rom the First. So great, indeed, is the distance between the two that,
without external historical proofs of identity, it would seem from
internal evidence altogether improbable, in spite of the slender thread
of the fable which connects them, that both poems were the work of one
and the same author. And really the author was not the same. The change
which had come over Goethe on his return from Italy had gone down to the
very springs of his intellectual life. The fervor and the rush, the
sparkle and foam of his early productions, had been replaced by the
stately calm and the luminous breadth of view that is born of
experience. The torrent of the mountains had become the river of the
plain; romantic impetuosity had changed to classic repose. He could
still, by occasional efforts of the will, cast himself back into the old
moods, resume the old thread, and so complete the first "Faust." But we
may confidently assert that he could not, after the age of forty, have
originated the poem, any more than before his Italian tour he could have
written the second "Faust," purporting to be a continuation of the
first. The difference in spirit and style is enormous.

As to the question which of the two is the greater production, it is
like asking which is the greater, Dante's "Commedia" or Shakspeare's
"Macbeth"? They are incommensurable. As to which is the more generally
interesting, no question can arise. There are thousands who enjoy and
admire the First Part to one who even reads the Second. The interest of
the former is poetic and thoroughly human; the interest of the other is
partly poetic, but mostly philosophic and scientific....

The symbolical character of "Faust" is assumed by all the critics, and
in part confessed by the author himself. Besides the general symbolism
pervading and motiving the whole,--a symbolism of human destiny,--and
here and there a shadowing forth of the poet's private experience, there
are special allusions--local, personal, enigmatic conceits--which have
furnished topics of learned discussion and taxed the ingenuity of
numerous commentators. We need not trouble ourselves with these
subtleties. But little exegesis is needed for a right comprehension of
the true and substantial import of the work.

The key to the plot is given in the Prologue in Heaven. The devil, in
the character of Mephistopheles, asks permission to tempt Faust; he
boasts his ability to get entire possession of his soul and drag hi