The Mormon Review
Books and culture from an LDS Perspective
The Redemption of Eve: Joseph Smith and Goethe’s Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, evil—being committed against knowing good and evil.” (Gen.
Faust: A Tragedy, ed. Cyrus Love and Perfection 3:5)
Hamlin & tr. Walter W. Arndt, personified—of such infinite,
Norton Critical Edition, 2nd unspeakable betrayal that the “God hath said, ye shall not
ed. (W.W. Norton & Co.: New universe itself could not contain eat of it.” (Gen. 3:3)
York, 2000 [orig. pub. 1832]) it; the evil of Eve’s primeval
gesture overflows itself into “The woman saw that the tree
By Terryl Givens generations millennia removed, was good for food, and that it
children and children’s children was pleasant to the eyes, and a
I. yet unborn. The original sin was a tree to be desired to make one
L iterature, being more
imaginatively expansive
than theology, was the first
to recognize the impossibility of
the predicament.
straightforward choice of the
ultimate evil over transcendent
good.
But literature, insofar as it may
treat of the human qua human, in
wise.” (Gen. 3:6)
Editor-in-Chief
Richard Bushman
Perdition, ultimate loss, lies on a universe free of moral
either side as Eve considers her prejudgments and theological Managing Editor
options in the Garden. She imperatives, sees a very different Nathan B. Oman
stymies the infinite expansion of scenario. What it sees in the
Assistant Managing Editors
selfhood, thwarts her own soul’s Adam and Eve story is the primal Kaimipono Wenger
insatiability, murders her own human predicament. And it is a Benjamin Huff
human potential. Or she violates fundamentally tragic predicament.
the bonds of filial regard, alienates Which means, the human finds Editorial Board
herself from her God and himself in a world not of Richard Bushman
Creator, and defies the divine. equilibrium, but of cosmic James Faulconer
The question is not if she will conflict, where the alignments are Daniel Fairbanks
transgress, but how. Not if she not the simple alignments of Terryl Givens
will choose the Good, but which Good and Evil, or ones where Benjamin Huff
Nathan B. Oman
Good she will embrace, and neatly sequestered alternatives Jana Riess
which she will shun. attach to neatly opposed choices. Jonathan Stapley
The voice of religious In this universe, supreme virtues Kaimipono Wenger
orthodoxy, beginning with the clash and collide; absolute values Margaret Blair Young
simple premise of a universe in array themselves in dramatic
peaceful equilibrium, must contestation. The Mormon Review publishes
perforce assume, in C. S. Lewis’s This is the universe revealed in reviews of all aspects of
formulation, that obedience to Genesis, when not viewed contemporary culture from a
God would ultimately have through the narrowing prism of Mormon perspective. Back
proven obedience to the best in religious convention. issues are available online at
human nature. Any felix in the www.mormonreview.org
culpa deriving from humankind’s “Ye shalt not eat of it.” (Gen.
sin attaches to the sublime act of 3:3) Unsolicited submissions are
Christ, not the perfidious act of welcome. Please email us at
Eve. The fall was a catastrophe. A “Your eyes shall be opened, mormonreview@gmail.com.
mitigated catastrophe, but a and you shall be as the gods,
catastrophe nonetheless, and an
www.mormonreview.org September 14, 2009, vol.1 no.4, page 1
The Mormon Review
They start in soul-agony, and end faint sense that in suffering the
Obedience was an incontestable in moralistic over-simplification. constraints of mortality, he is
good. Emblematic of this trajectory is suffocating a soul with roots in
The tree was good for food, it the first English translation of the the heavenly realms:
was pleasant to the eyes, it did German Faustbuch. However
make one wise. compelling we find the doctor’s Two souls, alas, are dwelling in
initial dilemma, the English title my breast,
II. betrays both the protagonist’s And either would be severed
Perhaps the earliest literary final disposition—and his offense from its brother;
type in Western literature against orthodox morality. It is The one holds fast with joyous
(especially if we find Eve its first titled, “the damnable life and earthy lust
incarnation), certainly the most deserved death of Faustus.” We Onto the world of man with
pervasive, is Faust. Faust’s may pity Faust’s difficulty, but organs clinging;
dilemma is not just another right and wrong define the The other soars impassioned
vexing human predicament. It is options. from the dust,
the human predicament. (Of But change is in the wind. To realms of lofty forebears
course, this presumes the anti- Christopher Marlowe’s reworking winging. [lines 1112-1117]
orthodox reading of Genesis I shows a greater appreciation for
have proposed. Which is, again of the impossibility of the Faustian But this Faust labors in a
course, the reading the Book of predicament, a tentative mortal sphere presided over by a
Mormon and the Pearl of Great recognition of the sympathy due God who is most emphatically
Price give us of Genesis). Faust is our own race. “The Tragical not the God of Genesis. Devoid
just a middle-aged Eve, with a History of Dr. Faustus,” he of jealousy, incapable of
long life in the garden and a few tellingly recasts the title. Dr. gratuitous tyranny, this God fully
diplomas to show for it. Faustus conveys the pathos of acknowledges the impossibility of
How long were Adam and what it means to be Eve in a Faust’s dilemma. Following his
Eve in the garden before Satan’s claustrophobic garden: Logic, oft-rehearsed script, Goethe’s
address? Narrative compression medicine, law—the entire Faust chooses to transgress the
should not be mistaken for an medieval curriculum he has limits of law, rather than succumb
indication of brief duration. Long mastered. His narrow study, like to the safety of stasis. He leaves a
enough to be sated, surely. Faust the boundaries of Eden, fits only sobering trail of destruction in his
has acquired all the learning his “a mercenary drudge . . . too wake: broken hearts and shattered
garden has to offer. He knows servile and illiberal for me.” So lives lie scattered about him. At
every tree, shrub, and garden finding his only road to self- the bitter end, as his eyes close on
path. Like Eve, he has seen the actualization is the path of sin, he his mortal sojourn, and devils
same sun rise over the same takes it. Nevertheless, even rush in to seize his soul, God
grassy hillock on countless winter Renaissance humanism bows to intervenes. “Faust is saved,” the
morns and summer daybreaks, the imperious limitations of voice from heaven proclaims.
while listening to the same dutiful religion. This Faust, alas, ends in “He ever sins, who ever strives.”
companion (Faust has his the same fires of hell as all other Did Goethe have Eve in
Wagner) recite the same litany of Fausts. mind? It doesn’t matter. Because
another day’s chores under the In 1832, the greatest man of in Faust’s redemption, we clearly
same cloudless skies. Like Eve, letters of Joseph Smith’s era, see Eve’s redemption as well. For
Faust faces the same two sets of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust’s choice is, of course, Eve’s
alternatives. Soul-starvation, or published Faust: Part II. Inspired choice. And Eve’s song, is
God-alienation. Or put in positive by Goethe’s guiding genius, this Faust’s song:
terms: Knowledge, wisdom, and version gives the human
the soul’s unfettered ascent, or a condition its first full due. Faust is And in that day, Adam blessed
different kind of assent—to the same man, consumed by God and [said] . . . Blessed be
God’s dictates. titanic passion, insatiable appetite, the name of God, for because
All versions of Faust begin as unconquerable will. Even more of my transgression, my eyes
literature and end as theology. fully realized in his person, is the are opened.... And Eve...heard
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all these things, and was glad, theology, was the first to imagination behind their creation
saying: Were it not for our recognize the impossibility of the is more artistic than priestly.
transgression we never should predicament. Until now, even
have had seed, and never treatments of Faust, that most Terryl Givens holds the James A.
known good and evil, and the iconoclastic of literary types, Bostwick Chair of English at the
joy of our redemption. (Moses began as literature, but end as University of Richmond, where he is a
5:10) theology. Goethe’s Faust, like Professor of Literature and Religion.
Joseph Smith’s Eve, breaks free
Literature, being more of theology, because the
imaginatively expansive than
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