Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–1540). Faust is bored and depressed with his life as a scholar. After an attempt to take his own life, he calls on the Devil for further knowledge and magic powers with which to indulge all the pleasure and knowledge of the world. In response, the Devil’s representative, Mephistopheles, appears. He makes a bargain with Faust: Mephistopheles will serve Faust with his magic powers for a set number of years, but at the end of the term, the Devil will claim Faust’s soul, and Faust will be eternally enslaved. During the term of the bargain, Faust makes use of Mephistopheles in various ways. In Goethe’s drama, and many subsequent versions of the story, Mephistopheles helps Faust seduce a beautiful and innocent girl, usually named Gretchen, whose life is ultimately destroyed when she gives birth to Faust’s bastard son. Realizing this unholy act, she drowns the child and is held for murder. However, Gretchen’s innocence saves her in the end, and she enters Heaven after execution. In Goethe’s rendition, Faust is saved by God via his constant striving in combination with Gretchen’s pleadings with God in the form of the eternal feminine. However, in the early tales, Faust is irrevocably corrupted and believes his sins cannot be forgiven; when the term ends, the Devil carries him off to Hell.
Creators/Key Contributors Unknown, Christopher Marlowe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Ivan Turgenev, F.W. Murnau, Washington Irving
First Appearance German folklore
First Publisher ○
Appearance List Novels, Songs, Plays, Operas, Ballet: Historia von D. Johann Fausten (1587), The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (play) by Christopher Marlowe (ca. 1594), Faust (play) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1790, fragmentary form, 1808 part one, 1832 part two), Aus Goethes Faust (song) by Ludwig van Beethoven (1809), Gretchen am Spinnrade (song) by Franz Schubert (1814), Faust (opera) by Louis Spohr (1816), La damnation de Faust (opera) by Hector Berlioz (1846), Faust (ballet) libretto by Jules Perrot music by Giacomo Panizza, Michael Andrew Costa and Niccolò Bajetti (1848), Faust and Marguerite (opera) by Meyer Lutz (1855), Faust (opera) by Charles Gounod (1859), Mefistofele (opera) by Arrigo Boito (1868), Gretchen (play) by W. S. Gilbert, (1879), Faust up to Date (burlesque) by Meyer Lutz (1888), The Devil and Tom Walker (1824) by Washington Irving, Faust (1855) novella by Ivan Turgenev, The Cobbler and the Devil (1863) by August Šenoa, Fausto (1866) by Estanislao del Campo, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant (1954) by Douglass Wallop adapts the Faust theme to baseball, The Recognitions (1955) by William Gaddis. Films: Faust and Marguerite, a short copyrighted by Edison Manufacturing Co. in 1900, Faust (1921, now lost), Faust (1922, British), Faust (1926, F.W. Murnau).
Description Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–1540). Faust is bored and depressed with his life as a scholar. After an attempt to take his own life, he calls on the Devil for further knowledge and magic powers with which to indulge all the pleasure and knowledge of the world. In response, the Devil’s representative, Mephistopheles, appears. He makes a bargain with Faust: Mephistopheles will serve Faust with his magic powers for a set number of years, but at the end of the term, the Devil will claim Faust’s soul, and Faust will be eternally enslaved. During the term of the bargain, Faust makes use of Mephistopheles in various ways. In Goethe’s drama, and many subsequent versions of the story, Mephistopheles helps Faust seduce a beautiful and innocent girl, usually named Gretchen, whose life is ultimately destroyed when she gives birth to Faust’s bastard son. Realizing this unholy act, she drowns the child and is held for murder. However, Gretchen’s innocence saves her in the end, and she enters Heaven after execution. In Goethe’s rendition, Faust is saved by God via his constant striving in combination with Gretchen’s pleadings with God in the form of the eternal feminine. However, in the early tales, Faust is irrevocably corrupted and believes his sins cannot be forgiven; when the term ends, the Devil carries him off to Hell.
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