Goethe’s Faust, Part One
Faust’s study
The opening stage direction places Faust at his desk in a lofty-arched, narrow Gothic chamber. It is the setting for his reckoning with the limits of learning. He describes books, instruments, glass and ancestral lumber stacked around him, contrasting this enclosed world with living nature. The room is both a store of knowledge and a felt imprisonment.
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In the sources
Principal account
LiteraryThe opening stage direction places Faust at his desk in a lofty-arched, narrow Gothic chamber. It is the setting for his reckoning with the limits of learning.
Further detail
LiteraryHe describes books, instruments, glass and ancestral lumber stacked around him, contrasting this enclosed world with living nature. The room is both a store of knowledge and a felt imprisonment.
Context & interpretation
This entry follows the character, setting or motif in Part One of Goethe’s drama as translated by Bayard Taylor. Its supernatural events and spoken claims belong to the play, rather than serving as historical biography or independently established accounts of spirits.
Original passages
Source 1
Faust
narrow, Gothic chamberOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Goethe’s Faust, Part One; active reader leaf 44
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0088-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0088-E001-P0044
- Original scan leaf
- 45
- Recorded leaf number
- 45
- Current Reader position
- 41
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
Faust
Ancestral lumber, stuffed and packedOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Goethe’s Faust, Part One; active reader leaf 46
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0088-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0088-E001-P0046
- Original scan leaf
- 47
- Recorded leaf number
- 47
- Current Reader position
- 43
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Continue exploring
Literary & Visionary Settings ↗
Doctor Faust
The dissatisfied scholar whose search for experience binds him to Mephistopheles.
Shared source pageThe sign of the Macrocosm in Faust
The image of universal harmony that proves insufficient for the scholar.
Same subject and traditionThe Witches’ Kitchen
The supernatural household where the companions seek a change in Faust.