Well the title basically asks the question itself. So did Goethe use some inspiration from a historical character or not?
Well the title basically asks the question itself. So did Goethe use some inspiration from a historical character or not?
I would rather say the play is based on the legendary character of the German doctor, alchemist and magician Dr. Johannes Georg Faust (1480-1540). The legend of the scholar who sold his soul to the devil is told for the first time in the Historia von D. Johann Fausten, which appears in a popular edition in 1587. But Goethe´s first source of inspiration was a puppet performance of The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (1604), by Christopher Marlowe, which he watched as a child.
Last edited by Danik 2016; 03-15-2016 at 09:08 AM.
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
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