German writer who wrote Faust, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Elective Affinities, and the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister — also conducting botanical and color theory research — considered the greatest figure of German literature and the last universal genius of Western civilization.
Created the canonical Western myth of the bargain with darkness in the service of knowledge — Faust's pact with Mephistopheles for infinite experience and knowledge, and his final salvation despite his crimes through the Eternal Feminine, provides the West's most comprehensive exploration of the relationship between striving, transgression, and redemption.
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