Even with my knuckledragging German I can appreciate that Goethe knows how to rhyme. And there's a fair few laughs here, like when Mephisto advises Faust to study medicine so he can get close to naked chicks. And the farting witches. But neither the plot nor the characters have the complexity, the subtlety, the verisimilitude of Shakespeare. It's basically didatic and, especially in Part II (of which translator Walter Kaufman mercifully spares us the majority) descends into daft ellegory. Still, I at least had fun with this unlike the dreadful Young Werther.