Faust, Goethe (Kaufmann)

The best translation of Faust available, this volume provides the original German text and its English counterpart on facing pages. Walter Kaufmann’s translation conveys the poetic beauty and rhythm as well as the complex depth of Goethe’s language. Includes Part One and selections from Part Two. Before he was thirty, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had proven himself a master of the novel, drama, and lyric poetry. But even more impressive than his versatility was his unwillingness ever to settle into a single style or approach; whenever he used a literary form, he made it something new.Born in 1749 to a well-to-do family in Frankfurt, he was sent to Strasbourg to earn a law degree. There, he met the poet-philosopher Herder, discovered Shakespeare, and began to write poetry. His play Götz von Berlichingen (1773) made him famous throughout Germany. He was invited to the court of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, where he quickly became a cabinet minister. In 1774 his novel of Romantic melancholy, The