Evanghelia Stead, née Dascalopoulou

The project examines Goethe’s Faust ‘I’ through image sequences and book objects in three cultural areas (Germany, England and France) over nearly a century (1816-1925), that of new reproduction techniques and the notion of ‘illustration’ still prevalent. The time frame corresponds to significant artefacts that changed the play’s fortune and its reading in Europe. First hand research on the subject, already published in part, yields promising results in comparing multifaceted cultural histories and diverse cultural areas, as told by printed materials studied and questioned in context. To the present day, the perceived fortune of Goethe’s Faust in Europe relies primarily on textual and musical approaches, particularly translations, adaptations, mythical and imaginary constructions: these have mainly stressed interpretation and ideas, major authors and artists receiving most attention. However sequential images (engraved series), consecutively informing ‘illustrated’ editions, were crucial for this key work, difficult to grasp as theatre script, to reach diverse audiences, thus adding to its aura. Moreover, a «very stream of images» accompanies Faust through Europe, its iconography shaping reception, imagination, and enhancing its mythical dimension.

Analysing this intense iconographical re-shaping in the perspective of ‘reading with images’ through careful investigation of books in context, the project distinguishes between extensive and intensive iconography. The former shows the impact of images and motifs from one edition to the other, the latter allowing for intense innovation and creative reinterpretation within the extensive flux. Methodology, based on the argument that dual text and image relations are insufficient to consider the many-sided stories told in books and prints, reveals the extensive use of the term illustration as mainly text-bound, and favours instead close examination of three-dimensional objects, interpretation of their status within publishing trends, in relation to art history, literary currents and imaginative intellectual procedures. Materiality and book history are thus shown as related to reception and reading theories, myth-making and poetics. The project uses prestigious and popular editions, including skits and caricatures – distortions, exaggerations and even misrepresentations acquiring cultural and poetic relevance when transferred from one context to the other. A book, possibly in more than one language, depending on publishing opportunities, is the intended outcome.