“Faust” (post 2) by Goethe (post 4): Faust sees an alternate personality when he looks in a mirror, reflecting multiple personality trait in the author

Mirrors are a recurring subject in this blog, because it is known that persons with multiple personality may occasionally see one of their alternate personalities when they look in a mirror.

In fiction, this may be explained away by saying it is a “magic mirror.” But it would have made more sense for fiction to have had magical windows.

“FAUST. Who meanwhile has been standing in front of a mirror, going forward to peer into it from up close and then stepping back.

What do I see? What a marvelous vision

Shows itself in this magic glass!

Love, lend me your wings, your swiftest to pass

Through the air to the heaven she must dwell in!

Unless I stay firmly fixed to this spot,

If I dare to move nearer the least bit,

Mist blurs the vision and obscures her quite.

Woman unrivaled, beauty absolute!

Can such things be, a creature made perfectly?

The body so indolently stretched out there

Surely epitomizes all that is heavenly.

Can such a marvel inhabit down here?” (1, lines 2477-2490).

A magical mirror in fiction may reflect multiple personality trait in the writer. In the above example, it is not a problem that the alternate personality would be of a different sex and age than the character or writer, since alternate personalities are often of a different sex and age than the host personality.

1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Faust: A Tragedy, Parts One [1806/1829] & Two [1831], Fully Revised. Translated from the German by Martin Greenberg. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2014.