Faust
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
- A Faustian story concerns the fate of a protagonist, who in his quest for forbidden or advanced knowledge of material things, summons the Devil who offers to serve him for a period of time, at the cost of his soul. [Apr 2006]
Faust or Faustus is the protagonist of a popular German legend in which a mediæval scholar makes a pact with the Devil. The tale is the basis for many literary works by, for instance, Christopher Marlowe, Goethe, Klaus Mann, Thomas Mann, Charles Gounod, Hector Berlioz and Oscar Wilde.
"Faustus" was also an anti-Christian adversary in some of Saint Augustine's writings.
The name "Faust" has come to stand for a charlatan alchemist (some claim "astrologer and necromancer") whose pride and vanity lead to his doom. Similarly, the adjective "faustian" has come to denote acts or constellations involving human hubris which lead eventually to doom.
Contents |
Marlowe's Doctor Faustus
The early Faust chapbook, while already in circulation in Northern Germany, found its way to England, where it was translated into English by "P. F., Gent[leman]" in 1592 as The Historie of the Damnable Life, and Deserved Death of Doctor Iohn Faustus. It was this work that Christopher Marlowe used for his more ambitious play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (published c. 1604). Marlowe also borrowed from Acts and Monuments by John Foxe, 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 inverts and makes greatly more complex 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. Although by no means a constant pursuit, the composition and refinement of his own version of the legend occupied him for over sixty years. The final version, not completely published until 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), whom Faust makes a deal to serve until the moment that Faust attains the zenith of human happiness, at which point Mephistopheles may take his soul. Goethe's 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.
Goethe's Faust was the source material for at least two successful operas: Faust by Charles Gounod and Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito; and major works for soloists, chorus and orchestra such as the "dramatic legend" The Damnation of Faust by Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann's Scenes from Goethe's Faust and the second part of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8. In September 2006, Oxford University Press created a controversy by publishing a translation of Goethe's Faust allegedly by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge famously insisted during his lifetime that he "had never put pen to paper as a translator of Faust", but the volume's editor, UCLA Professor Emeritus Frederick Burwick, claims to have assembled over 800 verbal echoes between the translation and Coleridge's other poetry.
Also Franz Liszt's The Mephisto Waltz.
Other Fausts
See also:List of works which retell or strongly allude to the Faust tale
- The Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps based their 2006 season show concept on the Faust legend.
- A character in the video game series Guilty Gear is called Faust.
- The opening song of Sabbat's debut album, History of a Time to Come contains a story about Faustus' bargain with the devil.
- Faustus was also an anti-Christian adversary in some of Saint Augustine's writings. Some suggest that the Faust legend was based on this Faustus.
- Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus is about a composer who agrees to renounce love in exchange for artistic inspiration and a successful career. The story is strongly allegorical in its relationship to social and intellectual developments in Germany prior to World War II.
- The Amercian modernist Gertrude Stein wrote the libretto for an operatic version of the Faust legend, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (1938), in which Faustus struggles with modernist anxieties about the Enlightenment; he sells his soul for the knowledge of how to make "white electric light", with which he inadvertently abolishes the difference between day and night, eventually falling into a perpetual darkness. The text has been staged by many of the United States avant-garde theatre artists.
- David Mamet authored a play called Faustus for which he won an award from the Chicago Public Libraries in 2006. Mamet's Faustus ultimately repents and triumphs over hell.
- BET host Abiola Abrams' debut novel Dare (Simon & Schuster) is a chick lit retelling of Faust set in the hip hop world. Her scholar fighting pride, temptation, personal demons and ego is a woman. The novel also features a fictional town, Faustus, Ohio, where the story begins.
- Randy Newman wrote a modern musical version of the Faust story similar to Goethe's, in which God and the Devil vie for the soul of Henry Faust, a schizophrenic college student. See Randy Newman's Faust.
- The computer game Seven Games of the Soul is also known as Faust, and features an old black man named Marcellus Faust as its protagonist. The plot of the game has Faust investigating the lives of various members of a carnival and judging them while attempting to confound Mephisto, a version of Mephistopheles.
- In the manga and anime Shaman King, the character known as Faust VIII is a descendant of original Faust. He learns necromancy from his ancestor's writings, and uses it to control skeletons and his dead wife's body. He seeks to gain power to bring his wife back from the dead. He would later summon the power to Mephisto in the later half of the series.
- In Charles-Valentin Alkan's "Grande Sonate: Les Quatres Ages" Op. 33, an atypical sonata depicting the life of man, the second movement 30 Ans is given the title Quasi-Faust. The movement has been described as one of the most difficult and transcendental pieces for the piano repertoire. Often neglected due to its difficulties, the 30 Ans movement musically depicts the struggle between God and the Devil for the possession of Faust's soul upon his demise. The soloist is faced with a myriad of difficulties; being driven to play the Devil's parts "diaboliquement", often forced to play remote registers of the keyboard and must perform an eight part fugue which reintroduces the theme of "Le Seigneur" as it wages its final battle against the Devil.
- In Switchfoot's album, "Oh! Gravity", the track, "Faust, Midas and Myself" alludes to a Faust-like character in verse one. He appears as a diabolical, almost non-human entity tempting the composer to indulge in the 'pretty things' in life and have 'everything at once, everything you've seen, everything you'll need, everything you've ever had in fantasies'. As in the example of the tale of Faust however, to gain these things requires bargaining your life away to the Devil. The composer then reminds listeners of the painful subsequent reality of such a choice.
- Radiohead's album "In Rainbows" has underlying themes from the Faust legend, in particular the track "Faust Arp" and the final track of the album, "Videotape," in which Mephistopheles is mentioned in the opening lines: "When I'm at the pearly gates / This'll be on my videotape / My videotape / My videotape / When Mephistophilis is just beneath / And he's reaching up to grab me / This is one for the good days."
- Kamelot, a symphonic metal band, created two albums based on the story of Faust. The album "Epica" is the first half of the story and "The Black Halo" is the second half.
- Eric, the 9th novel in Terry Pratchett's popular Discworld book series, is a parody of Faust, using many of the same story elements but warping them in comedic ways (e.g. the concept of being able to live for ever is taken literally, so that the Faust character is sent to the beginning of time so that he can live For Ever, from beginning to end). Notably, each printed edition of the book features the title 'Faust' crossed out, with the word 'Eric' scribbled in as a replacement.
- In the video game Final Fantasy XI, Faust is a boss type creature in Ru'Aun Gardens.
- Writer Malcolm Azania uses the alias Minister Faust.
- In the video game Soul Calibur II, Faust is an alternate weapon for the character Nightmare.
See also
- List of works which retell or strongly allude to the Faust tale
- Phantom of the Paradise
- Brajendra Nath Seal
- Dr Faustus
- Brocken spectre
- The Devil and Tom Walker, 15th-18th century local New England legend with high similarities to Faust. Recorded in Washington Irving's 1842 "Tales of a Traveler" compilation.
- Jonathan Moulton, the "Yankee Faust"
- Pan Twardowski, the "Polish Faust", a German man comes to the then-capital of Poland: Cracow
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Rudolf Steiner
- The Brocken
- The Sorrows of Satan
- Walpurgis Night
- Damn Yankees
- Siobhan Jade Bagshaw Mitchell
- Brazen Head
- Staufen, Germany, a town in the extreme south-west of Germany, claims to be where Faust died; depictions appear on buildings etc.
- [Ghost Rider, movie]. In the movie, there is a brief scene where the hero of the movie, played by Nicholas Cage is seen referring to a book about Faust and learning to control his powers. The antagonist in the movie, who is supposedly the son of the Devil is called Mephistopheles, the name for the devil that Faust sold his soul to.
- Bård Eithun, ex-drummer for Black Metal band Emperor goes under the pseudonym "Faust".
- Ultraman Nexus, another entry in the Japanese long-running series Ultraman, features a "Black Ultraman" by the name of Faust. Faust was created by another dark Ulstra named Mephisto, another allusion to the Faust tale.
Faust (1994) - Ernst Gossner, Jan Svankmajer
See entry on Jan Švankmajer
