How Faust, First Part drew on Hamlet
A documented line of influence: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe demonstrably engaged William Shakespeare’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Hamlet
William Shakespeare · c. 1600
ShakespeareThe influenced
Faust, First Part
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1808
RomanticismRelevance
7/10
On Faust, First Part’s page
- Faust is steeped in Shakespeare — Goethe called him one of the three writers who made him, and Hamlet is the play he reaches for
- Gretchen's ruin is shaped on Ophelia's: the cast-off woman, the descent into madness, the brother who dies trying to avenge her
- Read Hamlet first and the echoes ring clear — Ophelia's mad song in Mephistopheles' mouth, the graveyard turned to Faust's churchyard
On Hamlet’s page
- Goethe named Shakespeare one of the three formative influences of his life, and Faust wears the debt openly
- Gretchen is Goethe's Ophelia — the woman the hero takes up and ruins, undone into madness, her brother killed avenging her
- The borrowing is direct down to the staging: Mephistopheles sings one of Ophelia's mad songs, and Faust's churchyard scene plays as a dark echo of Hamlet's graveyard