Goethe's Faust

I just read this. This is oft-regarded as a standard of sorts in the land and lore of playwrights. In it you will explore recognisable mythology, some more obscure mythology, and then realize that what you are reading has become veritable mythology itself.

So I'm always putting up dogmatic postings anymore, oh well. I find that things like that excite me enough to put pen to line, and this is what you get. Faust is me. I am a do-gooding fool who is bumbling through life trying to find fleeting joy. I find love, only to screw it all up. For all of my good works there are double the follies; not because I am oafish, but because that is simply life. And my simple life is lead about by a powerful Mephistopheles who grants my desires, only to yield a more insatiable Faust.

Hampered by death, my so-called goodness is so subjective that I can't tell that I'm doing more ill than good, I die. Mephisto lays claim on my soul, my foolish and proud soul, only to be disappointed. I am being taken away to heaven, even after all of my meddlesome and brainless deeds of dumb and bad. But why? Why am I not damned?

Goethe got it right. This story is the history of every man who ever deserved damnation but will not be damned. What was the revelation? What is the reason that I don't end up in hell? In sum, Goethe gives us his accurate appraisal: