Goethe's Faust, part 1: An English Translation

The Randall Jarrell translation of 'Faust' is one of his most important achievements. In 1957, he inscribed Goethe's motto on the first page of a large workbook: 'Ohne Hast aber ohne Rast' ('Without haste but without rest'), and from then until his death in 1965, he worked on the masterpiece of his 'own favorite daemon, dear good great Goethe.' His intent was to make from the German poetry free, un-rhymed poetry in English. He all but finished the job before he died, and the few lines that remained untouched --- Gretchen's Spinning Song---have been rendered by his friend Robert Lowell.

In her interesting account of the genesis of this translation, in the Afterword, Mary Jarrell writes, "In accord with Goethe's words---that the translator evoke in his own mind what the author has done, wanted to do, and ought to have done---Randall drew on emotions of his own to match Goethe's wherever he could. In speaking of this, he said to me that any success there is in translating, and all the joy, comes when the translator 'sees through the other's eyes.' And he had little trouble seeing through Faust's... To open Randall's 'Complete Poems' at any page is find in some degree a Faustian world disappointment or self-disappointment."

Randall Jarrell himself has said: " 'Faust' is unique. In one sense, there is nothing like it; and in another sense, everything that has come after it is like it. Spengler called Western man Faustian man, and he was right. If our world should need a tombstone, we'll be able to put on it: HERE LIES DOCTOR FAUST.'