Faust

Faust knows all the disciplines and is sick of every one of them. The devil, Mephistopheles, offers a deal: he will serve Faust and show him everything, and the day Faust ever says to a passing moment stay, you are so beautiful, his soul is forfeit. Part One is the famous, readable tragedy of Faust and Gretchen. Part Two is stranger and more sprawling, a sweep through myth and politics that Goethe worked on for most of his life. Read it in the Walter Kaufmann translation, which keeps the verse and rhythm and prints the German alongside. This is a play in verse, written to be wrestled with more than performed.