What is Faust's creative background?

Faust, also known as Faust and Dr Faust, is a figure in German medieval folklore.

It is said that Faust wandered around pretending to be a scholar, magician, astrologer and fortune teller, boasting that he was proficient in alchemy. He once sold his soul to the devil for knowledge and power, and lived in poverty in his later years.

In the German folk story The Life of Dr. Faust (1587), the alliance between Faust and the devil Mephistopheles was completely recorded for the first time. However, the image of Faust was not known to the world until the publication of the poetic drama Faust by the German poet Goethe. It is said that the author began to write this poetic drama in 1770, and finally finished it in 1832, which lasted for 62 years. Goethe died shortly after finishing Faust, so this work can be regarded as Goethe's last masterpiece, in fact, it is also Goethe's most famous and important work.

Marx, Higgs, Lenin and others all spoke highly of this masterpiece. Therefore, this work, together with Homer's epic, Dante's Divine Comedy and Shakespeare's Hamlet, is called the four classic works of European literature.