Description: Goethe's Faust is a radical adaptation of the old German story of the wandering conjuror who sells his soul to a devil called Mephistopheles for magical powers and secret knowledge. Over a period of sixty years Goethe turned it into one of the greatest dramatic and poetic masterpieces of European literature. Faust Part One was published in 1808. Its beginnings lay in the 'Storm and Stress' period of Goethe's student days, when he introduced into the original myth the figure of Gretchen; Faust's seduction of her and its tragic consequences still form the heart of the profoundly moving dramatic action. The changes in emphasis undergone by Part One over the thirty years before its completion reflect Goethe's own unique poetic development.

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