Faust

Goethe's classic, enlivened by Randall Jarrell's fine translation and Peter Sís's dark, dreamy illustrations
Randall Jarrell's translation of Faust is one of his most important achievements. In 1957 he inscribed Goethe's motto on the first page of his notebook--"Ohne Hast aber ohne Rast" ("Without haste but without rest")--and from then until his death in 1965 he worked on the masterpiece of his "own favorite daemon, dear good great Goethe." His intent was to make the German poetry free, unrhymed poetry in English. He all but finished the job before he died, and the few lines that remained untouched--"Gretchen's Room"--were rendered into English by Robert Lowell.
This elegant new edition features numerous beautiful line drawings and jacket lettering by the renowned Czech artist Peter Sís, author of the award-winning books Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei and Tibet: Through the Red Box.

Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (1749 - 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of meters and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and color and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist.