Audiobook · read by volunteers
Faust I
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)
Read by Rosalind Wills, om123, John Fricker, Stewart Wills, George Deprez, PhD, John Burnett, Ana Simão, Kalynda, bish, Lucy Perry · 8 chapters · 4 h 18
About the book
Heinrich Faust has studied everything, and he is miserable. Philosophy, law, medicine and theology have left him with all the learning in the world and no sense that he has understood a single thing. In despair, he strikes a bargain with Mephistopheles, a devil of sharp wit and cynical charm, who promises him every experience a human being could want. So begins a journey through ambition, desire and doubt, with scenes of tavern roughness, tender love and grand imagination. Goethe's drama is one of the towering works of German literature, a poem about the restless human wish to know more and be more. This recording presents the first part in the verse translation of the American poet Bayard Taylor, which keeps the rhymes and rhythms of the original.
Introduction
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was the dominant figure of German literature, a poet, dramatist, novelist and scientist who worked on Faust for much of his life. The first part was published in 1808, and the second, much stranger and more allusive, appeared after his death. The story draws on an old German legend of a scholar who sells his soul, which had already inspired earlier plays and puppet shows.
What Goethe made of it was something quite new. His Faust is not simply a sinner; he is a seeker whose dissatisfaction is almost a virtue, and the drama asks whether striving itself can be redeemed. The text mixes many styles and moods, from philosophical monologue to bawdy comedy, from folk song to religious chorus. For generations of readers, it has been the classic expression of the Romantic sense of longing.
The translation heard here is by Bayard Taylor (1825-1878), an American poet and diplomat. Published in 1870, it is celebrated for keeping Goethe's metres and rhyme schemes, which is a difficult feat in English, and it remained a standard version for many years.
The recording has eight parts, runs for about four and a quarter hours, and is read by LibriVox volunteers. It is a good way to discover a monument of world literature in a version that has a voice of its own. Readers who wish to go further can follow with the second part, which takes the story into very different territory. As a first encounter with Goethe, this recording is a strong choice, since the translation keeps something of the music of the German lines.
Public domain
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe died in 1832: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text