Johann Spies’s Historia von Doktor Johann Fausten (1587)
3.2 The Pact
3.2.1 Faust’s Aesthetic Inclination Towards Ritual
One major difference between the Historia and Goethe’s Faust is that in the former, it is the evil spirit who demands a reciprocal pact to be negotiated and then confirmed in writing, while in the latter, the apostate doctor is seen repeatedly insisting on this formality. Faust wants a pact, and Mephistopheles acquiesces. Faust then adds an article to this pact, formulated as a wager. A prerequisite for the agreement that is
entered into during the second Studierzimmer scene in the first part of Goethe’s Faust is Faust’s own inclination towards ritual and magic, made immediately evident in his first encounter with Mephistopheles. Unlike the protagonist of Spies’s Historia, Faust does not initially summon Mephistopheles through occult rituals; Mephistopheles appears in the shape of a black dog during the scene Vor dem Tor, where Faust and Wagner observe representatives of various common walks of life while discussing the merits of science, academia and book learning. Faust describes to Wagner the dog running around them in increasingly narrow circles, dragging a swirl of fire in its wake. Wagner, however, sees only a black poodle:
Faust.
Bemerkst du, wie in weitem Schneckenkreise Er um uns her und immer näher jagt?
Und irr’ ich nicht, so zieht ein Feuerstrudel Auf seinen Pfaden hinterdrein.
Wagner.
Ich sehe nichts als einen schwarzen Pudel;
Es mag bei Euch wohl Augentäuschung sein.
Faust.
Mir scheint es, daß er magisch leise Schlingen Zu künft’gem Band um unsre Füße zieht.
Wagner.
Ich seh’ ihn ungewiß und furchtsam uns umspringen, Weil er, statt seines Herrn, zwei Unbekannte sieht.
Faust.
Der Kreis wird eng, schon ist er nah!
Wagner.
Du siehst! ein Hund, und kein Gespenst ist da.
Er knurrt und zweifelt, legt sich auf den Bauch.
Er wedel. Alles Hundebrauch.
Faust.
Geselle dich zu uns! Komm hier!
(GF, l. 1152-1166)
Faust’s initial response to seeing the dog indicates that the black poodle is circling in on him. The dog is tying a magical fiery band around his feet, gradually trapping or enclosing him in a ritualistic fashion. In the eyes of Wagner, however, it is just a well-trained dog looking for its owner – a perspective that Faust in the end somewhat
disappointedly agrees to.150 The circling motion of the dog indicates a power relationship between this demonic figure and Faust that is similar to that in the first chapter of the Spies-book, where Faustus attempts to command the Devil, but in reality is being set up to be the Devil’s subordinate: Both Faust figures are initially gradually being ensnared by Mephostophiles/Mephistopheles, one by being lured into believing that he can bend the Devil to his will, the other by being ritually encircled by the flame in the dog’s wake. At least the latter himself initially believes that the dog’s pattern is an ensnaring circular motion.
The first appearance of the hellish figure in Goethe’s Faust is in other words in a literal sense accompanied by “viel Zirkel”, as Thomas Mann’s Adrian Leverkühn puts it (MDF, p. 721), referring to Spies’s Faustus’s ritual conjuration of the Devil in the Spessart woods.151 This immediately establishes the context of Faust’s
understanding of Mephistopheles, which is a context consisting of magic, superstition, and ritual. However, the scene also emphasises the fact that this is Faust’s aesthetic inclination, which he does not share with Wagner. Since the work is in dramatic form, and since there is no stage direction pointing to the dog’s
appearance, there is no narrator who can judge Faust’s vision to be true or “falsch vnd der heyligen Schrifft zu wider” (HDF, p. 119). Peter Szondi points out in his
dissertation, Theorie des Modernen Dramas (1956), that the drama, meaning a type of historically-situated stage play of which Goethe’s dramatic production is
exemplary,152 is dialectic. In contrast to epic form, the drama has no narrator to which conflicts of this kind can be referred: Two actors deliver two versions of an
150 “Faust. Du hast wohl recht, ich finde nicht die Spur | Von einem Geist, und alles ist Dressur”. (GF, l. 1172-1173)
151 “In diesem Wald gegen Abend in einem vierigen Wegschied machte er mit einem Stab etliche Circkel herumb / vnd neben zween / daß die zween / so oben stunden / in großen Circkel hinein giengen / Beschwure also den Teuffel in der Nacht / zwischen 9. vnnd 10. Vhrn”. (HDF, p. 15)
152 “Den terminologischen Ausgangspunkt bildet so bloß der Begriff des Dramas. Als historischer steht er für eine literaturgeschichtliche Erscheinung, nämlich das Drama, wie es im elisabethanischen England, vor allem aber im Frankreich des seibzehnten Jahrhunderts entstand und in der deutschen Klassik weiterlebte”. (Szondi 1969, p. 12)
appearance on stage, a thesis and an antithesis, if one will, and the appearance remains at this level of conflict without reaching a synthesis by virtue of an authoritative voice.153 Furthermore, Szondi argues that the drama is “absolute”, meaning that there is nothing outside of the stage that the events on stage can refer to for clarification, including the playwright, who has instated dialogue, but who himself is silent.154
The consequences of the two incommensurable dogs in the Vor dem Tor scene are immensely meaningful to the play as a whole, since the question raised by the uncertain status of the dog will determine how Mephistopheles can be understood: If the absolute, dialectically instated world contained in Goethe’s drama is one where demonic dogs lay snares for apostate academics, it is also a world where he can enter into a formalised pact with a personified Devil who is external to the academic. The pact can then be understood to be governed by a law that has a guarantor who is also external to Faust. If, on the other hand, the dog’s appearance is hellish only because Faust perceives it as such, Karl Heinrich Hucke’s interpretation of the pact scene, wherein Mephistopheles is understood to be an aspect of Faust’s self, gains traction, and the pact is Faust’s promise to himself, without an external guarantor. This first encounter with the black dog relativises Faust’s concept of devilish magic and occult ritual by having the pragmatic Wagner interpret the dog’s behaviour entirely in another light:155 One of them sees a demonic black dog with a wake of fire in the process of laying down a magical snare, while the other sees a slightly lost, slightly playful poodle; and there is no authoritative narrator who can mediate between them.
153 “Die Ganzheit des Dramas schließlich ist dialektischen Ursprungs. Sie entsteht nicht dank dem ins Werk hineinragenden epischen Ich, sondern durch die je und je geleistete und wieder ihrerseits zerstörte Aufhebung der zwischenmenschlichen Dialektik, die im Dialog Sprache wird. Auch in dieser letzten Hinsicht also ist der Dialog Träger des Dramas. Von der Möglichkeit des Dialogs hängt die Möglichkeit des Dramas ab.” (Szondi 1969, p. 19)
154 “Das Drama ist absolut. Um reiner Bezug, das heißt: dramatisch sein zu können, muß es von allem ihm Äußerlichen abgelöst sein. Es kennt nichts außer sich. Der Dramatiker ist im Drama abwesend. Er spricht nicht, er hat Aussprache gestiftet.” (Szondi 1969, p. 15)
155 At least the ritual is hidden from Wagner, making the word “occult”, from the Latin occultus (“hidden”), fitting.
As seen in the next interaction between Faust and Mephistopheles, after Faust has brought the poodle into his study, he retains an expectation of magic rituals to occur between them, and one such ritual is the pact ritual. Faust is the one who first introduces the idea that the two of them can enter into a pact: