have
been found for the young "Kraft-Genies" of the "Sturm und Drang
Periode" (Storm and Stress period) of German literature. Schreiber,
Soden, Klinger, Schink, followed them, the last-named with several
productions referring to the subject. In 1786, Goethe communicated to
the world, for the first time, a fragment of that astonishing dramatic
poem which has since been acknowledged, by the whole literary public,
as his masterpiece, and the most remarkable monument of his great
genius.[6] The whole first part of the tragedy, still under the name of
a fragment, was not published before 1808. Since then Germany may be
said to have been inundated by "Fausts" in every possible shape. Dramas
by Nic. Voigt, K. Schoene, Benkowitz,--operas by Adolph Baeurle, J. von
Voss, Bernard, (with music by Spohr,)--tales in verse and prose by
Kamarack, Seybold, Gerle, and L. Bechstein,--and besides these, the
productions of various anonymous writers, followed close upon each
other in the course of the next twenty years. Chamisso's tragedy of
"Faustus," "in one actus," in truth only a fragment, had already
appeared in the "Musenalmanach" of 1804.

To Goethe the legendary literature of his nation had been familiar from
his boyhood. Very early in life, and several years before the
publication of Maler Mueller's spirited drama, his mind was powerfully
impressed by the Faust-fable, and the greater part of the present
fragmentary poem was already written and ready for print when Mueller's
first sketch, under the title, "Situations in the Life of Dr. Faustus,"
appeared (1776). As the entire poetry of Goethe was more or less
_autobiographical_,--that is, as all his poetical productions reflect,
to a certain extent, his own personal sensations, trials, and
experiences,--he fused himself and his inner life into the mould of
Faustus, with all his craving for knowledge, his passionate love of
Nature, his unsatisfied longings and powerful temptations, adhering
closely in all external action to the popular story, though of course
in a symbolic spirit Goethe had, as he tells us himself, a happy
faculty of delivering himself by poetical production, as well of all
the partly imaginary, partly morbid cares and doubts which troubled his
mind, as of the real and acute sufferings which tormented him, for a
certain period, even to agony. Love, doubt, sorrow, passion,
remorse--all found an egress from his soul into a poem, a novel, a
parable, a dramatic character