fterwards published in fragmentary form. Such is
the case with _Prometheus_, a splendid fragment, in which we get a
glimpse of the Titan battling, as the friend of man, against the
ever-living gods. Of the works completed and published at this time,
aside from _Goetz_ and _Werther_, the most notable were _Clavigo_ and
_Stella_, prose tragedies in which a fickle lover meets with condign
punishment. Another prose tragedy, _Egmont_, with its hero conceived
as a "demonic" nature borne on to his doom by his own buoyancy of
spirit, was nearly finished. Most important of all, a considerable
portion of _Faust_, which was to be its author's great life-work, was
"stormed out" during these early years at Frankfurt.

The legendary Faust is presented as a bad man who sells his soul to
the devil for twenty-four years of power and pleasure, gets what he
bargained for, and in the end goes to perdition. Young Goethe
conceived his hero differently: not as a bad man on the way to hell,
and not--at first--as a good man on the way to heaven. He thought of
him rather as a towering personality passionately athirst for
transcendental knowledge and universal experience; as a man whose
nature contained the very largest possibilities both for good and for
evil. It is probable that, when he began to write, Goethe did not
intend to anticipate the judgment of God upon Faust's career. The
essence of his dramatic plan was to carry his hero through a lifetime
of varied experience, letting him sin and suffer grandly, and at last
to give him something to do which would seem worth having lived for.
After the going down of the curtain, in all probability, he was to be
left in the hands of the Eternal Pardoner. Later in life, as we shall
see, Goethe decided not only to save his hero, but to make his
salvation a part of the dramatic action.

The close of the year 1775 brought a momentous change in Goethe's life
and prospects. On the invitation of the young duke Karl August, who
had met him and taken a liking to him, he went to visit the Weimar
court, not expecting to stay more than a few weeks. But the duke was
so pleased with his gifted and now famous guest that he presently
decided to keep him in Weimar, if possible, by making him a member of
the Council of State. Goethe was the more willing to remain, since he
detested his law practise, and his income from authorship was
pitifully small. Moreover, he saw in the boyish, impulsive,
sport-loving prince a s