Faust, Part I - Softcover

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von; Constantine, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140449019 ISBN 13: 9780140449013

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2005

Synopsis

Goethe's Faust reworks the late-medieval myth of Dr Faust, a brilliant scholar so disillusioned he resolves to make a contract or wager with the devil, Mephistopheles. The devil will do all he asks on Earth and seek to grant him a moment in life so glorious that he will wish it to last for ever. But if Faust does bid the moment stay, he falls to Mephisto and must serve him after death. In this first part of Goethe's great work the embittered thinker and Mephistopheles enter into their agreement, and soon Faust is living a life beyond his study and - in rejuvenated form - winning the love of the charming and beautiful Gretchen. But in this compelling tragedy of arrogance, unfulfilled desire and self-delusion, Faust, served by the devil, heads inexorably towards destruction.

About this title

Review:

" One of those great works of literature into which a writer has been able to combine his ranging preoccupations and understanding as he worked."
-A. S. Byatt, from the Preface

About the Author:

David Constantine is a poet, novelist, biographer, playwright and translator. He has taught German at the Universities of Durham, Oxford and Rutgers, New Jersey and is currently Visiting Professor in the School of English at the University of Liverpool. He lives in Oxford and (with his wife the translator Helen Constantine) is joint editor of Modern Poetry in Translation. His book of poetry Something for the Ghosts was short listed for the 2002 Whitbread Prize and his translation of Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s Lighter than Air, won the Corneliu Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation in 2003.

David Constantine is a poet, novelist, biographer, playwright and translator. He has taught German at the Universities of Durham, Oxford and Rutgers, New Jersey and is currently Visiting Professor in the School of English at the University of Liverpool. He lives in Oxford and (with his wife the translator Helen Constantine) is joint editor of Modern Poetry in Translation. His book of poetry Something for the Ghosts was short listed for the 2002 Whitbread Prize and his translation of Hans Magnus Enzensberger's Lighter than Air, won the Corneliu Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation in 2003.

A S Byatt, novelist, short story writer, and critic, is the author of many books including Possession, winner of the 1990 Booker Prize; Babel Tower; The Biographer's Tale; and The Whistling Woman. She was appointed DBE in 1999.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0140449019
• ISBN 13: 9780140449013
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240