Walter Benjamin - Radio Benjamin

To summarize, this Faust was born in southern Germany probably around 1490. He would later scrape by as a student, giving lectures and teaching school, as was common at that time. In Heidelberg on January 15, 1509, as we know from the university register, he received his doctorate. After this he began the gay life of the adventurer. In 1513 he came to Erfurt, where he called himself “Faust, the Heidelberg Demigod.” His path then most likely led him to Krakow, and finally to Paris, where he served King Francis I of France. He was also in Wittenberg. A passage in Luther’s Table Talk even makes reference to Faust. 5But he had to flee Wittenberg when his magic caught up with him, and finally, as we know from the Zimmern Chronicle, he died in 1539 in a village in Württemberg. 6

This chronicle from Count Christof of Zimmern, the same from which we have the only notice of Faust’s death, contains something else of great interest. It is written in the chronicle that Faust left behind a library, which came into the possession of the Count of Staufen, on whose territory Faust died. Apparently people often came to the Count of Staufen to buy books from Faust’s estate for a hefty price. Indeed, we know from a seventeenth-century necromancer that he paid 8,000 guilders for a so-called Höllenzwang.

Now, what is a Höllenzwang ? It is a collection of the incantations and magic symbols used to supposedly summon the devil or other spirits, both good and evil. I don’t know how to describe them to you. These symbols are neither letters nor numbers; at best they resemble sometimes Arabic, sometimes Hebrew, and sometimes convoluted mathematical figures. They make absolutely no sense except as a way for a master sorcerer to explain to his students why their incantations failed: they simply didn’t draw the figures precisely. This must have often been the case, because they are so convoluted that they can really only be traced. And the words in a Höllenzwang, a gobbledygook of Latin, Hebrew, and German, sound very bombastic and also make no sense.

You can imagine that people back then had a different opinion on the matter. Indeed, the Höllenzwang was considered so dangerous that the Frankfurt typographer Johann Spieß, who in 1587 printed the first book about Faust and wrote the foreword to it, remarked that after much deliberation he left out everything that could have caused offense, that is to say the incantations that would have been found in the magic library. You should think of this magic library, of which there were actually quite a few in the Middle Ages, less as a collection of books, for they were not even printed, and more as a pile of handwritten notebooks, almost like chemistry or math notebooks. People were not altogether wrong if they saw possession of such books as dangerous; it was, though not because the devil would come into their houses through the chimney, but because the Inquisition, were they to get wind of it, imprisoned those possessing magic books and accused them of sorcery. History attests to cases in which just owning the book of folk tales about Dr. Faust had dire consequences. Indeed, all sorts of things could have the most dreadful consequences. When later you read Goethe’s Faust, you will learn how Faust takes in a stray dog he finds while on an Easter stroll by the city gate. Afterwards, while he is studying in his room, the poodle disturbs him with its noisy antics, prompting Goethe’s Faust to say:

If you wish to share this cell with me,

poodle, stop your yowling;

bark no more.

A nuisance such as you

I cannot suffer in my presence.

One of us must leave this room;

I now reluctantly suspend

the law of hospitality.

The door is open, you are free to go.

But what is this?

Is this a natural occurrence?

Is it shadow or reality?

How broad and long my poodle waxes!

He rises up with mighty strength;

this is no dog’s anatomy!

What a specter did I bring into my house!

Now he’s very like a river horse

with glowing eyes and vicious teeth.

Oh! I am sure of you!

For such a half-satanic brood

the key of Solomon will do. 7

This poodle is a shape-shifting demon. The magic books refer to him as Praestigiar, which can be roughly translated as magical deceiver. The old books state that on Faust’s command, this poodle could turn white, brown, or red, and that upon his death Faust bequeathed him to an abbot in Halberstadt, who was none too pleased to own the poodle; in fact, his life would end very soon thereafter. Just how firm was the popular belief in such nonsensical ghost stories can be seen in the fact that a great scholar — Agrippa von Nettesheim was his name — had to be defended by one of his students expressly against accusations of sorcery, based in part on the fact that Agrippa was always seen in the company of a black poodle.

There were passages in the first Faust stories that people accepted, as we do today, as strange, sometimes spooky, sometimes amusing ghost stories that they didn’t fret about too much. But there were also other passages, and other readers. As shown by the use of the term “natural magic” for physics and chemistry, these sciences were not thought to be as distinct from magic as they are for us today. For example, when in several stories Faust shows curious princes or students images of the ancient Greeks, Homer, Achilles, Helen of Troy, etc., it was considered magic, and even if some of the readers of such stories had already seen or heard of the laterna magica, such knowledge confirmed rather than refuted the magic of Dr. Faust. As far as these people were concerned, the ability to use the camera obscura, upon which the principle of the laterna magica is based, counted as magic, hence the name laterna magica , or magic lantern; similarly, the difference between the first attempts at flying, which were undertaken using air balloons, and Faust’s flights on his magic coat was not as clear-cut as it is for us today. What’s more, many medicinal prescriptions, which we may now consider natural and sensible, were seen as magical.

In those days there was a fine line between being considered a sorcerer or a scholar. The sorcerer was abhorred for being in league with the devil, while the scholar was revered as a higher being; this later became of great importance for Goethe’s Faust. The puppet play conveyed the same message in its own way: even the least sophisticated spectators could recognize what an unusual man this Faust was when they were presented with Hanswurst as a foil, who also had a pact with the devil; he remains as silly and foolish as before yet eventually manages to break loose from the devil. 8The best passage in the puppet play is at the end of Faust’s life, when the poor, haunted Faust meets the dull, boring Hanswurst. The devil has long since lost interest in Hanswurst, but plans to fetch Faust in two hours. Let me read it to you:

FAUST: Nowhere do I find rest and repose, everywhere it follows me, the vision of hell. Oh why was I not steadfast in my scheme, why did I let myself be swayed? The evil spirit knew to grasp me at my weakest point; I have irrevocably slid into hell. Even Mephistopheles has abandoned me, just now at my unhappiest hour, when I am most in need of diversion. Mephistopheles, Mephistopheles, where are you?

Mephistopheles appears as the devil.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Faust, how do you like me now?

FAUST: What’s gotten into you? Have you forgotten that you are obliged to appear to me in human form?

MEPHISTOPHELES: No, not anymore, because your time has expired. Three more hours and then you’re mine.

FAUST: Eh? What is that you say, Mephistopheles? My time has expired? You must be lying. Only twelve years have elapsed. Therefore twelve years remain that you must serve me.