| literary current […] held me back | Another indication that Z. is not in full control of his narrative. |
| Kaisersaschern an der Saale | Fictional town, whose name translates as “emperor’s ashes.” The Saale River, a tributary of the Elbe, runs through modern-day Bavaria, Thuringia, and Saxony-Anhalt in central Germany. |
| | Small town in Saxony-Anhalt, roughly twenty miles west of Leipzig. Most famous as the home of the Merseburg Charms, two incantations written in Old High German and generally dated to the tenth century CE. |
| | In nineteenth-century German, Meister was a common appellation used to address distinguished musicians. The term possibly also alludes to another reverential epithet, that of Führer. |
| | Z. clearly has a conflicted relationship with Judaism. The question whether there are latent anti-Semitic currents running through DF (and TM’s thought more generally) has preoccupied scholars ever since the novel was published. |
| | The names that follow are all of towns in central Germany that are closely associated with the life of Martin Luther (1483–1543). |
| | Latin: “the nurturing mother of Jupiter.” Throughout DF, Z. self-associates with Jupiter and a “jovial” disposition, while associating L. with Saturn and a “saturnine” temper. |
| Brethren of the Common Life | Early modern religious order that operated in the Netherlands and Northern Germany. Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) and Erasmus of Rotterdam (14766–1536) were both trained by the Brethren. |
| | Latin: “good letters” (i.e., classical literature). |
| | Road that leads from Athens to Eleusis, site of an important ancient Greek sanctuary where annual initiation rites into the cults of Demeter and Persephone took place. |
| | Minor Greek deity worshipped at Eleusis. Often associated (but not to be confused) with Bacchus/Dionysus. |
| | Minor Greek deity worshipped at Eleusis. |
| Culture […] propitiory inclusion | Our first exposure to a main theme of DF, namely the nature of culture and its relationship to several ostensible opposites, such as the cultic or the barbaric. |
| | The German original has “at age twenty-five.” Woods corrects an obvious inconsistency in TM’s chronology. |
| fourteenth year of the century | The German original has “twelfth year of the century,” another inconsistency corrected by Woods. |
| | Reference to Helen of Troy, whom the Faust of the Chapbook (as well as of many subsequent versions of the story) summons from the netherworld and takes as his consort. The fact that the legendary beauty is here paired with the rather unprepossessing Z. is an obvious parody, as is the maiden name Ölhafen, which means “oil harbor.” Z.’s somewhat vexed marital relations will be a running joke throughout DF. |
| | Z.’s estrangement from his sons and the “void” created by their devotion to the Nazis is a possible reference to chapter fifty-nine of the Chapbook, which tells us that Faust’s wife and son vanished into thin air after his damnation. Because of references like this, some critics have speculated that Z. might be the true Faust figure of the novel. |