I doubt the problem is the translation. There are too many different voices and not enough focus, plot, and continuity around Faust and Mephistopheles. It has the feel of an inferior sequel. There are some good speeches, such as Nereus's, but much of it seems random. It's no accident Goethe deferred publication until after his death. ( )

An impressive drama. It was filled, and fused, with so many themes, characters, allusions, references, and poetic prowess. This was Goethe near the height of his powers. I read the drama WAY after reading the first portion, but this did not detract from it at all. Rather, it allowed me to make sense of the first part in relation to the second. The drama spans a wide area of time and there is so much going on, so many great lines and developments, that I could not give this drama any less than four and a half stars. The only detriment is that, in its complexity, I found that some of the prestige is lost. I am nowhere as intelligent as Goethe was and everything that he puts into his book, all combined, mixed, like a concoction of literary material, was at times hard to understand. I read this alongside a guide and I presume that, if I hadn't, I would've become lost along the way.

Still, an amazing piece of German literature: 4.5 stars! ( )

The play/poetic structure didn't really engage me. I think I needed a version with more critical notes throughout as many of the allusions, etc. went right past me. ( )

Faust II is a work that has defeated me a number of times in the past: I generally get stuck somewhere in Act II where an apparently endless succession of assorted classical entities come on and do their stuff. However, this time I ploughed on regardless, and got all the way through in three or four sittings. It's worth the effort, because you do start to get a feel for where Goethe is going. It's such a big, complicated work that you certainly can't get everything out of it in one reading. It touches on just about every area of knowledge Goethe had a finger in (to put it another way: everything) - philosophy, mythology, music, geology, economics, painting, hydraulic engineering, religion, war, psychology, civil administration, education,...
What struck me most on this reading was what an unexpectedly modern work it is. The classical allusions and medieval trappings of the story give you a vague feeling that it must be very ancient, but actually Goethe completed it in 1831. It's very much part of the modern, industrial, capitalist world. Jane Austen was dead, Walter Scott was dying; steam trains were running in England, and would soon be imported to Germany; Bismarck was at school; Alfred Krupp would have been at school if he hadn't been obliged to take over his late father's steelworks; Dickens was a young court reporter, etc. Especially in Act V, where Faust and Mephistopheles have become capitalist entrepreneurs involved in shipping and land reclamation, it becomes very obvious that Goethe wants the reader to see the play in this context. One of the biggest questions he addresses is where we can find a space for humanity and morality in such a world, where we are no longer bound by the traditional constraints of religion, and where growth of power and wealth are the only indicators we measure ourselves against. ( )

Sequels are never as good as the originals. :-( It may be sacrilege to say it and the books were meant by Goethe to be read as a unified whole, but part two diverges way too far into classical allegory for my tastes. Only for the hardcore. Bring a headlamp and leave a popcorn trail, you might get lost.

Just a few quotes:
On life; I thought of the mist trail in Yosemite when I read these lines:
“And so I turn, the sun upon my shoulders,
To watch the water-fall, with heart elate,
The cataract pouring, crashing from the boulders,
Split and rejoined a thousand times in spate;
The thunderous water seethes in fleecy spume,
Lifted on high in many a flying plume,
Above the spray-drenched air. And then how splendid
To see the rainbow rising from this rage,
Now clear, now dimmed, in cool sweet vapour blended.
So strive the figures on our mortal stage.
This ponder well, the mystery closer seeing;
In mirrored hues we have our life and being.”

On marital dissatisfaction:
“Observe the married creature:
There I begin; and can in every case
The purest bliss by idle whims deface,
So varies mood and hour and human nature.
And holding in his arms what most should charm him,
Each fool will set his dreams on some new yearning;
From highest joy, now grown familiar, turning,
He shuns the sun, and takes the frost to warm him.
With practiced hand I rule in these affairs,
And bring in Asmodeus, trusty devil,
To sow, when time is ripe, conjugal evil,
And thus I wreck the human-race in pairs.” ( )