The Faust Legend

Explores the influence of the Faust legend on drama and film from the sixteenth century to the contemporary era.

The Faustus myth, before being identified as a myth, was the folktale of a man named Faustus who lived in Germany. Underneath the popularity of this myth lies the basic human instinct to trespass the limits of traditional knowledge in pursuit of self-definition, authentic knowledge and power. This search and transgression also involve the desire to exercise the right of making free authentic choices. Faustus represents universal issues that are relevant for all human beings, which explains the reason why he has acquired mythic stature. Indeed, a most persistent myth has evolved, the appeal of which has led one writer after the other to reshape it. After his story became popular, he reappeared, even in contemporary culture, in different art forms such as literature, both high-brow and popular, including comics, the ballet and the opera. The real historical Faustus came onto the scene as a scholar and persistently reappeared in literature assuming different identities which, however, shared basically the same qualities. This book demonstrates and offers different perspectives to versions of the Faustus myth in literature: Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Goethe’s Faust and John Fowles’ The Magus. The Faustus Myth is a cycle which starts and ends in tragic circumstances in Christopher Marlowe’s Renaissance Faustus, in salvation in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, and in meaninglessness, ambiguous collapses in John Fowles’ existentialist Nicholas Urfe.

A 1994 scholarly edition of a major Renaissance text linked with Marlowe's Dr Faustus.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust'" by H. B. Cotterill. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Dr. Faustus is a great Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlow originally published in 1600. The story is based on an earlier anonymous classic German legend involving worldly ambition, black magic and surrender to the devil. It remains one of the most famous plays of the English Renaissance. Dr. John Faustus, a brilliant, well-respected German doctor grows dissatisfied with the limits of human knowledge - logic, medicine, law, and religion, and decides that he has learned all that can be learned by conventional means. What is left for him, he thinks, but magic. His friends instruct him in the black arts, and he begins his new career as a magician by summoning up Mephastophilis, a devil. Despite Mephastophilis’s warnings about the horrors of hell, Faustus tells the devil to return to his master, Lucifer, with an offer of Faustus’s soul in exchange for twenty-four years of service from Mephastophilis. On the final night before the expiration of the twenty-four years, Faustus is overcome by fear and remorse. He begs for mercy, but it is too late. At midnight, a host of devils appears and carries his soul off to hell. Marlowe’s dramatic interpretation of the Faust legend is a theatrical masterpiece. With immense poetic skill, and psychological insight that greatly influenced the works of William Shakespeare and other dramatists, Dr. Faustus combines soaring poetry, psychological depth, and grand stage spectacle. Marlowe created powerful scenes that invest the work with tragic dignity, among them the doomed man’s calling upon Christ to save him and his ultimate rejection of salvation for the embrace of Helen of Troy.

A comprehensive exploration of Dr. Faust, the man who sold his soul to the devil, and those who lived to tell his tale. Volume I includes: New insights into the life and times of the historical Dr. Faustus, the notorious occultist and charlatan who reputedly declared the devil was his brother-in-law. A detailed study of the first Faust books and the popular Faustian folk tales. Original discussions on Christopher Marlowes famous drama and his atheistic rendition of the Faustian myth, including a unique and controversial analysis of the A and B texts. The days of the Faust puppet plays. Gotthold Ephraim Lessings unfinished Faust drama. Volume II features: A unique, in-depth account of Johann Wolfgang von Goethes masterpiece, Faust, Parts One and Two. An examination of the early sketches of his classic drama. Includes detailed explanations of Goethes hidden symbolism in the text, his interest in history and science, the occult, alchemy, Freemasonry and his warnings to future generations.

The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus, is an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about the title character Faust, that was first performed sometime between 1588 and Marlowe's death in 1593. Two different versions of the play were published in the Jacobean era, several years later.The powerful effect of early productions of the play is indicated by the legends that quickly accrued around them-that actual devils once appeared on the stage during a performance, "to the great amazement of both the actors and spectators", a sight that was said to have driven some spectators mad.

Frontcover -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations Used in the Notes -- Introduction. Rhapsody and Rebuke: Goethe's Faust in Music -- Part I Goethe's Faust: Content and Context -- 1 The Redress of Goethe's Faust in Music History -- 2 Wagering on Modernity: Goethe's Eighteenth-Century Faust -- 3 Reflectivity, Music and the Modern Condition: Thoughts on Goethe's Faust -- 4 Music and Metaphorical Thinking in Goethe's Faust: The Example of Harmony -- 5 Faust: The Instrumentalisation of an Icon -- Part II Legacies: Goethe's Faust in the Nineteenth Century -- 6 Faust's Schubert: Schubert's Faust -- 7 The Musical Novel as Master-genre: Schumann's Szenen aus Goethes Faust -- 8 The Psychology of Schumann's Faust: Developing the Human Soul -- 9 A Life with Goethe: Wagner's Engagement with Faust in Music and in Words -- 10 Wagner's Ninth: Reading Beethoven with Faust -- 11 Linking Christian and Faustian Utopias: Mahler's Setting of the Schlußszene in his Eighth Symphony -- Part III Topographies: Stagings and Critical Reception -- 12 Operatic Translation and Adaptation: Gounod's Faust, with a Tribute to Ken Russell -- 13 'Adapters, Falsifiers and Profiteers': Staging La Damnation de Faust in Monte Carlo and Paris, 1893-1903 -- 14 Faust in the Trenches: Busoni's Doktor Faust -- Part IV New Directions: Recent Productions and Appropriations -- 15 As Goethe Intended? Max Reinhardt's Faust Productions and the Aesthetics of Incidental Music in the Early Twentieth Century -- 16 Music and the Rebirth of Faust in the GDR -- 17 Music, Text and Stage: Peter Stein's Production of Goethe's Faust -- 18 'Devilishly good': Rudolf Volz's Rock Opera Faust and 'Event Culture' -- Select Bibligraphy -- Index