Faust, Part One

This new translation, in rhymed verse, of Goethe's Faust—one of the greatest dramatic and poetic masterpieces of European literature—preserves the essence of Goethe's meaning without resorting either to an overly literal, archaic translation or to an overly modern idiom. It remains the nearest "equivalent" rendering of the German ever achieved.

The legend of Faust grew up in the sixteenth century, a time of transition between medieval and modern culture in Germany. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...