Goethe’s Faust, Part One
Walpurgis Night in Faust
The scene opens in the Harz mountains, with the companions making their way through valleys and rocky heights. Faust initially welcomes the experience of walking. Later he calls the gathering a fair unlike any other, while Mephistopheles warns that its whirlpool moves people who think they are moving it. The festival makes loss of direction social as well as physical.
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In the sources
Principal account
LiteraryThe scene opens in the Harz mountains, with the companions making their way through valleys and rocky heights. Faust initially welcomes the experience of walking.
Further detail
LiteraryLater he calls the gathering a fair unlike any other, while Mephistopheles warns that its whirlpool moves people who think they are moving it. The festival makes loss of direction social as well as physical.
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
THE HARTZ MOUNTAINSOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Goethe’s Faust, Part One; active reader leaf 210
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0088-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0088-E001-P0210
- Original scan leaf
- 211
- Recorded leaf number
- 211
- Current Reader position
- 207
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
Faust
The whirlpool swirls to get aboveOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Goethe’s Faust, Part One; active reader leaf 223
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0088-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0088-E001-P0223
- Original scan leaf
- 224
- Recorded leaf number
- 224
- Current Reader position
- 220
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
