📘 Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

📜 Genre & Style

• A two-part dramatic poem, mixing tragedy, lyric, allegory, myth, masque, operatic and philosophical elements Encyclopedia Britannica.

• Contains almost every poetic metre—from terza rima to Knittelvers—used deliberately for varied tone and structure Reddit+3studysmarter.co.uk+3Encyclopedia Britannica+3.

🧠 Synopsis

Part I

• Dr. Faust, a scholar frustrated with limited human knowledge, contemplates suicide, but is stopped by the sound of Easter hymns. He walks with his assistant Wagner and encounters a black poodle that transforms into Mephistopheles, the devil’s representative.

• Mephistopheles offers Faust a pact, serving him on earth in exchange for his soul if Faust ever wishes to stay in the moment forever. Faust signs the pact in his own blood litcharts.com+4supersummary.com+4Rakuten Kobo+4.

• Faust seduces Gretchen (Margarete), leading to her tragic downfall: the death of her mother, the birth and drowning of her child, the accusation of murder, and her imprisonment. In the end, Gretchen is redeemed by grace while Faust continues his journey — the saga continues in Part II supersummary.comWikipedia.

Part II

• Explores symbolic and mythic scenes: Faust’s enchantment with Helen of Troy, the birth of their son Euphorion (a symbol of poetry), his tragic death, and Faust’s grand quest to reclaim land from the sea.

• The drama culminates in Faust’s spiritual redemption, achieved through eternal striving and spiritual guidance, including the influence of the Eternal Feminine litcharts.comWikipedia+1The Guardian+1.

🌍 Themes & Significance

• Explores the nature of human desire, knowledge, sin, redemption, and the limits of earthly ambition.

• Introduces the term “Faustian bargain”, a metaphor for sacrificing spiritual values for power, pleasure, or wisdom Wikipedia.

• One of Germany’s most profound literary contributions—rich in philosophy, theology, myth, classical and modern cultural references Encyclopedia BritannicaReddit.

✍️ Literary Development

• Goethe refined Faust over decades, blending high Romanticism with Enlightenment reasoning and classical myth-making RedditEncyclopedia Britannica.

📖 At a Glance