Goethe's masterpiece and perhaps the greatest work in German literature, Faust has made the legendary German alchemist one of the central myths of the Western world. Here indeed is a monumental Faust, an audacious man boldly wagering with the devil, Mephistopheles, that no magic, sensuality, experience, or knowledge can lead him to a moment he would wish to last forever. Here, in Faust, Part I, the tremendous versatility of Goethe's genius creates some of the most beautiful passages in literature. Here too we experience Goethe's characteristic humor, the excitement...

When this book was published in 1774, it inspired a mass cult of feelings (and reputedly a few suicides) and made its author one of the first literary celebrities. It is a story of a tormented young man whose fixation on an inaccessible woman culminates in tragedy may be read as a celebration of unfettered emotion or as a mercilessly accurate portrait of a man whose dedication to pure feeling turns him into a monster.