It is uncertain whether the manuscript thus
discovered exactly corresponds to the manuscript which Goethe took
with him to Weimar, but the probability is that their contents are
virtually identical.
[Footnote 240: Fraeulein Luise von Goechhausen.]
As in the case of _Der Ewige Jude_, _Prometheus_, and other fragments
of the Frankfort period, the successive scenes of the _Urfaust_ were
thrown off at different times on the inspiration of the moment, and
the exact date of their production can only be a matter of conjecture.
What we do know is that the figure of the legendary Faust had early
attracted his attention. As a boy he had read at least one of the
chap-books which recorded the wondrous history of the scholar who had
sold himself to the devil, and, as a common spectacle in Germany, he
must have seen the puppet-show in which the story of Faust was
dramatised for the people. According to his own statement, it was in
1769 that the conception of a poem, based on the Faust legend, first
suggested itself to him, but it was during the years 1774 and 1775
that most of the scenes of the _Urfaust_ were written. Both by himself
and others there are references during these years to his work on
_Faust_, and as late as the middle of September, 1775, he tells the
Countess Stolberg that, while at Offenbach with Lili, he had composed
another scene.
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