Adrian Mihalache, Politehnica University Bucharest Zum Sehen geboren Cyber-Lust in Goethe’s Faust

Goethe's portraits picture him eyes wide open, keen to observe the world, ready to capture its fleeting images, eager to detect their hidden patterns. He welcomes any schwankende Gestalten, which he avidly plans to keep (festzuhalten) and to turn into verse. Just as his character Lynkeus, Goethe is "born to see", zum sehen geboren; he delights in what he sees and he knows how to extract from it delightment for his readers. He mistrusts the dry, abstract concepts, as he knows from Mephisto how gray any theory looks, compared to the "golden tree of life". Instead, he favors ideas made visible, conceptual images that speak to the sense. Noica (1976) recalls that, in Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre, Aurelie describes the hero as a special person who, without having a hands-on experience, allowing him to get to the 'real things' of this world, is perfectly able to grasp their images, so that he somehow possesses, if not the world itself, at least its fantasmatic double¹.
Goethe himself experienced the delight that accompanies the idle wandering on the colorful surface of a world made up of semiotic stuff: indices, icons and symbols. In a letter to his friend, philosopher Jacobi, he mentions "how voluptuous it is to float easily on the ocean of knowledge, from one interesting island to another"². This capricious movement to-and-fro, in between knowledge bases, does not fail to suggest the already familiar 'surfing' on the web. The architecture of Faust II supports this intuition.

Goethe was perfectly aware of the architectural clash between the first and the second part of Faust. The first part has a linear structure, which includes a captivating exposition, a steep ascent to the climax and a precipitated, dramatic end. On the contrary, the second part has a non-traditional structure, which Goethe himself had metaphorically described as "an archipelago", a term which suggests the exploratory journeys from one island to another. Replacing 'island' with 'site' brings us readily in the framework of the World Wide Web. The language of computers also provides an interpretation of the first part as a 'computer game' of the 'quest' type. Indeed, Faust I enacts the search for something precious and desirable, while the second part is the systematic exploration of the wide diversity. Quoting Gundolf, Noica (1976) mentions that, in the second part of the tragedy, the world becomes an independent theatre, ceasing to be a projection of Faust's soul³. The poetic subjectivity, bent on self-expression, is replaced by the scientific objectivity, keen on experimentation. To Constantin Noica, Faust II is not a theatre, but the script for a Hollywood movie. Referring to a conversation with Eckermann, he writes: "What an extraordinary movie Faust II would make! When Goethe discusses with Eckermann the direction of the work, he mentions the immense stage, the numerous actors, the captivating music, and the luxurious scenery. There is only one solution to get all of it: the movietone picture, the superproduction"⁴.

Shared Virtual Environments

As a matter of fact, in the second part, Mephisto does not project any picture to Faust, but leads him through all sorts of interactive sites. There, he lures him to get involved in simulation games, he attracts him into 'shared virtual environments', wherein he engages in role-playing. In Act I, at the Emperor's court, he experiments with the 'new economy', based more on confidence and information, than on treasures and commodities. The virtual economy is naturally related to cyber-sex, as the Mummenschanz episode clearly suggests. They both manage the transactions in a world of non-corporeal desires, wherein the exchange is practiced between tempting fantasms, not between tangible entities. The laboratory, the site of Act II, is dedicated to the scientific concepts. Here, the Human Genome Project is clearly anticipated and completed by the creation of Homunculus. The Helena episode (Act III) is meant as a framework for the experimentation of the eroticism. The Virtual Reality technology seems to be put to work in order to provide a special type of communication, which is both inter-sexual and inter-cultural. On the whole, the multimedia of the web describes more aptly the Faust's adventures in the second part of the tragedy, than the stage or the movie.
Not one of the elaborated sites from Faust II manages to keep the hero's attention and involvement for more than an instant. The insatisfaction lurks from within, since the accomplishment of a wish does not prevent him from wishing again:

Ich bin nur durch die Welt gerannt;
Ein jed gelüst ergriff ich bei den Haaren,
Was nicht genügte, liess ich fahren,
Was mir entwischte liess ich ziehn.
Ich habe nur begehrt un nur vollbracht
Und abermals gewünscht und so mit Macht
Mein Leben durchgestürmt; (11433-11440).

Faust's Website

There comes, however, a turning point, when Faust, instead of continuing to explore and to experiment, starts to create, that is to build up his own site. He rejects Mephisto's suggestion to use ready-made elements in order to make a useless double of the reality. Here is what the devil proposes:

Ich suchte mir so eine Hauptstadt aus
Im Kerne Bürgernahrungsgraus,
[...]
da findest du zu jeder Zeit
Gewiss Gestand und Tätigkeit.
Dann weite Plätze, breite Strassen
Vernehmen Schein sich anzumassen; (10137-10145).

For the first time, he is bent on the not-yet, instead of on the already done. He wants to build up a new environment, not to relish in the old ones, no matter how attractive they might be. Simulation of the past is now over and done with, that is why he asks the emperor a title of property for a land, which is still nowhere to be found. It is highly significant that the 'land' Faust acquires in act IV does not exist as such yet: it is a mere virtuality which would eventually be turned real by snatching it from the sea. Faust expects this deed to bring him the highest satisfaction:

Da herrscher Well' auf Welle kraftbegeistet,
Zieht sich zurück, und es ist nichts geleistet -
[...]
Erlange dir das köstliche Geniessen
das herrische Meer vom Ufer auszuschliessen. (10216-10229).

In cyberspace too, a site does not exist prior to its nomination, does not wait to be discovered and acquired, but is created ex nihilo, so to speak, by symbolic manipulation. To register a domain name is equivalent to making an island rise from the sea, while the long-expected approval of new top-level domain names, such as shop or info, would cause new continents to emerge. The later development of the website is similar to the great draining works described in Act V, which actually take place only in Faust's imagination. He dreams of multitudes that follow him in his ambitious project, while the Lemures dig his grave:

Es ist die Menge, die mit frönet,
die Erde mit sich selbst versöhnet,
Den Wellen ihre Grenze setzt,
Das Meer mit strengten Wand umzieht. (11540-11543).

Faust's final vision is cybercultural, because the fantasmatic world he thinks he creates is not an improvement of the real one, but a libertarian Utopia totally distinct from it. Cyberspace, just like Faust's imaginary site, is the symbolic area wherein people who got rid of the conformisms, routines and prejudices of real life decided to interact freely and gracefully. In Faust's words:

vielen Millionen
nicht sicher zwar, doch tätig-frei zu wohnen:
[...] Solch ein Gewimmel möcht' ich sehn,
Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn. (11563-11580).

To contemplate is more pleasurable than to possess, that is why to gaze in excess might prove dangereous. Lynkeus enjoyed so much what he had seen, that he eventually came to accept his own self as enjoyable, which set his mind at peace:

Ich blick in die Ferne,
Ich she' in der Näh' [..] Und wie mir's gefallen
Gefall ich auch mir. (11291-11298).

Less fortunate, Faust exerted his gaze onto blindness, which proves that the radiations of beauty are harsh:

Doch uns sterblicher nötigt, ach,
Leider trauriges Missgeschick
Zu den unsäglichen Augenschmerz,
Den das Verwerlicher, Ewig-Unseliger
Schönheitliebenden rege macht.

Cyberporn

The Mothers' scene (Mummenschanz) that closes the first act of the second part of Faust has been as a rule interpreted in terms of Platonic archetypes. Faust uses Mephisto's key to bring from Mothers' Land and to present to the emperor and his court the ideal images of beauty that are traditionally related to Helena and Paris. The classical approach considers the 'Mothers' as preservers of the fixed and eternal essences that all specific existences originate from. To cut a long story short, the Mummen are a mixture between Platonic ideas and originating phenomena⁵. More recently, the conceptual, abstract features of this myth found less favor with the critics, who claimed that the triumph of the poetical imagination overcomes the intellectual achievement⁶. A psychoanalytic perspective sees in the 'Mothers' "the feminine force of the primordial creativity, the pressure of a fertility in search of actualization, the fundamental resource of a form-breeding inspiration"⁷.
An uninhibited reading of the text transforms Faust's performance in front of the emperor from a benign pastoral into a shocking session of cyber-porn. One is well aware that the Mummenschanz is a repository of knowledge, archived according to complicated and secret procedures, which lend it an apparently shapeless look, devoid of milestones, hence the risk to err endlessly. Mephisto warns Faust about that:

Und hättest du den Ozean durchwonnen,
Das Grenzenlose dort geschaut,
Es sähst du dort doch Well' auf Welle kommen,
[...] Nichts wirst du sehn in ewig leerer Ferne, Den Schritt nicht hören den du tust
Nichts Festes finden, wo du ruhst. (6239-6248).

However, seeing Faust's determination, Mephisto offers him a key to help him out: "Hier, diesen Schlüssel nimm. / Das kleine Ding!" (6257-6258). The psychoanalysts want to see in "das kleine Ding" a phallic symbol of the libido⁸. I think that the 'key' stands for the essential technical device for net surfing. In its absence, the information and the knowledge on the web remain invisible. The 'key' is not a phallic symbol, but a browser combined with a search-engine. It enabled Faust to get in the territory of phantasms, nowadays called cyberspace, where he could dig at leisure into the cultural memory to select what most pleased his whims. He is free to float "o'er vales and hills" and to pick up anything alluring from what has been conceived and preserved over the centuries:

Versinke denn! Ich könnt' auch sagen: steige!
's ist einerlei. Entfliehe dem Entstandnen;
In der Gebilde losgebundne Reiche!
Ergetzte dich am längst nicht mehr Vorhandnen; (6276-6278).

Helena and Paris, as presented by Faust, are specters, not bodies. This, according to Noica (1975), accounts for Mephisto's project to make the 'possible' rule over the 'real'. To achieve the primacy of the virtual, Mephisto activates the spectators' imagination. That is why the Astrologist - whom Mephisto dictates what to say - invokes the magic in order to:

Durch möglich Wort sei die Vernunft gebunden;
Dagegen weit heran bewege frei
Sich herrliche, verwegne Phantasei. ( 6426-6428).

Reason must be inactivated and, in its place, the fantasy should act as an expediency. The two lovers' images presented to the public are neither spectral, nor schematic. They are the vivid images of life, although lifeless: "Des Lebens Bilder regsam, ohne Leben" (6430). Cyberspace makes indeed possible to bring forth in the atemporal features of the virtual all that has been shining through the ages: "Was einmal war in allem Glanz und Schein" (6431). Once preserved in the knowledge bases, the memorable will reign forever: "es regt sich dort; denn es will ewig sein" (6432).

The scene where the courtiers look concupiscently at the much too realistic images of the lovers has all the appeal of the interactive cyber-porn sites. One would not here such comments as the courtiers' even in the bawdiest chat-rooms. The women are excited by Paris' robust virility, by his full-blooded youthful appearance. He is practically naked, which is inappropriate, considering the emperor's presence in the public. His casual attitude, absolutely unconventional, and the ease of his snoring add to his charms a taste of rusticity. At her turn, Helena is not only a striking beauty as a whole, but also a person with many imperfect, hence sexy, details. She is tall, has a fine body, but her head is rather small and her legs are a tiny too large. He is majestic, but rather common, and one can easily see she enjoys playing around. Ever since the age of ten, she has made the most of her life, passing from one man to another. As such, she is a rare gift for the handsome lad. He does not hesitate to get into action, which does not fail to arouse the on-lookers. Paris takes her as a brave hero, not as a shy youth. She, at her turn, defends herself tenderly, in order only to tease him and to increase his lust. The interactivity of this multimedia cyber-porn accounts for Faust's intervention, his small 'key' held tightly in the hand. He interposes himself between the two, in order to take over Paris' place and function. His intervention causes the crash of the whole installation, which is meant to point to the danger of the confusion between reality and virtuality.

Notes

¹ Cf. Noica (1976), p. 69.

² Quoted in Noica, op. cit., p. 135.t

³ Cf. Noica, op. cit., p. 163.

⁴ Cf. Noica, op. cit., p. 227.

⁵ Cf. v. Weizsäcker (1999).

⁶ Cf. Jantz (1952) quoted by Doinas (1982), p. 514.

⁷ Cf. Tempianu (1999).

⁸ Tempianu, op. cit., p. 272.

References

Doinas, Stefan Augustin, Faust. Translation and commentaries. Editura Univers, Bucharest, 1982.

Noica, Constantin, Despartirea de Goethe (A Farewell to Goethe). Editura Univers, Bucharest, 1976.

Tempianu, Monica, Goethe - geniul a trei piese din sipetul psihanalizei. (Goethe - the genius of three pieces from the psycho-analytic box) In: Secolul 20, 4-5-6 (1999), pag. 258-272.

von Weizsäcker, Carl Fr., On some concepts of the Science of Nature at Goethe. In: Secolul 20, 4-5-6 (1999), pp 202-214. From Voraussetzungen des naturwissenschaftlichen Denkens. Carl Hauser Verlag, München, Wien.