At the time of Faust's 1808 publication, Goethe was already famous as one of the most accomplished men of his era. A statesman as well as an artist and the writer of scientific essays, poetry, and criticism, the German author sealed his immortality with this ambitious drama and its embodiment of eighteenth-century humanism. Goethe based his protagonist on figures of history and legend, and of all the many Faustian legends, his remains the best known.