About the work
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's first version of the Faust material, composed between 1772 and 1775, remained unpublished during Goethe's lifetime and was rediscovered in 1887 by literary historian Erich Schmidt in a copy made by court lady Luise von Göchhausen. The Urfaust concentrates on the Gretchen tragedy and Faust's opening monologues; the philosophical expansions, the Prologue in Heaven, and the Devil's pact scene are absent — the play is raw, direct, and dramatically denser than the later version.
Plot
The aging scholar Faust, despairing of the uselessness of academic knowledge, meets the young Gretchen and seduces her. Mephistopheles leads him to Auerbach's Cellar and the Witch's Kitchen. Gretchen becomes pregnant; her mother and her brother Valentin die; her child is born and drowned. Gretchen ends in prison, insane with guilt. Faust offers her escape — she refuses and surrenders to God's judgment. The play ends with Mephistopheles's cry She is judged!
Cultural significance
The Urfaust is one of the most important documents of the Sturm und Drang movement and displays Goethe's earliest dramatic genius in condensed form. Since its rediscovery, directors have regarded it as the purer, unfiltered version of the tragedy. Productions by Claus Peymann at Schauspielhaus Bochum in 1977 and Frank Castorf at the Volksbühne Berlin have established the Urfaust as an independent work exceeding the later Faust I in emotional immediacy.