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Faust or Faustus (Latin for "auspicious" or "lucky") is the protagonist of a classic German legend who makes a pact with the Devil in exchange for knowledge. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works, such as those by Christopher Marlowe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Thomas Mann, Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Charles Gounod, Gustav Mahler and F. W. Murnau. The meaning of the word and name has been reinterpreted through the ages. "Faust" (and the adjective "Faustian") has taken on a connotation distinct from its original use, and is often used today to describe a person whose headstrong desire for self-fulfillment leads him or her in a diabolical direction.
The Faust of the early Faust-books—and of the ballads, dramas and puppet-plays which grew out of them—is irrevocably damned because he prefers human to divine knowledge; "he laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of Theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of Medicine."
Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular throughout Germany in the 16th century, often reducing Faust to a figure of vulgar fun.
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Quotations
All that comes into being is worthy of destruction.
(Mephistopheles)
And round we go, on crooked ways or straight, And well I know that ignorance is our fate, And this I hate.
(Faustus)
Dawn softens night, the deepest shades are fled!
If to the moment I shall ever say: Ah, linger on, thou art so fair! Then may you fetters on me lay, Then will I perish, then and there!
Part of that Power, not understood, which always wills the Bad, and always works the Good.
(Mephistopheles, Proj. Gutenberg version)
Simple folks never sense the devil's presence, not even when his hands are on their throats.
(Mephistopheles)
Encyclopedia
Faust or Faustus (Latin for "auspicious" or "lucky") is the protagonist of a classic German legend who makes a pact with the Devil in exchange for knowledge. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works, such as those by Christopher Marlowe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Thomas Mann, Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Charles Gounod, Gustav Mahler and F. W. Murnau. The meaning of the word and name has been reinterpreted through the ages. "Faust" (and the adjective "Faustian") has taken on a connotation distinct from its original use, and is often used today to describe a person whose headstrong desire for self-fulfillment leads him or her in a diabolical direction.
The Faust of the early Faust-books—and of the ballads, dramas and puppet-plays which grew out of them—is irrevocably damned because he prefers human to divine knowledge; "he laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of Theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of Medicine."
Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular throughout Germany in the 16th century, often reducing Faust to a figure of vulgar fun. The story was popularized in England by Christopher Marlowe, who gave it a classic treatment in his play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. But in Goethe's reworking of the story two centuries later, Faust becomes a dissatisfied intellectual who yearns for "more than earthly meat and drink."
Sources of the legend
The first printed source on the legend of Faust is a little chapbook bearing the title Historia von D. Johann Fausten, published in 1587. The book was re-edited and borrowed from throughout the 17th century. Other "Faustbooks" of that era include:
- Das Wagnerbuch (1593)
- Das Widmann'sche Faustbuch (1599)
- Dr. Fausts großer und gewaltiger Höllenzwang (Frankfurt 1609)
- Dr. Johannes Faust, Magia naturalis et innaturalis (Passau 1612)
- Das Pfitzer'sche Faustbuch (1674)
- Dr. Fausts großer und gewaltiger Meergeist (Amsterdam 1692)
- Das Wagnerbuch (1714)
- Faustbuch des Christlich Meynenden (1725)
The 1725 Faustbook was widely circulated, and also read by the young Goethe.
The origin of Faust's name and persona remains unclear, though it is widely assumed to be based on the figure of German Dr. Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–1540), a magician and alchemist probably from Knittlingen, Württemberg, who obtained a degree in divinity from Heidelberg University in 1509.
Some sources also connect the legendary Faust with Johann Fust (c. 1400–1466), Johann Gutenberg's business partner, or suggest that Fust is one of the multiple origins to the Faust story.
The character in Polish folklore named Pan Twardowski presents similarities with Faust, and this legend seems to have originated at roughly the same time. It is unclear whether the two tales have a common origin or influenced each other. Pan Twardowski may be based on a 16th-century German emigrant to the then-capital of Poland, Kraków, or possibly John Dee or Edward Kelley. According to the theologian Philip Melanchthon, the historic Johann Faust had studied in Kraków, as well.
Other related tales involving a pact between man and the devil include the legend of Theophilus of Adana, the 5th-century bishop; and the plays Mary of Nijmegen (Dutch, early 15th century, attributed to Anna Bijns) and Cenodoxus (German, early 17th century, by Jacob Bidermann).
Marlowe's Doctor Faustus
The early Faust chapbook, while already in circulation in Northern Germany, found its way to England, where in 1592 an English translation was published, The Historie of the Damnable Life, and Deserved Death of Doctor Iohn Faustus credited to a certain "P. F., Gent[leman]". It was this work that Christopher Marlowe used as the basis for his more ambitious play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (published c. 1604). Marlowe also borrowed from John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, on the exchanges between Pope Adrian and a rival pope. Another possible inspiration of Marlowe's version is John Dee (1527–1609), who practised forms of alchemy and science and developed Enochian magic.
Goethe's Faust
Goethe's Faust complicates the simple Christian moral of the original legend. A hybrid between a play and an extended poem, Goethe's two-part "closet drama" is epic in scope. It gathers together references from Christian, medieval, Roman, eastern and Hellenic poetry, philosophy and literature; ending in a Faust who is saved, carried aloft to heaven, as Mephistopheles looks on.
The legend of Faust was an obsession of Goethe's. The composition and refinement of his own version of the legend occupied him for over sixty years (though not continuously). The final version, published after his death, is recognized as a great work of German literature.
The story concerns the fate of Faust in his quest for the true essence of life ("was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält"). Frustrated with learning and the limits to his knowledge and power, he attracts the attention of the Devil (represented by Mephistopheles), who agrees to serve Faust until the moment he attains the zenith of human happiness, at which point Mephistopheles may take his soul. Faust is pleased with the deal, as he believes the moment will never come.
In the first part, Mephistopheles leads Faust through experiences that culminate in a lustful and destructive relationship with an innocent and nubile woman named Gretchen. Gretchen and her family are destroyed by Mephistopheles' deceptions and Faust's desires and actions. The story ends in tragedy as Gretchen is saved and Faust is left in shame.
The second part begins with the spirits of the earth forgiving Faust (and the rest of mankind) and progresses into rich allegorical poetry. Faust and his devil pass through the world of politics and the world of the classical gods, and meet with Helen of Troy (the personification of beauty). Finally, having succeeded in taming the very forces of war and nature Faust experiences a single moment of happiness.
The devil Mephistopheles, trying to grab Faust's soul when he dies, is frustrated as the Lord intervenes—recognizing the value of Faust's unending striving.
Influence
Goethe's Faust was the source material for at least two successful operas: Faust by Charles Gounod and Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito. It has inspired numerous additional major musical works, such as the "dramatic legend" The Damnation of Faust by Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann's Scenes from Goethe's Faust, the second part of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, and Franz Liszt's Faust Symphony. It is also mentioned and influences the novel "The Galactic Pot Healer" by Philip K. Dick.
Translations into English
In September 2006, Oxford University Press published an English, blank-verse translation of Goethe's work entitled Faustus, From the German of Goethe, now widely believed to be the production of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The translation, which was published anonymously in 1821, was previously attributed to George Soane. Despite this evidence, the status of the translation as the work of Coleridge is still disputed by some Coleridge authorities.
Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus
Thomas Mann's 1947 Doktor Faustus: Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde adapts the Faust legend to a 20th-century context, documenting the life of fictional composer Adrian Leverkühn as analog and embodiment of the early 20th-century history of Germany and of Europe. The talented Leverkühn, after contracting venereal disease from a brothel visit, forms a pact with a Mephistophelean character to grant him 24 years of brilliance and success as a composer. He produces works of increasing beauty to universal acclaim, even while physical illness begins to corrupt his body. In 1930, when presenting his final masterwork (The Lamentation of Dr Faust), he confesses the pact he had made: madness and syphillis now overcome him, and he suffers a slow and total collapse until his death in 1940. Leverkühn's spiritual, mental, and physical collapse and degradation are mapped on to the period in which Nazism rose in Germany, and Leverkühn's fate is shown as that of the soul of Germany.
See also
- Works based on Faust
- "Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris", a Latin phrase from Marlowe's play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
- Jonathan Moulton, the "Yankee Faust"
- Staufen, Germany, a town in the extreme south-west of Germany, claims to be where Faust died (ca. 1540); depictions appear on buildings etc. The only historical source for this tradition is a passage in the "Chronik der Grafen von Zimmern," which was written around 1565, twenty-five years after Faust's presumed date of death. These chronicles are generally considered reliable, and in the 16th century there were still family ties between the lords of Staufen and the counts of Zimmern in nearby Donaueschingen.
Sources
- Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, Edited and with and introduction by Sylvan Barnett (1969, Signet Classics)
- J. Scheible, Das Kloster (1840s).
External links
- E-texts:
- by Nikolai Berdyaev
- . Includes scene by scene commentary.
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