Faust
Written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Narrated by Samuel West, Auriol Smith, Derek Jacobi and
3/5
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About this audiobook
Faust is one of the pillars of Western literature. This classic drama presents the story of the scholar Faust, tempted into a contract with the Devil in return for a life of sensuality and power. Enjoyment rules until Faust’s emotions are stirred by a meeting with Gretchen, and the tragic outcome brings Part 1 to an end. Part 2, written much later in Goethe’s life, places his eponymous hero in a variety of unexpected circumstances, causing him to reflect on humanity and its attitudes to life and death.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Further reading & information about Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his complete works: The German Romanticism Museum in Frankfurt am Main: https://deutsches-romantik-museum.de/en/ The Frankfurter Goethe House in Frankfurt am Main: See Website above The Goethe National Museum in Weimar: https://www.klassik-stiftung.de/en/goethe-national-museum/
Reviews for Faust
911 ratings27 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Goethe is an amazing writer. Faust despairs and wants the death because he can not understand the truth.Dissatisfied with knowing all there is to know about everything, Faust sells his soul to the devil to learn, experience and understand more.It's classic, it's brilliant and full of wisdom and eternal truths.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The first half was excellent. The Gretchen tragedy was incredibly disturbing and dramatic. However, I was bored by the second halfs descent into what seemed like a series of unrelated scenes. By the end of the long digression into Greek myth, I was bored by the whole thing and no longer even cared what happened to Faust
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Obviously a classic, but the second scene between the archangles, God and Mephistofoles is pure music.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While I do not care for Goethe, I do like MacDonald's rhyming translation. It makes it much better to get through it! Did this for Part II so that the Kindle could read the rhyming to me with the text to speech feature.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No denying the beauty of the language in this, the iconic "sell your soul to the devil" story, but it seemed lightweight for it's subject. This modern verse translation of Part I is the only verse translation to be perfomed in the modern theater--which speaks highly of it's readability.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read this in January 1952 and said on Jan 20: Decided to read Faust despite the unfavorable atmosphere for reading presented by barracks life. It is almost stiflng in its beauty, and I wish I had a dead silent room to simply surrender my mind to it. The translation I am reading is Bayard Taylor's, which is in verse form, and quite literal--so that verbs are often at the end of sentences. As an example of clear beauty, romantic and untouched by sarcasm and cynicism I give you this from Scene 2 of the first Part: "Then would I see Eternal Evening gild The silent world beneath me glowing,On fire each mountain-peak, with peace and valley filled,The silver brook to golden rivers flowing..." I finished the first part on Jan 21, and said the second part is allergorical and I am afraid I shall get nothing from it, because conditons for studying are not good--or maybe it's just that I am not good at divining deeper, subtle meanings of things. I finished the book on Jan 23 and said: Finished Faust--got little out of the second Part.