Introduction

Abstract

These lines are from the opening scenes of Goethe’s great story. After receiving the veneration of the people as he moves among them at the fair, Faust confides to his companion, Wagner, that neither he nor his father had any real understanding of what they were doing when they fought against the plague; indeed, Faust says, he fears they killed more than they saved. Thus the stage is set for Faust’s contract with the devil, as he sells his soul in exchange for knowledge. In the closing scenes of the drama, Faust’s last gift to his people is to drain the marshes around the town — a fully contemporary public health measure based on his dearly-bought understanding.

Old Peasant Many a man stands living here That your father, in the nick of time, Snatched from the fever’s burning rage When he put limits to the plague. Faust My father was a good man lost in the dark. With what enthusiasm, what extravagance—Yet in his own odd way, in all sincerity—He brooded on Nature and her sacred spheres! He locked himself in the black kitchen With the other adepts; then with interminable Recipes, compounded incompatibles. ... Oh, he is happy who has any hope Of rising, ever, from this sea of error! What we don’t know is just what we could use, And what we do know is no use to us. Goethe: Faust, Part One (Translation by R. Jarrell (5))