If Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is known for anything in the Anglophone world, it is for two things. Firstly, for the notion of "world literature", which he was the first to conceive of and advocate for. And secondly, for his enormously influential reinvention of the old German legend of Doctor Faustus.
In the years since its publication, Goethe's Faust has become a part of the very warp and weft of the Western world. Although nominally about an ancient and timeless tale – a disenchanted scholar who makes an ill-fated deal with the Devil – the text has in fact become a kind of "Ur-myth" for our own disenchanted times. It is an epochal story which holds up a mirror to the highest...
