admiration for antique beauty which characterized the humanist
movement of the time. In this aspect the Faust legend is an
expression of early popular Protestantism, and of its antagonism to
the scientific and classical tendencies of the Renaissance.

While a succession of Faust books were appearing in Germany, the
original life was translated into English and dramatized by
Marlowe. English players brought Marlowe's work back to
Germany, where it was copied by German actors, degenerated into
spectacular farce, and finally into a puppet show. Through this
puppet show Goethe made acquaintance with the legend.

By the time that Goethe was twenty, the Faust legend had
fascinated his imagination; for three years before he went to
Weimar he had been working on scattered scenes and bits of
dialogue; and though he suspended actual composition on it during
three distinct periods, it was always to resume, and he closed his
labors upon it only with his life. Thus the period of time between
his first experiments and the final touches is more than sixty years.
During this period the plans for the structure and the signification
of the work inevitably underwent profound modifications, and
these have naturally affected the unity of the result; but, on the
other hand, this long companionship and persistent recurrence to
the task from youth to old age have made it in a unique way the
record of Goethe's personality in all its richness and diversity.

The drama was given to the public first as a fragment in 1790; then
the completed First Part appeared in 1808; and finally the Second
Part was published in 1833, the year after the author's death.
Writing in "Dichtung und Wahrheit" of the period about 1770,