Faust

Description

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), the acclaimed German of all seasons, for his many interests, made Faust his lifework, and it took him a lifetime to craft. That alone is remarkable, since seldom do we think, act, or build on such a horizon, but the character was not entirely of Goethe’s making. Active in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and oft-maligned as a magician and wayward con artist, ostensibly, the reputation of the historical Faust quickly reached across the English Channel and made it into Christopher Marlowe’s play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, published in 1604. Goethe’s own is hardly upstanding, either, at least at first, but Faust remains a—or some say the—central Western folk tale.