Today seems to be the perfect day to discuss this play with you, because not only did we recently celebrate May Day and Vulpurgisnacht,

but right now, despite the fact that the days are getting lighter, the further we march away from the winter months,

and despite the fact that the weather has been growing more fair and mild,

we've actually here in England been beset by wind and rain the last few days.

And there is now a ferocious, violent storm kicking up outside. You may be able to hear it. You may be able to hear

the tempestuous winds blowing through the trees outside. And I think that that is the perfect

soundtrack to this play. We are, of course, talking about the masterpiece that is Johann Wolfgang von Gertes

Faust. We're talking about Faust Parts 1 and 2. And indeed, Faust is not only a masterpiece, but it may just be the greatest work in all of German literature.

And Goethe spent more than 60 years of his life composing this masterpiece.

If one needed confirmation of the thesis that lies at the heart of this two-part

closet drama, then one would only need to look to the author himself. One would only need to

look to the composition of the work. The thesis that I discern at the heart of Faust is that salvation

lies in the ceaseless striving towards worthy goals

and in the acceptance of responsibility for our actions. Good and bad. At least that's the message

that comes through most prominently by the time I reach the end of part two.

But of course we also read the work, particularly if we treat part one as a singularity,

we also read the work as a dire, nightmarish, moral warning to be wary of deals with the devil,

to be wary of what we trade in to sate our lust for power and knowledge

and experience. Now as for the theme of salvation, being within the action towards or the striving

towards one's goals rather than the completion of them, whether we take that to be true or not,

I think Gerta himself certainly must have

for him to have dedicated so much of his life to this work's composition, to say nothing of

...