Sherlock Holmes, Goethe and “Faust” (and love, maybe)
So, I made this post which was basically a (sad) parody about the end of “The Sign of Four” when Watson says “I’m getting married” and Holmes says “That’s a pity, where’s the cocaine?”
What got me thinking was that Holmes also quotes Goethe at this point, saying: “Schade, dass die Natur nur einen Menschen aus dir schuf, Denn zum würdgen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff“, meaning something in the line of „ It's a pity that nature made only ONE person out of you because there's potential in you to be a dignified man or a rascal”. [And that's not a great translation, but I'm struggeling with "Schelm". Anyway.]
So, this is far-fetched, I admit it. But I, as a native German speaker, immediately associated that with another quote by Goethe that is (at least nowadays and at least in Germany) much more well-known and has become some kind of a winged word:
“Zwei Seelen, wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust!” – “Two souls, alas! reside within my breast!”
[translation via the Gutenberg-Projekt]
So, basically, in this scene, the protagonist – Dr. Faust, who is some kind of a mad scientist and philosopher and just in general very enthusiastic about gaining knowledge and experience and the like, but currently despairing because he realized he can never really know anything at all – is going for a walk with an acquaintance of his, Wagner. Wagner thinks he’s super nerdy and edgy and stuff and says things like he doesn’t care about the beauty of nature and worldly things in general because he prefers reading ancient books.
So, that’s when Faust disagrees and says that that Wagner only knows that one impulse (and honestly, he actually doesn’t even know the one because Wagner is not such a big fan of critical thinking but rather likes doing things that make him feel important), the intellectual, spiritually minded impulse. But there’s a second one that Faust longs to experience rather violently: The worldly one, the beauties and joys (and all the other feelings) of being alive, being worldly and corporeal and experiencing what it means to be human. (Note: A few lines later they will meet Mephistopheles, the devil, and there will be a pact made in which Faust will trade his life for an all-inclusive experience of the worldly delights.) These two wishes (and ways of living) fight for dominance within him.
And that brings me back to Sherlock Holmes. Holmes quotes Goethe after Watson is like “Seriously, how can one person be so hyperactive and so lazy at once??”, so on the obvious level the quote refers to opposing character traits within one person. But if one makes the associative leap to the much more well-known quote from Goethe’s “Faust”, one might also argue that Holmes is really talking about how he both wants to live a rational, professional life and an emotional, private life – and that he doesn’t see a way to unite them. Don’t forget how only a few lines previous he said: “love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things”. Please don’t forget about “the science of deduction” that forces Holmes, or so he says, to remain detached from everything, just as Faust tries to unravel the mysteries and meanings of the world and life itself by theory – and despairs of it. (Following the worldly way of gaining knowledge is what satisfies Faust in the end, but it also brings him into sin, guilt and damnation. His soul is saved, however in part II, through the love of his girlfriend whom he treated really badly. Anyway.)
Watson is leaving Holmes, so he tries to tell himself that this is better anyway because "love is an emotional thing" etc. pp. we get it. Poor Sherlock Holmes thinks that he can either pursue perfection or happiness. You can choose either exact science or love, reason or emotion. He says so directly. Someone should give him a hug.
PS: I’m not a literature student and it’s been a while since I thought about “Faust” in depth, so if there are any specialists here, please correct me if I missed something crucial (but please be kind).
