AS I WAS SAYING
13
With regard to Faust II, misapplying a lead from Jung, I had referred to Doctor
Marianus as a "transcendent" form of Faust. Wellek is probably correct in questioning this. Then he declares himself puzzled "by the stodgy interpretation of the concluding line, 'Das Ewig-Weibliche/Zieht uns hinan,' " which I had translated thus:
" 'The Eternal Feminine/Draws us on,' or better 'up.' " He notes that I had referred
to an element of "irresolution" here. But he does not give the slightest hint of what
I had in mind. Specifically, along psychoanalytic lines, I had been considering the
fact that, since the generalized feminine principle would involve both erotic and
familial kinds of love, an endless Faustian "striving" in reponse to such a motive
would necessarily contain an element of irresolution (insofar as it brought up the
"problem of dissociating" such conflicting attitudes as a man's love of sweetheart
and mother). Maybe yes; maybe no-but in any case, had Wellek not been so reticent
in his account of my reference to "irresolution," there is many a reader who would
have been much less puzzled at this point than Wellek. But let's see how he "develops" his dubieties, as built around quotations from my essay:
"... I'd translate the 'ewig' (eternal) as meaning: Given the kind of merger that
goes with the Ur-Geist-Streben nexus, the problem of ultimate motivation, as personalized in sexual terms, necessarily remains unresolved. It has the 'eternal' quality
of the essentially unending." [On this quote from Burke he comments: "Ewig, however, means here the 'ideally feminine' as represented by the Virgin Mary, the principle of forgiveness through love. It has nothing to do with 'unending' and does not
point to any 'irresolution.' "]
If you are asking for competent reporting (and you are entitled to ask for that
at least), let's see how those comments qualify, as rated by such a quite rudimentary
test. Let's begin with the literal. The dictionary I have at hand is Muret-Sanders:
Enzyklopidisches Worterbuch. There the meanings for ewig are given as: eternal,
everlasting, endless, continuous, continual, unceasing, perpetual, immortal. And for
good measure the doubtless "stodgy" lexicographers translate das Ewig-Weibliche
as "the eternal feminine."
Yet I'd be the last person in the world to object, if Wellek would translate das
Ewig-Weibliche as "the ideally feminine" principle "represented by the Virgin
Mary." In fact, I treat of Gretchen's traits as a "virgin mother." (See, in my essay
on Faust I, Section V: "The Heroine as Perfect Sacrificial Victim." (But what should
we do about the fact that the Faust of Part One did burn to possess an ideal virgin,
and out of wedlock yet? She'd have been slavishly responsive to an offer of marriage, and Faust was free to marry; yet the great Goethean figure, who played hideand-seek with this childish creature, got her with child illegitimately e'en while
worshipping her guilelessness. I may be wrong in detail. But I still hold to the thesis
that the sexual courtship of Part One really is an "allegory," the meaning of
which is revealed in Part Two. In brief, we are in the realm of the "socioanagogic," involving motives of property as personalized in terms of class and sex
relationships. In details, I may be wrong. But as regards the propositions on which
my analysis is based, I won't budge.
Look further. Note how Wellek tosses off that reference to the "Ur-Geist-Streben
nexus." Please pause to realize just what he has done. What in God's name is the
