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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

My dear little Internet adopted daughter (medical student in Iran), just contacted me in Yahoo to say that she has started to read Goethe's Faust.

Here is what I shared with her from my reading, 40 years ago:

The opening parodies the opening of the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word".

Goethe has Faust, an intellectual (professor), move, in his monologue/soliloquy, from word to deed.

Ive studied now philosophy, theology.. etc... and i am better off than Ii was,... so.... Ii shall shift from words to deeds (action)
and then he makes a pact with the devil... which essentially states "If EVER I , Faust, should say to some given moment 'thou art so fair, linger', THEN the devil will win my immortal soul"

Now, faust loves an innocent young maiden...
and Fausts relationship with that maiden resembles Dante and Beatrice, in some ways

In part II of Faust,.... he aspires to build an empire, by reclaiming land from the sea, using technology.....
but, in the end,.... if i remember correctly, Faust looses to the devil by saying to some certain moment in time "Ah, thou art so fair"

I suppose, in a way, our modern technology and science is our pact with the devil.

Heisenberg, in the late 1950s, wrote an essay on quantum theory, which at the end states : "certain things have been unleashed from Pandora's box, such as nuclear energy, which may never again be put back in, but shall proceed with a life of its own, either to mankinds betterment or destruction, which only time will tell." (paraphrased from memory).

No one can shove the Internet, or cell phones, or viagra, back in Pandora's box and say "Sorry this was a mistake, we shall stop using this."

All these actors have now shuffled on stage at this "Mortal Coil Theatre" of ours, and shall play out their parts, heroes and villains, until the final curtain call.

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