Faust Part 1
by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, the greatest of German
men of letters, was born at Frank fort-on-the-Main, August 28,
1749. His father was a man of means and position, and he
personally supervised the early education of his son. The young
Goethe studied at the universities of Leipsic and Strasburg, and in
1772 entered upon the practise of law at Wetzlar. At the invitation
of Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, he went in 1775 to live in
Weimar, where he held a succession of political offices, becoming
the Duke's chief adviser. From 1786 to 1788 he traveled in Italy,
and from 179' to 1817 directed the ducal theater at Weimar. He
took part in the wars against France, 1792-3, and in the following
year began his friendship with Schiller, which lasted till the latter's
death in 1805. In 1806 he married Christiane Vulpius. From about
1794 he devoted himself chiefly to literature, and after a life of
extraordinary productiveness died at Weimar, March 22, 1832.
The most important of Goethe's works produced before he went to
Weimar were his tragedy "Gotz von Berlichingen" (1773), which
first brought him fame, and "The Sorrows of Young Werther," a
novel which obtained enormous popularity during the so-called
"Sturm und Drang" period. During the years at Weimar before he
knew Schiller he began "Wilhelm Meister," wrote the dramas,
"Iphigenie," "Egmont," and "Torquato Tasso," and his "Reinecke
Fuchs." To the period of his friendship with Schiller belong the
continuation of "Wilhelm Meister," the beautiful idyl of "Hermann
and Dorothea," and the "Roman Elegies." In the last period,