Goethe's Faust I Outlined

Moritz Retzsch's Prints in Circulation

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In a new approach to Goethe's Faust I, Evanghelia Stead extensively discusses Moritz Retzsch's twenty-six outline prints (1816) and how their spin-offs made the unfathomable play available to larger reader communities through copying and extensive distribution circuits, including bespoke gifts. The images amply transformed as they travelled throughout Europe and overseas, revealing differences between countries and cultures but also their pliability and resilience whenever remediated.
This interdisciplinary investigation evidences the importance of print culture throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in nations involved in competition and conflict. Retzsch's foundational set crucially engenders parody, and inspires the stage, literature, and three-dimensional objects, well beyond common perceptions of print culture's influence.

This book is available in open access thanks to an Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) grant.
Copyright Year:
2023
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978-90-04-54301-0
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24 Jul 2023
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978-90-04-51855-1
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10 Aug 2023
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Evanghelia Stead, Professor of Comparative Literature and Print Culture at UVSQ Paris Saclay, has published extensively on the fin-de-siècle, Greek and Latin myths in modern literature, texts and iconography, periodicals, and books as cultural objects, including Goethe's Faust I.
"Goethe’s Faust I Outlined is meticulously researched, based at every step on hands-on evidence. [...] Altogether, Stead’s is one of the most detailed intermedial studies I have encountered, and [...] is itself a beautiful work of book art, with sturdy bright yellow hardcover binding that opens with plates of all 26 Retzsch outlines on glossy paper followed by literally hundreds of images, many of them in color."
Linda K. Hughes, Texas Christian University. In: Media History, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2025), pp. 93–96.

"This is a scholarly tour de force."
Bethan Stevens, University of Sussex. In: Print Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 2 (June 2025), pp. 240–243.

"In reading the dense 450-page book that Evanghélia Stead devotes to this [Faust] edition and its numerous substitutes, one comes to wonder whether Faust—and even Goethe—would have become what they are without the work of the German artist [i.e., illustrator Moritz Retzsch]."
Philippe Kaenel, University of Lausanne. In: Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 2025), pp. 157–160.

"Ausführlichkeit und Anschaulichkeit der Beschreibungen, Prägnanz und Aussagekraft der Analysen, Breite und Fülle des verarbeiteten Wissens sowie des Quellen- und Bildmaterials, Interdisziplinarität und Perspektivenreichtum, Vielzahl und Qualität der Abbildungen, Sorgfalt und Tiefe der bibliographischen Angaben (allein die beiden umfangreichen, chronologisch-tabellarisch geordneten bibliographischen Verzeichnisse im Anhang, die Ausgaben der Umrisse und Remediationen aufführen, enthalten eine Überfülle genauester Informationen), schließlich das sehr differenziert strukturierte Register, das benutzerfreundlich jederzeit den Zugriff auf spezifische thematische Aspekte ermöglicht – Evanghelia Steads Monographie setzt in vielerlei Hinsicht neue Maßstäbe in der wissenschaftlichen Aufarbeitung der Geschichte der Faust-Illustration, nicht nur in Bezug auf die Umrisse von Moritz Retzsch. Zukünftige Arbeiten in diesem Bereich werden in ihrer Studie ein unverzichtbares Referenzwerk vorfinden."
Carsten Rohde, Sun Yat-sen University. In: Goethe Jahrbuch, Vol. 140 (2023), pp. 320–322.

"Steads interdisziplinäre Untersuchung [leistet] einen zentralen Beitrag zur Bedeutung des kulturellen Austauschs mittels der graphischen Künste in den miteinander konkurrierenden Nationen Europas während des 19. und im frühen 20. Jahrhundert."
Gerd-Helge Vogel, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste. In: Kunstchronik, Vol. 77, No. 9/10 (2024), pp. 650–656.

"En accompagnant les gravures de Retzsch, qui se recoupent, s’hybrident, se juxtaposent – mais pourtant survivent toujours –, le lecteur est mis en contact avec de multiples milieux et champs de recherches, analysés en profondeur par Évanghélia Stead. […] Suivre ainsi, au plus près des archives, un corpus restreint d’images, dans tous ses détournements interculturels, toutes ses métamorphoses, remédiations, incarnations, projections sensibles – sur près d’un siècle, et sur plus d’un continent – constituait un pari ambitieux, rigoureusement réussi."
Tristan Dot, Université de Cambridge. In: Belphégor, Vol. 22, No. 2 (2024).

"Il peut sembler difficile d’apporter du nouveau sur le Faust de Goethe, cette œuvre majeure du canon littéraire européen, que tout le monde connaît même sans l’avoir lu […]. C’est pourtant bien ce que fait Evanghelia Stead dans son dernier ouvrage en prenant le parti des images, et plus précisément la série de 26 gravures au trait de Moritz Retzsch (1779–1857), qui fut publiée pour la première fois en 1816, du vivant de l’auteur de Faust. En étudiant la fortune européenne multiforme de cette suite iconographique, elle éclaire d’un jour radicalement neuf la réception européenne de la première partie de la pièce de Goethe ; elle montre en effet comment ces images rendirent à bien des égards lisible la complexité poétique de ce « chaos intellectuel » selon l’expression de Germaine de Staël. […] Le croisement des perspectives, de la bibliographie matérielle à la sociologie de la littérature, en passant par l’iconographie, l’histoire du livre et de l’édition, jette un jour nouveau à la fois sur la réception d’une œuvre majeure et sur tout un pan de la culture européenne de l’imprimé."
Jean-Louis Haquette, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne. In: La Vie des idées, 17 janvier 2025.

"E. Stead décrit comment les Sihouettes, dans leurs physionomies sans cesse changeantes, ont façonné la compréhension de l'œuvre et donné lieu à de nouvelles adaptations et appropriations du texte. À travers cette étude de cas remarquable, elle contribue ainsi à l'écriture d'un siècle d'histoire visuelle européenne de Faust."
Christine Roger, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens. In: Études germaniques, Vol. 79, No. 3 (2024), pp. 441–442.

"Son [=Evanghelia Stead] panorama magistral et soigneusement construit changera non seulement la manière dont on doit considérer les gravures de Retzsch, mais fournit également des points de repère méthodologiques précieux à tout explorateur de ce merveilleux palais des glaces européen."
Eveline Deneer, Utrecht University. In: Romantisme, 2025/2, No. 208, pp. 144–146.

Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Abbreviations

Introduction: Air View and Ant Perspective

Moritz Retzsch’s Etchings after Goethe’s Faust I

1 Retzsch in the German States, a Borderline Celebrity
 1.1 Profile in Contrast
 1.2 Romantic Pranks and Rituals
 1.3 Portraits and Sociability
 1.4 A Poetic Mind
 1.5 The Toils of Fancy and Melancholy
 1.6 Fluctuating Fate in Nineteenth-Century German States
 1.7 Plights and Plusses of Comparison (Retzsch, Cornelius & Naeke)
 1.8 German Amendments in the Twentieth Century
 1.9 Conclusion

2 Faust I Outlined and the Original Retzsch Effect
 2.1 A Modern Fourfold Device
 2.2 Goethe’s Gifts
 2.3 In Goethe’s Orb
 2.4 Retzsch at Work: Early Correspondence
 2.5 A Speculation on Relics
 2.6 “Full of Spirit”
 2.7 Outline Reformation
 2.8 Retzsch in Colour
 2.9 To Conclude

3 German Editions and Copies: The Bait of Rich Morsels
 3.1 Avowable (and Uncertain) Cotta Portfolios
 3.2 From Portfolios to Albums
 3.3 Pirated Goods
 3.4 Styled for the Ladies
 3.5 Valuing Copies in Visual Circulation

4 First Steps in Britain
 4.1 A Momentous Gift from Perthes to Crabb Robinson
 4.2 Imported Wares and Motley Exemplars
 4.3 Media Coverage and Publicity (A Mediated Launch)
 4.4 A First English Point of View (George Soane’s Letterpress)
 4.5 Books as Cultural Objects: Readers and Cultural Representation
 4.6 Dibdin in Action

5 Retzsch Copied in Britain and Beyond
 5.1 Attractive and Collectable
 5.2 Cultural Adaptability
 5.3 Boosey’s 1820 Edition Re-issued?
 5.4 “A More Careful Abstract”
 5.5 Faustus as Template
 5.6 Retzsch Gains Ground in Other Garb and Guises
 5.7 Retzsch Wielded by Illustration
 5.8 Competing Formats
 5.9 “Bound to Please”
 5.10 First Conclusions on Foreign Circulation

6 Retzsch in France and Belgium
 6.1 Retzsch by Muret for Artists, Readers, and Print Collectors
 6.2 Three Little Audot
 6.3 A Francized Original Retzsch
 6.4 Copies vs Originals? The Brussels Case
 6.5 Retzsch in French Nineteenth-Century Print Culture
 6.6 Retzsch’s Diffuse Influence
 6.7 Conclusion

7 Extensive and Intensive Iconography
 7.1 Loose Leaves
 7.2 Copies, Copies, Copies …
 7.3 Bowdlerizing
 7.4 A Kiss’s Exceptional Fortune
 7.5 Spread and Sway on Style, Form and Set
 7.6 Extensive vs. Intensive Iconography
 7.7 Extensive Rations
 7.8 Intensive Inspiration
 7.9 Recycling and Authorship in Image Circulation

8 The Power of Parody: A Crow amongst Nations
 8.1 A Crow’s Quill
 8.2 Travesties
 8.3 Mischief in Images
 8.4 Homecoming and “Who Loves a Laugh”
 8.5 A Mocking Deity with a Meerschaum Pipe

9 Outlines in the Limelight
 9.1 Aptitudes and Assets
 9.2 Weimar Trials
 9.3 Staging: German Décors
 9.4 British and French Décors
 9.5 Time, Stage and the Arts
 9.6 Performance: Fixed, Inviolable Instants?
 9.7 Outfits: Models and Embodiment
 9.8 Creating Types
 9.9 In the Limelight over Time

10 Ink Worlds
 10.1 Devilish Relish of Converted Israelites
 10.2 Théophile Gautier from Travelogue to Aesthetics
 10.3 Visual Traps in Prose
 10.4 Pictures within the Picture in Illustrated Books
 10.5 Games of Fiction, Tricks and Screens

11 Two Gifted Women
 11.1 Goethe’s and Byron’s Gifts
 11.2 The Book as a Rose
 11.3 Twelve Apostles and a Faust

12 Artefacts: Poetics of Everyday Life
 12.1 Treasures of Gold and China
 12.2 Porcelain for the Many
 12.3 Moulded and Backlit
 12.4 In Tin and Frail Paper
 12.5 Conclusion

Conclusion: Grains of Sand as Cities

Appendix 1: Moritz Retzsch’s 26 Umrisse in Original and Copied Editions
Appendix 2: Moritz Retzsch’s Prints Remediated

Bibliography
Index on Moritz Retzsch
General Index
Aimed at scholars, students, art institutes, and academic libraries, this book cuts across broad interdisciplinary sectors: nineteenth-century, comparative literature, Goethe studies, art historical criticism, book/print & cultural history, illustration, and media studies. Keywords: World canon, European Romanticism, materiality, reception, translation, visual studies, reproduction, remediation, word-and-image, gifts, copies, heritage texts.
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