How did Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Faust fragment influence Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s unfinished Faust drama, a fragment of which was published in 1759, significantly influenced Johann Wolfgang von Goethe by providing a new, enlightened perspective on the legendary figure.1

While traditional versions of the Faust legend focused on the hero’s inevitable damnation for his pact with the devil, Lessing—an enlightened rationalist—reimagined Faust as a noble seeker of knowledge. In his fragment, Lessing sketched a "Faust without evil," whose relentless spirit of inquiry is ultimately justified before God.21

This approach of reconciling the protagonist with the divine was subsequently adopted by Goethe, who became the most prominent chronicler of the Faust myth. By framing Faust’s pursuit of knowledge as a noble endeavor rather than a purely diabolical act, Lessing paved the way for Goethe to develop his own profound and complex version of the story, which similarly concludes with the character's purification and redemption.21