Faust

A Tragedy, Parts One and Two

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von, Greenberg Martin

A classic of world literature, Goethe's "Faust" is a philosophical and poetic drama full of satire, irony, humour and tragedy. Martin Greenberg re-creates not only the text's varied metre and rhyme but also its diverse tones and styles – dramatic and lyrical, reflective and farcical, pathetic and coarse, colloquial and soaring. His rendition of Faust is the first faithful, readable and elegantly written translation of Goethe's masterpiece available in English. At last, the Greenberg "Faust" is available in a single volume, together with a thoroughly updated translation, preface and notes.

About the Author

Poet and translator Martin Greenberg is best known for his translations of Goethe and von Kleist. He won a citation in 1989 from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the 1989 Harold Morton Landon Verse Translation Award from the American Academy of Poets.

Reviews

"Greenberg has accomplished a magnificent literary feat. He has taken a great German work, until now all but inaccessible to English readers, and made it into a sparkling English poem, full of verve and wit. Greenberg's translation lives; it is done in a modern idiom but with respect for the original text; 'I found it a joy to read'" – Irving Howe

"Martin Greenberg's version catches the uncanny strangeness of Goethe's greatest work, and should help mediate it for American readers" – Harold Bloom

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