Faust, Part One in the context of Play (theatre)

Faust (/faʊst/ FOWST, German: [faʊst] ) is a tragic play in two parts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, usually known in English as Faust, Part One and Faust, Part Two. Nearly all of Part One and the majority of Part Two are written in rhymed verse. Although rarely staged in its entirety, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages. Faust is considered by many to be Goethe's magnum opus and the greatest work of German literature.

The earliest forms of the work, known as the Urfaust [de], were developed between 1772 and 1775; however, the details of that development are not entirely clear. Urfaust has twenty-two scenes, one in prose, two largely prose and the remaining 1,441 lines in rhymed verse. The manuscript is lost, but a copy was discovered in 1886.

Auerbachs Keller (German pronunciation: [ˌaʊɐbaχs ˈkɛlɐ], Auerbach's Cellar in English) is the second oldest restaurant in Leipzig, Germany. Already one of the city's most important wine bars by the 16th century, it owes its worldwide reputation to Goethe's play Faust as the first place Mephistopheles takes Faust on their travels.

"Gretchen am Spinnrade" (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel), Op. 2, D 118, is a Lied composed by Franz Schubert using the text from Part One, scene 15 of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust. With "Gretchen am Spinnrade" and some 600 other songs for voice and piano, Schubert contributed transformatively to the genre of Lied. "Gretchen am Spinnrade" was composed for soprano voice but has been transposed to accommodate other voice types. Schubert composed "Gretchen am Spinnrade" on 19 October 1814, three months before his eighteenth birthday.