Faust: Part 1: Night (Faust’s Study 1) Summary & Analysis

The scholar Faust sits restlessly at his desk in his narrow, high-ceilinged Gothic study. He regrets having studied Philosophy, Law, Medicine, and worst of all Theology, for he feels that he is no wiser than before. For ten years he has led his students on a chase for knowledge, only to realize that human beings can’t ever find certainty in the world. This conclusion makes Faust despair. Indeed, he says nothing gives him joy, as his knowledge can’t better mankind or make it godly, and he has no worldly riches or honors. For these reasons, then, he has turned to magic, which promises to solve many mysteries, and to explain the foundation and forces of the universe.

As much as Faust wants to roam in the moonlight and rejuvenate himself by doing so, he is still imprisoned by his worm-eaten, dusty books. He feels anxious and constricted to find himself surrounded not by the living world of nature but instead by so much smoke and mustiness, and he thinks of the books as if they were the bones of the dead. He vows to escape, aided by Nostradamus’ book of mysterious and magical symbols which the spirits use to communicate.

Faust opens Nostradamus’ book to the sign of the Macrocosm: the whole universe in its harmonious unity. When he sees it, rapture and a youthful happiness flows through him. He feels like a god, with total clarity about the being and workings of creative nature, how all things interweave as one and work and live in each other harmoniously. Grand as all this is, Faust concedes that it is nonetheless a mere show, and that he can’t yet touch Infinite Nature (which he personifies as a woman) and her breasts.

Angrily Faust turns the pages of the book until he comes to the sign of the Earth Spirit, a spirit which Faust thinks is closer to him than the Macrocosm was. He feels brave and ready to experience life and deal with the hurricane of mortal difficulties.

Suddenly the sky outside becomes overcast, the moon hides, and the lamp’s flame vanishes. Mists arise and beams of red flash about. Faust feels a dreadful chill, and senses that the Spirit he was praying to has come. Faust demands that it reveal itself. He orders it to obey, even if the price for the Spirit revealing itself should be Faust’s own life. In a flash of reddish flame, the Earth Spirit appears.

Faust turns away in fear. The Earth Spirit wonders whether the frightful worm now in his presence could possibly be the demigod whose ringing voice summoned him. Faust rallies and announces himself as the Spirit’s peer. The Spirit then sings out that like a storm he oversees the constant change of the physical world, working at the loom of time to fashion the living garment of God. Faust says that he feels close to the industrious Earth Spirit, but the Spirit disowns him, disappearing, which distresses Faust.

There is a knocking at the study door. Faust curses at being interrupted during his happiest moment of most plentiful visions. Faust opens the door, and it is the gowned and night-capped Wagner, Faust’s assistant in scholarship, who heard his master thundering out what he supposes was a Greek tragedy. Wagner says he wishes he were a better reciter and rhetorician, but how can he be, he asks, when he only observes people from afar? Faust says that affecting people with rhetoric requires passion, innate force, and heart. Wagner responds that delivery alone can make a speech a hit, and acknowledges that he has much to learn.

Faust disparages the pretty speeches that Wagner admires, and the two begin debating the values of learning and knowledge. Faust says that the only thing of value one can learn comes from one’s own soul, while Wagner defends book learning as enabling people to enter into the spirit of ages past. Faust in turn dismisses history as a trash bin, full of excellent maxims suitable only for puppets to speak. He doesn’t think that what the world calls knowledge is really knowledge at all.

It is getting late, and Faust proposes that the two stop their debate for now. Wagner would have liked to stay up longer discussing learned matters. He asks Faust if tomorrow, Easter Sunday, Wagner can ask Faust more questions, for he would like to know everything. With that, Wagner takes his leave.

Alone, Faust thinks about how greedy for superficialities Wagner is, and resents him for knocking when he, Faust, was surrounded by inspiration. He is also grateful to Wagner in a way, however, because he feared that the Earth Spirit would destroy his mind, as it was so great and it made Faust feel so small. He regrets having been so arrogant as to claim himself the Spirit’s peer, and wonders who will teach him now. Once Faust’s Imagination soared, but now his joys are distracted by mundane cares. These cares take many forms for mankind: house and home, wife and child, fire, water, dagger, and poison.

Faust despairs of ever being godlike, cramped as he is by countless useless things. He addresses a skull among his possessions, whose brain he suspects went wretchedly astray. Faust feels that the secrets of Nature can never be understood, not even with the implements of learning he inherited from his father. Faust goes on to say that what is inherited but does not serve a purpose becomes burdensome. When the moment for action comes, we can only use what the moment itself provides.

Suddenly, Faust’s eye is caught by a vial in his possession that contains a poisonous extract. The sight of it makes Faust feel as though he’s been transported to the open sea, as though fiery chariots are approaching him. Faust intends to kill himself by drinking the contents of this vial. He thinks this will prove his bravery in the face of heaven and hell.

Right as Faust prepares to drink, however, he hears church bells and a choir of angels, women, and disciples singing of Christ’s resurrection, and with Him all mankind. So Easter day is announced. Faust takes the vial of poison from his lips. Even though he lacks faith, he is nonetheless reminded of joyous tears and spring freedom, and is so moved that he resolves to keep living. The scene closes with the choir of disciples bemoaning that they are still on earth while their master Christ is in heaven, and a choir of angels comforting the living by singing of Christ’s nearness.