GOETHE JW book FAUST DEDICATION Full TEXT translated English
Johann Wolfgang Goethe
FAUST
Dedication
(1797)
Poem – Full text
translated into English
German literature
Faust Book is considered by many to be Goethe’s magnum opus and the greatest work of German literature. Faust is a tragic play in two parts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
usually known in English as Faust, Part One and Faust, Part Two.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe worked on the book Faust for sixty years, from 1772 to 1831, building a monumental work that consecrates its author as the greatest German-speaking writer. The writers J. W. Goethe finished writing Faust Part Two in 1831; it was published posthumously the following year, 1832.
Goethe’s book Faust is inspired by the figure of Doctor Faust. The poem tells the pact between Faust and Mephistopheles (the devil) and their journey to discover the pleasures and beauties of the world.
The dedication (De.: Zueignung) of the Faust book (reported here) written in June 1797, is addressed by the writer J.W. Goethe to the “friends and first loves” of his youth, who re-emerge “to the clouded gaze”, whose nostalgia moves its song as the wind moves and plays the aeolian harp.
Below you can read the Faust poem by J. W. Goethe: “Dedication”, full text translated into English language.
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J. W. Goethe All the poems > here
J. W. Goethe
FAUST
Dedication
Full text
translated into English
Again ye come, ye hovering Forms!
I find ye, As early to my clouded sight ye shone!
Shall I attempt, this once, to seize and bind ye?
Still o’er my heart is that illusion thrown?
Ye crowd more near! Then, be the reign assigned ye,
And sway me from your misty, shadowy zone!
My bosom thrills, with youthful passion shaken,
From magic airs that round your march awaken.
Of joyous days ye bring the blissful vision;
The dear, familiar phantoms rise again,
And, like an old and half-extinct tradition,
First Love returns, with Friendship in his train.
Renewed is Pain: with mournful repetition
Life tracks his devious, labyrinthine chain,
And names the Good, whose cheating fortune tore them
From happy hours, and left me to deplore them.
They hear no longer these succeeding measures,
The souls, to whom my earliest songs I sang:
Dispersed the friendly troop, with all its pleasures,
And still, alas! the echoes first that rang!
I bring the unknown multitude my treasures;
Their very plaudits give my heart a pang,
And those beside, whose joy my Song so flattered,
If still they live, wide through the world are scattered.
And grasps me now a long-unwonted yearning
For that serene and solemn Spirit-Land:
My song, to faint Aeolian murmurs turning,
Sways like a harp-string by the breezes fanned.
I thrill and tremble; tear on tear is burning,
And the stern heart is tenderly unmanned.
What I possess, I see far distant lying,
And what I lost, grows real and undying.
…
..
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Johann Wolfgang Goethe
FAUST – Dedication (1797)
Poem – Full text
translated into English
German literature
J. W. Goethe Faust original version in German > here
J. W. Goethe All the poems > here
Johann Wolfgang Goethe Bibliography > here
