This collection of essays on Goethe's Faust by prominent American and German scholars explores the work's significance in the context of recent historical, political, and scholarly developments and points to new directions for research. Topics include translation (into Indo-European languages), Faust's relationship to Mephistopheles, Faust and the feminine, sexual imagery, gothic allusions, musical representations of Faust, political and moral implications, Faust in the contemporary theatre, devils in German literature, Faust in the continuing debate over modern and postmodern, Goethe's stylistic use of complementary points of view, and his use of myth.

The book presents a series of interpretive readings of the Romische Elegien, Sonette, Chinesisch-deutsche Jarhes- und Tageszeiten, several trilogies, and the shorter cycles of 1821, taking into account the variety of literary devices Goethe employs to link poems together into a cycle. The author examines Goethe's role in the history of the lyric cycle and, in stressing structural design, urges a reevaluation of the cycle's emergence as a standard poetic device.