accompany the passions,
the sunset cast its glow on solemn thought?
Who scatters every fairest April blossom
along the path of his beloved?
Who braids from undistinguished verdant leaves
a wreath to honor merit?
Who safeguards Mount Olympus, who unites the gods?
Man's power which in the poet stands revealed!
Comedian
Very well, then put to use those handsome powers
and carry on the poet's trade,
as one would carry on a love affair.
One meets by accident, emotes, and lingers,
and by and by one is entangled,
one's bliss increases, then one is in trouble;
one's rapture grows, then follow grief and pain,
before you know, your story is completed.
We must present a drama of this type!
Reach for the fullness of a human life!
We live it all, but few live knowingly;
if you but touch it, it will fascinate.
A complex picture without clarity,
much error with a little spark of truth--
that's the recipe to brew the potion
whence all the world is quenched and edified.
The fairest bloom of youth will congregate
to see the play and wait for revelation;
then every tender soul will eagerly absorb
some food for melancholy from your work.
First one and then another thing is stirred,
so each can find what's in his heart.
《浮士德》(第一部)(英德对照版,Bantam Classics)图书简介 本书为歌德的鸿篇巨制《浮士德》第一部的英德双语对照版本,旨在为英语读者和德语学习者提供一个深入研习这部不朽经典的权威文本。 --- 跨越世纪的灵魂探寻与人类精神的史诗 约翰·沃尔夫冈·冯·歌德(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)的《浮士德》不仅仅是一部剧作,它是一部关于人类生存、知识的极限、精神的挣扎与救赎的宏大史诗。作为德国文学乃至世界文学皇冠上最耀眼的明珠之一,它以极其复杂和多层次的结构,探讨了人类文明自文艺复兴以来所面临的核心哲学命题。 这部被誉为“德国之魂”的作品,其创作历程跨越了歌德生命的六十年,凝聚了他对神学、哲学、科学、艺术乃至人性的全部思考。它标志着德国“狂飙突进”运动的巅峰,并最终超越了那个时代的局限,成为面向全人类的永恒寓言。 第一部:个人悲剧与魔鬼的契约 我们眼前呈现的《浮士德》(第一部)聚焦于核心的冲突和悲剧性的发展,构成了全剧的基石。它以一个震撼人心的开场——“天堂序曲”(Prolog im Himmel)——奠定了基调:上帝允许魔鬼梅菲斯特(Mephistopheles)去考验凡人浮士德的灵魂,以此来衡量人类精神的崇高与卑微。 浮士德:知识的囚徒与无限的渴望 浮士德博士,是传统中世纪经院哲学的集大成者,他穷尽毕生精力于形而上学、医学、法学和神学的研究。然而,他发现,所有的知识体系都无法解释生命真正的意义,也无法带来真正的满足感。他被困在书斋的绝望中,对世间一切的体验都感到麻木和徒劳,渴望“体验一切的本质,与宇宙同乐”。 这种极度的精神危机,引来了“撒旦的助手”——梅菲斯特的现身。魔鬼以一种狡猾而诱人的方式出现,向浮士德提出了那份惊天动地的契约:梅菲斯特将满足浮士德此刻和未来的一切尘世欲望,带领他体验人生的极致欢愉与痛苦,以换取浮士德在彼世的灵魂。 “当我向某一瞬间说:‘停下来吧,你真美!’(Verweile doch, du bist so schön!),那么,请收走我的灵魂。” 这一著名的赌约,驱动了第一部中所有的戏剧性事件。 爱情的毁灭:玛格丽特悲剧 第一部最扣人心弦的部分,无疑是浮士德与纯真少女玛格丽特(Gretchen)之间的爱情悲剧。 在梅菲斯特的协助下,年迈的学者体验了恢复青春的魔力,并被引导进入尘世的享乐之中。玛格丽特代表着虔诚、纯洁和未经污染的民间美德。浮士德的介入,带着他强烈的激情与世界的复杂性,彻底打破了玛格丽特的简单世界。 他们的爱情发展得迅猛而毁灭性: 1. 诱惑与背叛: 浮士德在梅菲斯特的策划下,利用魔力赢得玛格丽特的芳心,这最终导致了她母亲的死亡(误服安眠药)。 2. 家庭的崩溃: 玛格丽特的哥哥,正直的军人瓦伦丁,为维护家族荣誉挑战浮士德,在决斗中被梅菲斯特暗算身亡。 3. 疯狂与救赎: 最终,玛格丽特因意外杀害了她与浮士德的孩子而陷入疯癫,被关入监狱,等待处决。 第一部在监狱场景中达到了情感的高潮。浮士德试图说服玛格丽特随他逃跑,但玛格丽特拒绝了魔鬼的帮助,她选择了接受上帝的审判和惩罚,她的灵魂在最后关头得到了拯救(“得救了!”——Ist gerettet!)。浮士德则在梅菲斯特的催促下,被拖离了这一人类苦难的现场。 文本的独特性:英德对照的学术价值 本Bantam Classics版本采用了英德双语对照的排版形式,这对于学习者和研究者而言具有无可替代的价值: 1. 语言的精确性: 读者可以直接对比歌德德语原文的词汇选择、句法结构与韵律之美,与精准的英文译本进行对照,深入理解诗歌在跨语言转换中可能产生的细微语感差异。 2. 文学原貌重现: 《浮士德》的语言风格极其丰富,融合了中世纪的神秘主义、古老的民谣体、古典主义的庄严以及浪漫主义的激情。对照阅读有助于捕捉这种风格的巨大跨度。 3. 学习辅助: 对于德语学习者,它提供了一个高质量、具有高度文学价值的文本库,是理解现代德语文学根源的最佳工具书之一。 《浮士德》(第一部)是对人类本性、知识的界限以及爱情的巨大力量与破坏性的一次深刻审视。它以无可争议的艺术魅力,确立了歌德在世界文学中的至高地位,并为后续第二部中宏大的哲学探索埋下了充满人性的伏笔。阅读此书,即是参与一场关乎永恒价值的对话。