Reading Order
Faust Reading Order
Faust (Part One 1808, Part Two 1832) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is the greatest work in the German literary tradition — the philosopher Heinrich Faust, who has mastered every branch of human knowledge and found it inadequate, makes a wager with Mephistopheles: the Devil will serve him in this world if Faust will serve the Devil in the next. Mephistopheles believes he can make Faust surrender to a moment of pure satisfaction — 'If to the moment I should say, Abide, you are so fair' — and Faust believes no such moment will come while he lives. Part One, which is the part most often performed, tells the story of Faust, Gretchen, and her destruction; Part Two (rarely staged, and completing its final revisions on the day Goethe died) is a vast, strange, allegorical journey through classical antiquity, the medieval court of the Emperor, the reunion with Helen of Troy, and Faust's final blinded labor. Faust is the quintessential German Bildungsroman — the story of striving, the Faustian bargain, the impossibility of satisfaction — and it has haunted Western literature since its publication.
Where to start
Faust, Part One (1808) — the complete text in the David Luke translation (Oxford World's Classics) or the Stuart Atkins translation. Part Two requires more preparation; read Part One first and consider the Barker Fairley prose translation for context.
Complete Faust Book List
- 1Buy
Faust: Part One
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe·1808·The complete first part — Faust, Mephistopheles, Gretchen, and the Walpurgisnacht. The most performed part of Goethe's masterwork; the David Luke translation (Oxford) is the best English verse translation - 2Buy
Faust: Part Two
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe·1832·The complete second part — the allegorical journey through antiquity and the final salvation. Rarely staged; completed in the year of Goethe's death; the Stuart Atkins translation preserves more of the poem's strangeness - 3Buy
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe·1774·Goethe's companion epistolary novel — Werther's fatal passion for Lotte. The companion in the Sturm und Drang mode that preceded Faust: where Werther dies of his passion, Faust strives beyond it - 4Buy
Doctor Faustus
Thomas Mann·1947·Mann's companion novel — the composer Adrian Leverkühn's pact with the Devil. The companion twentieth-century investigation of the same Faustian pact: Mann uses the Faust myth to investigate the rise of German fascism and the relationship between artistic genius and moral catastrophe - 5Buy
The Magic Mountain
Thomas Mann·1924·The companion investigation of the German Bildungsroman — Hans Castorp at the sanatorium. The companion investigation of the Faustian theme of striving: Hans Castorp's education on the mountain is the companion to Faust's education through Mephistopheles - 6Buy
The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov·1967·The companion investigation of the same Faustian material — the Devil visiting Soviet Moscow. The companion twentieth-century investigation of the Mephistophelian principle: the destructive force that is also a clarifying one, that reveals the truth by destroying the pretense - 7Buy
Don Giovanni
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart·1787·Mozart and da Ponte's companion investigation of the figure who strives without limit and refuses to repent. Don Giovanni and Faust are companion investigations of the same Romantic figure: the man who refuses the limits of the human condition and is destroyed by that refusal - 8Buy
Paradise Lost
John Milton·1667·Milton's companion investigation of the same theological material — Satan's rebellion and the Fall. The companion epic as the theological predecessor: Mephistopheles is Goethe's Satan, but where Milton's Satan is tragic, Goethe's Mephistopheles is ironic; and where Milton's epic ends in exile, Goethe's ends in salvation
Faust — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Faustian bargain?
The Faustian bargain is the deal that Faust makes with Mephistopheles in Goethe's play: the Devil will serve Faust in this world (granting him any experience, any knowledge, any pleasure he desires) if Faust will serve the Devil in the next (i.e., surrender his soul). But Faust's version of the bargain has a specific condition: Mephistopheles wins only if he can make Faust surrender to a moment of pure satisfaction — 'If to the moment I should say, Abide, you are so fair.' Faust bets that no such moment will come as long as he continues to strive. The phrase 'Faustian bargain' now describes any deal in which short-term gain is traded for long-term catastrophic loss — a deal with the devil, literally or figuratively.
Which Faust translation is best?
The best English translations of Faust depend on what you want. For Part One in verse, David Luke's Oxford World's Classics translation is widely regarded as the finest — it captures both the verbal wit and the lyrical beauty. For a complete verse translation of both parts, Stuart Atkins's translation for the Suhrkamp/Insel series is comprehensive and reliable. Randall Jarrell's translation of Part One is celebrated for its poetic quality. Martin Greenberg's two-volume translation of the complete Faust is another strong option. For those who want a prose translation that prioritizes clarity over verse form, Barker Fairley's translation is useful.
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