Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Drama, European

Faust calls itself "A Tragedy" right enough, but it might just as well be described as a musical comedy -- it's ripe with comic passages, features many songs, and lacks a tragic ending. And Faust isn't a classic tragic figure, either. In fact, his characteristic yearning for experience and knowledge created a type for the romantic age still known as the Faustian hero. The villain of the piece -- Mephistopheles -- is one of the most likeable characters in the play. His yearnings draw him toward the heavens, yet he is also powerfully attracted to the physical world.

About the Author
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von: - "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy and color and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist."Brooks, Charles Timothy: - "Charles Timothy Brooks (1813 - 1883) was a noted American translator of German works, a poet, Transcendentalist and a Unitarian pastor. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, he graduated at Harvard in 1832, then studied theology and in 1835 began to preach in Nahant, Massachusetts. He served as a preacher in various New England towns until he became pastor of the Unitarian church in Newport, Rhode Island on June 4, 1837, where he remained until his death in 1883.In addition to his translations, he published theological writings, contributed to The Dial, a transcendentalist publication and wrote a biography of William Ellery Channing, another Unitarian minister in Newport, Rhode Island"