Faust: A Tragedy (Norton Critical Editions) (Paperback)

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Author), Cyrus Hamlin (Editor), Walter W. Arndt (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Walter Arndt's translation of Faust reproduces the sense of the German original and Goethe's enormously varied metrics and rhyme schemes. This edition presents Parts I and II complete.

Cyrus Hamlin provides essential supporting material for this difficult text, and his Interpretive Notes have been expanded and reset in larger, easy-to-read type. Comments by Contemporaries includes short pieces by Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle, and Wilhelm von Humboldt.

Modern Criticism-comprised of ten essays newly added to the Second Edition-presents the perspectives of Stuart Atkins, Jaroslav Pelikan, Benjamin Bennett, Franco Moretti, Friedrich A. Kittler, Neil M. Flax, Marc Shell, Jane Brown, Hans Rudolf Vaget, and Marshall Berman. A Selected Bibliography is included.

About the series: No other series of classic texts achieves the editorial standard of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with contextual and critical materials that bring the work to life for students. Careful editing, first-rate translation, thorough explanatory annotations, chronologies, and selected bibliographies make each text accessible to students while encouraging in-depth study. Each volume in the series is printed on acid-free paper, and every text remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice of excellence for scholarship for students at more than 2,500 colleges and universities worldwide.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

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Product Details

• Paperback: 752 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; Second Edition edition (September 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393972828
• ISBN-13: 978-0393972825
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #72,210 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five bright stars., April 2, 2002

By	fblaw6 (Kansas City, MO United States) - See all my reviews

"Vainly in the day time labored, pick and shovel, clink and strike." Goethe worked on Faust for much of his career, but composed some of the best of Part II in a time of life when most are in their rocking chairs or in the intensive care ward of the local nursing home. Goethe in his late seventies and early eighties would rise in the early dawn and compose some of the best poetry written. "I would elevate my mind to a kind of productivity which brought all this forth, in a full state of consciousness and which pleases me still, even though perhaps I could never swim again in such a river." It has been said that German poetry is difficult to translate or untranslatable, and this seems true with some translations of Faust, but the Norton contains a superb effort by Walter Arndt which appears always so on the mark that one suspects Arndt actually embellishes the German, but, rather than quibble over accuracy, it is all so good you will hardly care. Goethe builds upon the medieval Faust legend as a skeleton for his own writing in epic-poem style with various meter fashioned to fit the subject. Faust, weary of the ways of the world (one can almost hear the 60s hippy) embarks on a journey of self-discovery, skirt chasing and empire building finally ending in his 100th year in the ultimate trip, with a little help from his friend, Goethe. This composition is remarkable in innumerable ways. One can use a thesaurus of superlatives: wonderful imagery, perfect choice of words, peerless imagination, beautiful poetry, a unity to the whole which is memorable, as well as numerous wonderful scenes and lines, and always an intelligence that seems to absorb and understand everything. Of course, one can differ with Goethe philosophically. There are other angles from which to view life than Faust and his Mephistophelean foil. And Faust, which contains all the universal ingredients, can be faulted at times, dwelling too much on the antique philosophy, politics and literary questions which interested Goethe in his long life. But all this seems irrelevant to Faust as a work of art, permanently canonized for its beauty and writing alone, whatever disparagement or praise one might hold for its meaning or content. The Norton Edition is edited by Cyrus Hamlin whose interpretive notes are scholarly, contain a subtle respect for Goethe, and are in themselves a book worth reading. The selections of Goethe comment and scholarship range from the brilliant to the outer eliptics of literary criticism, and the included illustrations and Goethe letters on composition are a nice touch. The work of Hamlin and the Arndt translation which here frame Goethe as the main event make the Norton Critical Edition of Faust (2000) one of the better books one is likely to pick up.

79 of 104 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A review of this edition, not the story, June 10, 2001

By	Chad M. Brick (Ann Arbor, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I won't bother to review Goethe's "Faust". It's ability to withstand the test of time and invade our lexicon is proof enough of its greatness and worth more than anything I could say. However, I would like to comment specifically on the Norton Critical Edition.

I was not particularly satisfied by this edition. Having never read Faust before, I was expecting this edition to contain within its copious annotations helpful summaries of what was going on in the play. Particularly in Part II, where things are often quite disorienting, a first-time reader would often be lost without some outside help. Unfortunately, this edition, despite all the extras it added, didn't contain what I was looking for.

If you are deeply interested in Faust, and familiar with the story itself, the annotations are amazingly detailed, describing the sources and motivations that guided Goethe. If you are a casual reader, however, they will rarely help you understand what is going on if you get confused. This edition is geared towards the scholarly, not the casual.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible...absolutely incredible, February 16, 2006

By	Eric S. Kim (Southern California) - See all my reviews

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a marvel. How he managed to write a dark, complicated, and immensely riveting play based loosely on the life of Dr. Faustus is beyond my imagination. This is truly a great work of art.

This book, containing only the English translation, contains detailed commentaries, selected illustrations, Goethe's own remarks about Faust, observations from modern playwrights, and so much more. A great buy.