Faust, First Part
Goethe took a German folk legend and turned it into the defining myth of modern ambition: the scholar who sells his soul because knowledge by itself isn't enough.
Read this if you…
- have already read dr faustus and want the more famous remake
- love the idea of making a deal with the devil
- want to read the most famous German work ever
- buy the idea that endless striving (never settling, never satisfied) is what makes a life worth living
Skip this if you…
- are expecting all the poetry to survive translation into english
- already know deal with the devil concept, and don't find it interesting
Why It Matters
Goethe took a German folk legend and turned it into the defining myth of modern ambition: the scholar who sells his soul because knowledge by itself isn't enough. Faust's bargain with the devil became the standard metaphor for trading your integrity for power or success. This is Germany's national literary work, and its pull on European culture is hard to overstate.
The 
Take
Step up from Marlowes Faustus, and interesting philosophical/theological premise
Where to go next
- Job by Unknown. Faust, First Part built on it. - The 'Prologue in Heaven' is *Job*'s heavenly wager, transposed — God and the devil bargaining over one striving man - Goethe modeled the scene directly on Job's opening, down to the archaic, scriptural German that signals where it came from - Read Job first and *Faust*'s frame reveals itself: not a fresh invention but a deliberate reworking of the oldest argument about why a good man suffers
- Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. Faust, First Part built on it. - The puppet plays Goethe watched as a child trace straight back to Marlowe's *Dr. Faustus* - Marlowe's proud scholar bartering his soul is the seed; Goethe only met the actual English drama later, long after the legend had already shaped him - Read Marlowe to see the bargain in its rawest form — damnation as a closed deal — before Goethe reopens the question and lets Faust strive past it
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Faust, First Part built on it. - *Faust* is steeped in Shakespeare — Goethe called him one of the three writers who made him, and *Hamlet* is the play he reaches for - Gretchen's ruin is shaped on Ophelia's: the cast-off woman, the descent into madness, the brother who dies trying to avenge her - Read *Hamlet* first and the echoes ring clear — Ophelia's mad song in Mephistopheles' mouth, the graveyard turned to Faust's churchyard
- Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Faust, First Part built on it. - *Faust*'s 'Witch's Kitchen' is Goethe answering the *Macbeth* witches he praised — the cauldron scene was directly in his mind - Gretchen's madness borrows Shakespeare's signature image of guilt: the imagined bloodstain that won't wash off, straight out of Lady Macbeth's sleepwalk - Read *Macbeth* first and you'll catch how Goethe is reaching for the same theatrical power — witchcraft, conscience, a hand stained by murder
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Faust, First Part shaped it. - Goethe's tempter gets reborn in Russia — Dostoevsky read *Faust* in German at seventeen and never let it go - Ivan Karamazov is, by scholarly consensus, "a Russian Faust": the brilliant intellect who reasons his way to despair - And Ivan's devil-visitor descends straight from Mephistopheles — Dostoevsky strips the grand demon down to a threadbare gentleman in a checked coat
- The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud. Faust, First Part shaped it. - Goethe's *Faust* became Freud's go-to source for naming the unnamable — he quotes it more than any other work in *The Interpretation of Dreams* - Most of those quotations come from Mephistopheles' mouth, the voice Freud reached for when describing how dreams disguise their meaning - A scholarly study traces "Die Traumdeutung" itself back to *Faust* — the play is woven through Freud's account of the dream-work
Depicted in Art
Faust and Margaret meet on a sunlit street, Faust raising his hat as she walks past, Mephistopheles watching from the shadows.
Alexander von Liezen-Mayer, 1876
An aged Faust slumps in his chair amid books and astrolabes, gazing toward an unseen vision.
Ary Scheffer, 1831
Marguerite descends church steps with a downcast face, parishioners receding behind her in the dim doorway.
Ary Scheffer, 1838
Gretchen kneels in a dim church interior among scattered worshippers, weighed down by the evil spirit's whispered accusations.
Enrico Fanfani, 1850
A scholar rises from his desk in a darkened study, transfixed by a luminous magic disc inscribed with letters that hovers at his window.
Rembrandt van Rijn, 1652
Marguerite plucks petals from a daisy beside a hesitant Faust in a leafy garden; Mephistopheles and Martha pass in the background.
Ary Scheffer, 1846
Faust and Mephistopheles race on horseback through a wild night sky, manes and cloaks streaming, in Vrubel's broken-mosaic style.
Mikhail Vrubel, 1896
Recommended Editions
David Luke
Oxford University Press · 2008
David Luke's verse is the consensus English Faust. Supple meter that catches both the lyric stretches and the demonic mischief, with notes that help without burying the page.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“Two souls, alas, dwell in my breast, each one desiring to separate from the other.”
“Two souls, alas! reside within my breast, And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.”
More by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Faust, Part Two
1832 · Allegory