Walpurgis Night's Dream
A theatrical intermezzo on the Brocken — Oberon and Titania's golden wedding, attended by every spirit of the age, from Puck to Voltaire to critics of Goethe himself.
Summary
The stage-manager announces the entertainment: the golden wedding of Oberon and Titania, performed on the summit of the Brocken for the assembled sabbath crowd. The wedding "Golden" is fifty years old — the strife is over, golden more precious now. Oberon and Titania reconcile. The moral: when two people are to love each other, you only have to separate them.
The procession of allegorical figures follows. Puck — "a hundred come behind him to rejoice." Ariel, luring the lovely and the grotesque both. An Idealist who insists the world is his imagination. A Supernaturalist who is glad to have the devils here for once; a Skeptic who refuses to believe in witches even at the witches' sabbath; a Realist who knows the spirits are real but doubts anything further; a Pragmatist who finds them all too refined. A Crane who has come from afar to join the crooked — clearly a comment on some specific target in the cultural debates of 1808.
Goethe uses the intermezzo to settle a series of literary and philosophical scores, satirizing the idealists and the materialists and the orthodox and the free-thinkers of his generation in a few brisk couplets each. The scene is deliberately placed between the Cathedral and the catastrophe of the final act. Whether it is a structural masterstroke — a deliberate tonal rupture that makes the dungeon more devastating by contrast — or a self-indulgent digression has been argued since 1808. Both readings have merit.
- DedicationGoethe's personal lyric addressed to the wavering forms — the characters and images — that have waited sixty years for him to...
- Prelude on the StageA director, a poet, and a clown debate backstage. The director wants spectacle, the poet wants posterity, the clown wants fun....
- Prologue in HeavenThe three archangels sing of creation. Mephistopheles arrives and proposes a wager with the Lord over Faust's soul. The Lord...
- NightFaust alone at midnight. He has mastered everything and found it empty. He attempts to summon the Earth Spirit and is repulsed....
- Before the GateEaster Sunday. Faust and Wagner walk among the holiday crowds. Faust states the play's central division: two souls reside within...
- Study (Part 1)Faust returns home with the poodle. The dog transforms into Mephistopheles, dressed as a travelling scholar. He introduces himself...
- Study (Part 2)Mephistopheles returns. They debate life and desire. Faust states his own terms: if you can find me a moment so satisfying I wish...
- Auerbach's CellarA tavern in Leipzig. Four drunken students banter and quarrel. Mephistopheles joins them, bores holes in the table, conjures wine...
- Witch's KitchenA witch's filthy kitchen. Mephistopheles arranges a rejuvenating draught because Faust refuses the natural alternative — years of...
- StreetFaust sees Gretchen leaving the cathedral and propositions her clumsily. She refuses and walks on. He demands Mephistopheles get...
- EveningGretchen's room, entered while she is out. Faust is overwhelmed by the modesty and purity of her life — a true shrine to holiness....
- PromenadeMephistopheles, furious, reports that Gretchen's mother found the jewels, called the priest, and he took them for the church...
- The Neighbor's HouseThe neighbor Martha frets about her absent husband. Gretchen arrives with news of a second jewel casket. Mephistopheles arrives...
- StreetMephistopheles reports that Gretchen will be at Martha's tomorrow. But Faust must act as witness to Martha's husband's death...
- GardenThe four of them in Martha's garden. Mephistopheles flirts grotesquely with Martha to keep her away. Faust and Gretchen walk and...
- Garden PavilionGretchen and Faust caught kissing in the pavilion. Mephistopheles interrupts, drags Faust away, and gives him a sleeping draught...
- Forest and CavernFaust alone in the forest, grateful and guilty. Mephistopheles arrives and delivers a clinical account of Gretchen's state: deeply...
- Gretchen's RoomGretchen alone at the spinning wheel. The play's most famous lyric: "My peace is gone, my heart is heavy. I shall find it never...
- Martha's GardenFaust and Gretchen in Martha's garden. She asks about religion again; he gives the great pantheist answer. She admits she dislikes...
- At the WellGretchen at the well with Lieschen. They gossip about a neighborhood girl who has been seduced and abandoned — pregnant...
- DonjonGretchen at a shrine to the Virgin, weeping, placing fresh flowers. She cries out her distress to the Mother of Sorrows — the...
- Night. Street before Gretchen's DoorValentin waits in the street for the man who ruined his sister. Mephistopheles sings a mocking ballad under Gretchen's window....
- CathedralGretchen in the cathedral. The choir sings the Dies Irae. The Evil Spirit whispers behind her: her mother is dead, her brother in...
- Walpurgis NightWalpurgis Night on the Brocken. Witches gather for the sabbath from every direction. Mephistopheles is delighted; Faust is...
- Walpurgis Night's DreamAn intermezzo on the Brocken. Oberon and Titania's golden wedding, attended by a parade of allegorical figures — Puck, Ariel...
- Gloomy Day. FieldThe only prose scene — a rupture. Faust has learned Gretchen is in prison awaiting execution. He rages at Mephistopheles....
- Night. Open FieldFive lines. Faust and Mephistopheles riding through the night. Witches gather on the gallows hill — a brief flash of horror...
- DungeonThe dungeon. Gretchen is half mad, singing fragments. Faust begs her to flee. She begins to recognize him but will not leave — she...