Goethe's Faust

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Lore & Background

The earliest forms of the work, known as the Urfaust, were developed between 1772 and 1775; however, the details of that development are not entirely clear. Urfaust has twenty-two scenes, one in prose, two largely prose and the remaining 1,441 lines in rhymed verse. The manuscript is lost, but a copy was discovered in 1886. The first appearance of the work in print was Faust, a Fragment, published in 1790. Goethe completed a preliminary version of what is now known as Part One in 1806. Its publication in 1808 was followed by the revised 1828–29 edition, the last to be edited by Goethe himself. Goethe finished writing Faust, Part Two in 1831; it was published posthumously the following year. In contrast to Faust, Part One, the focus here is no longer on the soul of Faust, which has been sold to the devil, but rather on social phenomena such as psychology, history and politics, in addition to mystical and philosophical topics. The second part formed the principal occupation of Goethe's last years.

Reader's Guide

Faust, Part One opens in Heaven, where Mephistopheles makes a bet with God that he can lure Faust away from righteous pursuits. In his study, the aging scholar turns to magic, ponders suicide, but rejects it upon hearing Easter celebrations. A stray poodle transforms into Mephistopheles, who cannot leave Faust's study due to a misshapen pentagram. Faust makes a wager: if Mephistopheles can grant him a moment so blissful he wishes to remain forever, then Faust will die and serve the Devil. Faust signs the pact with blood. With Mephistopheles' aid, Faust seduces Gretchen. Gretchen's mother dies from a sleeping potion; Gretchen becomes pregnant; her brother Valentin falls dead at the hands of Faust and Mephistopheles. Gretchen drowns her illegitimate child and is convicted of murder. Faust tries to free her from prison, but she refuses to escape; voices from Heaven announce 'Sie ist gerettet' ('she is saved'), differing from Urfaust's 'Sie ist gerichtet!' ('she is condemned'). In Faust, Part Two, Faust wakes in a field of fairies and the piece consists of five acts. Ultimately, Faust goes to Heaven. Angels declare: 'He who strives on and lives to strive / Can earn redemption still' (V, 11936–7). The first part represents the 'small world' and takes place in Faust's own local, temporal milieu; Part Two takes place in the 'wide world' or macrocosmos.

Did You Know?

• The original 1808 German title page read simply 'Faust. / Eine Tragödie'; the addition of 'erster Teil' was retroactively applied by publishers when the sequel was published in 1832.
• Urfaust has twenty-two scenes, one in prose, two largely prose and the remaining 1,441 lines in rhymed verse; the manuscript is lost, but a copy was discovered in 1886.
• In 1821, a partial English verse translation of Faust (Part One) was published anonymously; it was attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a 2007 edition, but this attribution is controversial and Coleridge repeatedly denied translating Faustus.
• In August 1950, Boris Pasternak's Russian translation of the first part led him to be attacked in the Soviet literary journal Novy Mir for allegedly distorting Goethe's ideas.
• Goethe finished writing Faust, Part Two in 1831; it was published posthumously the following year, and the second part formed the principal occupation of Goethe's last years.

A Decades-Long Composition

The earliest drafts of what would become Faust, known as the Urfaust, emerged between 1772 and 1775, though the precise details of that initial development remain unclear. The Urfaust contained twenty-two scenes—one in prose, two largely in prose, and the remaining 1,441 lines in rhymed verse. The original manuscript was lost, but a copy surfaced in 1886. The work's first printed appearance came in 1790 under the title Faust, a Fragment. Goethe then completed a preliminary version of what we now call Part One in 1806, which was published in 1808. A revised edition followed in 1828–29, the last version Goethe himself supervised. Part Two consumed the principal occupation of his final years, finished in 1831 and published posthumously in 1832. In total, the work spanned nearly six decades of Goethe's creative life, evolving from a fragmentary sketch into a two-part tragedy that he regarded as his magnum opus.

The Wager and Gretchen's Tragedy

The play opens in Heaven, where Mephistopheles challenges God by wagering he can lead Faust—a scholar striving to know everything—away from righteous pursuits. In his study, the aging Faust, disillusioned by what he sees as the vanity of scientific, humanistic, and religious learning, contemplates suicide before Easter celebrations pull him from that dark thought. A stray poodle follows him home and transforms into Mephistopheles, who, trapped by a pentagram, tricks Faust into a pact: he will serve Faust in life, and Faust will serve him in the afterlife. Faust adds his own condition—if Mephistopheles can make him so blissful that he wishes to linger forever in that moment, he will die and serve the Devil. He signs with blood. The consequences cascade: Faust seduces Gretchen, her mother dies from a sleeping potion, her brother Valentin is killed, and Gretchen drowns her child. Condemned to death, she refuses Faust's rescue attempt. Voices from Heaven declare her saved—a merciful reversal from the harsher Urfaust ending, where she was simply 'condemned.'

Part Two's Expansive Vision

Where Part One fixates on the individual soul sold to the devil, Part Two broadens its scope dramatically. Rich in classical allusion, it sets aside the romantic narrative and has Faust awaken in a field of fairies to begin a new cycle of purpose. The work is organized into five relatively isolated episodes, each exploring a distinct theme spanning psychology, history, politics, and mystical philosophy. This second part formed the principal occupation of Goethe's final years, completed in 1831. Its resolution recontextualizes the entire wager: Faust loses his bet with Mephistopheles—he does experience a transcendental moment he wishes to prolong—yet God wins the original wager from the Prologue because that moment was born of righteous striving. Angels arrive as messengers of divine mercy and deliver the closing declaration in Act V: 'He who strives on and lives to strive / Can earn redemption still.' Faust ultimately ascends to Heaven.

Staging Legacy and Literary Standing

Despite being rarely performed in its entirety, Faust commands the largest audience numbers of any play on German-language stages, a testament to its deep cultural roots. The original 1808 title page read simply 'Faust. Eine Tragödie,' with 'Part One' added retroactively by publishers when the sequel appeared in 1832 under the title 'Faust. Der Tragödie zweiter Teil.' In English, the two works have circulated under numerous titles but are most commonly referenced as Faust, Parts One and Two. Nearly all of Part One and the majority of Part Two are written in rhymed verse, giving the work a sustained poetic architecture. Widely regarded as Goethe's magnum opus, the play is considered by many to be the greatest work of German literature. Its protagonist, Heinrich Faust, may be loosely based on the historical Johann Georg Faust or on Jacob Bidermann's dramatized account of the Legend of the Doctor of Paris, Cenodoxus, anchoring the work in centuries of folk tradition.