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FAUST, or FAUSTUS
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See also:FAUST, or FAUSTUS , the name of a magician and See also:charlatan of the 16th See also:century, famous in See also:legend and in literature. The See also:historical Faust forms little more than the See also:nucleus See also:round which a See also:great See also:mass of legendary and imaginative material gradually accumulated. That such a See also:person existed there is, however, sufficient See also:proof.' He is first mentioned in a See also:letter, dated See also:August 20, 1507, of the learned See also:Benedictine Johann Tritheim or See also:Trithemius (1462–1516), See also: Manlius reports a conversation of See also:Melanchthon, which there is no See also:reason to suspect of being other than genuine, in which the Reformer speaks of Faust as " a disgraceful beast and See also:sewer of many devils," as having been See also:born at Kundling (Kundlingen or Knittlingen), a little See also:town near his own native town (of See also:Bretten), and as having studied magic at See also:Cracow. The See also:rest of the information given can hardly be regarded as historical, though Melanchthon, who, like See also:Luther,
' The See also:opinion, See also:long maintained by some, that he was idgntical with Johann See also:Fust, the printer, is now universally rejected.
See also:original See also:imagination. Equally widespread were the legends which gathered round the great name of See also:Gerbert (See also:Pope Silvestei IL). Gerbert's vast erudition, like See also:Roger See also: The See also:sources above mentioned, which were but the first of numerous works on Faust, of more or less value, appearing throughout the next two centuries, give a sufficient picture of the man as he appeared to his contemporaries: a wandering charlatan who lived by his wits, cheiromantist, astrologer, diviner, spiritualist See also:medium, alchemist, or, to the more credulous, a necromancer whose supernatural gifts were the outcome of a foul pact with the enemy of mankind. Whatever his character, his efforts to secure a widespread notoriety had, by the See also:time of his See also:death, certainly succeeded. By the latter See also:part of the 16th century he had become the necromancer See also:par excellence, and all that legend had to tell about the great wizards of the See also:middle ages, See also:Virgil, Pope See also:Silvester, Roger Bacon, See also:Michael See also:Scot, or the mythic Klingsor, had become for ever associated with his name. When in 1587, the See also:oldest Faust-See also:book was published, the Faust legend was, in all essential particulars, already See also:complete.
The origin of the See also:main elements of the legend must be sought far back in the middle ages and beyond. The See also:idea of a compact with the devil, for the purpose of obtaining superhuman See also:power or knowledge, is of Jewish origin, dating from the centuries immediately before and after the See also:Christian era which produced the See also:Talmud, the See also:Kabbalah and such magical books as that of See also:Enoch. In the mystical rites—in which See also:blood, as the seat of See also:life, played a great part—that accompanied the incantations with which the Jewish magicians evoked the Satanim—the lowest grade of those elemental spirits (shedim) who have their existence beyond the dimensions of time and space—we have the prototypes and originals of all the ceremonies which occupy the books of magic down to the various versions of the Hollenzwang ascribed to Faust. The other principle underlying the Faust legend, the belief in the essentially evil character of purely human learning, has existed ever since the See also:triumph of See also:Christianity set divine See also:revelation above human See also:science. The legend of Theophilus—a Cilician See also:archdeacon of the 6th century, who sold his soul to Satan for no better reason than to clear himself of a false See also:charge brought against him by - his bishop—was immensely popular throughout the middle ages, and in the 8th century formed the theme of a poem in Latin hexameters by the See also:nun Hroswitha of See also:Gandersheim, who, especially in her description of the See also:ritual of Satan's See also:court, displays a sufficiently lively and
was no whit less superstitious than most See also:people of his time, evidently believed it to be so. According to him, among other marvels, Faust was killed by the devil wringing his neck. While he lived he had taken about with him a dog, which was really a devil. A similar opinion would seem to have been held of Faust by Luther also, who in Widmann's Faust-book is mentioned as having declared that, by God's help, he had been able to See also: The passage, with the omission of Faust's name, occurs word for word in Luther's Table-talk(ed.C.E.Forstemann, vol. i. p. 5o). It is not improbable, then, that Widmann, in because the great See also:German humanist deliberately infused into the old See also:story a spirit absolutely opposed to that by which it had originally been inspired. The Faust of the See also:early Faust-books, of the See also:ballads, the dramas and the puppet-plays innumerable which See also:grew out of them, is irrevocably damned because he deliberately prefers human to " divine " knowledge; " he laid the See also:Holy Scriptures behind the See also:door and under the See also:bench, refused to be called See also:doctor of See also:Theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of See also:Medicine." The orthodox moral of the earliest versions is preserved to the last in the puppet-plays. The See also:Voice to the right cries: " Faust! Faust! desist from this proposal! Go on with the study of Theology, and you will be the happiest of mortals." The Voice to the See also:left answers: " Faust! Faust! leave the study of Theology. Betake you to See also:Necromancy, and you will be the happiest of mortals! " The Faust legend was, in fact, the creation of orthodox Protestantism; its moral, the inevitable See also:doom which follows the wilful revolt of the intellect against divine authority as represented by the Holy Scriptures and its accredited interpreters. Faust, the contemner of Holy See also:Writ, is set up as a See also:foil to Luther, the See also:champion of the new orthodoxy, who with well-directed inkpot worsted the devil when he sought to interrupt the sacred work of rendering the See also:Bible into the vulgar See also:tongue. It was doubtless this orthodox and Protestant character of I the Faust story which contributed to its immense and immediate I popularity in the Protestant countries. The first edition of the Historia von D. Johann Fausten, by an unknown compiler, published by Johann Spies at See also:Frankfort in 1587, sold out at once. Though only placed on the See also:market in the autumn, before the See also:year was out it had been reprinted in four pirated See also:editions. In the following year a rhymed version was printed at See also:Tubingen, a second edition was published by Spies at Frankfort and a version in See also:low German by J. J. Balhorn at See also:Lubeck. Reprints and amended versions continued to appear in Germany every year, till they culminated in the pedantic compilation of Georg See also:Rudolf Widmann, who obscured the dramatic See also:interest of the story by an excessive display of erudition and by his well-meant efforts to elaborate the orthodox moral. Widmann's version of 1599 formed the basis of that of Johann Nicholaus Pfitzer, published at See also:Nuremberg in 1674, which passed through six editions, the last appearing in 1726. Like Widmann, Pfitzer was more zealous for imparting information than for perfecting a work of art, though he had the good See also:taste to restore the See also:episode of the evocation of See also:Helen, which .Widmann had expunged as unfit for Christian readers. Lastly there appeared, about 1 Many arc given in Kiesewetter's Faust, p. 112, &c 1712, what was to prove the most popular of all the Faust-books: The League with the Devil established by the world-famous Arch-necromancer and Wizard Dr Johann Faust. By a Christian Believer (Christlich Meynenden). This version, which See also:bore the obviously false date of 1525, passed through many editions, and was circulated at all the fairs in Germany. Abroad the success of the story was scarcely less striking. A Danish version appeared in 1588; in See also:England the See also:History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr See also: At certain moments the poet seems to realize the great possibilities of the story, only to See also:sacrifice them to the See also:necessity for humouring the prevailing public taste of the age. Faustus, who in one See also:scene turns disillusioned from the See also:ordinary fountains of know-ledge, or flies in a See also:dragon-See also:drawn See also:chariot through the See also:Empyrean to See also:search out the mysteries of the heavens, in another is made to use his superhuman powers to satisfy the taste of the groundlings for senseless buffoonery, to swindle a horse-dealer, or cheat an See also:ale-wife of her See also:score; while Protestant orthodoxy is conciliated by irrelevant insults to the See also:Roman Church and by the final See also:catastrophe, when Faustus pays for his revolt against the Word of God by the forfeit of his soul. This conception, which followed that of the popular Faust histories, underlay all further developments of the Faust drama for nearly two hundred years. Of the serious See also:stage plays founded on this theme, Marlowe's Faustus remains the See also:sole See also:authentic example until near the end of the 18th century; but there is plenty of See also:evidence to prove that in Germany the See also:Comedy of Dr Faust, in one See also:form or another, was and continued to be a popular See also:item in the repertories of theatrical companies until far into the 18th century. It is supposed, with good reason, that the German versions were based on those introduced into the See also:country by English strolling players early in the 17th century. However this may be, the dramatic versions of the Faust legend followed much the same course as the See also:prose histories. Just as these gradually degenerated into See also:chap-books hawked at fairs, so the dramas were replaced by puppet-plays, handed down by tradition through generations of showmen, retaining their original broad characteristics, but subject to See also:infinite modification in detail. In this way, in the puppet-shows, the traditional Faust story retained its popularity until far into the 19th century, long after, in the See also:sphere of literature, Goethe had for ever raised it to quite, another See also:plane. It was natural that during the See also:literary revival in Germany in the 18th century, when German writers were eagerly on the look-out for subjects to form the material of a truly See also:national literature, the Faust legend should have attracted their See also:attention. See also:Lessing was the first to point out its great possibilities;' and In the Literaturbrief of Feb. 16, 1759.he himself wrote a Faust drama, of which unfortunately. only a fragment remains, the MS. of the completed work having been lost in the author's lifetime. Norse the less, to Lessing, not to Goethe, is due the new point of view from which the story was approached by most of those who, after about the year 1770, attempted to tell it. The traditional Faust legend represented the sternly orthodox attitude of the Protestant reformers. Even the mitigating elements which the middle ages had permitted had been banished by the stern See also:logic of the theologians of the New See also:Religion. See also:Theophilus had been saved in the end by the intervention of the Blessed Virgin; Pope Silvester, according to one version of the legend, had likewise been snatched from the jaws of See also:hell at the last moment. Faust was irrevocably damned, since the attractions of the studium theologicum proved insufficient to counteract the fascinations of the classic Helen. But if he was to become, in the 18th century, the type of the human intellect See also:face to face with the deep problems of human life, it was intolerable that his struggles should issue in eternal reprobation. See also:Error and See also:heresy had ceased to be regarded as crimes; and stereotyped orthodoxy, to the age of the Encyclopaedists, represented nothing more than the See also:atrophy of the human intellect. Es irrt der Mensch so See also:lang er strebt, which sums up in one pregnant See also:line the spirit of Goethe's Faust, sums up also the spirit of the age which killed with ridicule the last efforts of persecuting piety, and saw the birth of See also:modern science. Lessing, in See also:short, proclaimed that the final end of Faust must be, not his damnation, but his salvation. This revolutionary conception is the measure of Goethe's See also:debt to Lessing. The essential See also:change which Goethe himself introduced into the story is in the nature of the pact between Faust and See also:Mephistopheles, and in the character of Mephistopheles himself. The Mephistopheles of Marlowe, as of the old Faust-books, for all his brave buffoonery, is a See also:melancholy devil, with a soul above the unsavoury hell in which he is forced to pass a hopeless existence. " Tell me," says Faust, in the puppet-play, to Mephistopheles, " what would you do if you could attain to See also:everlasting salvation? " And the devil answers, " Hear and despair! Were I able to attain everlasting salvation, I would See also:mount to See also:heaven on a See also:ladder, though every See also:rung were a See also:razor edge !" Goethe's Mephistopheles would have made no such reply. There is nothing of the fallen See also:angel about him; he is perfectly content with his past, his See also:present and his future; and he appears before the See also:throne of God with the same easy insolence as he exhibits in See also:Dame Martha's back-See also:garden. He is, in fact, according to his own See also:definition, the Spirit of Denial, the impersonation of that utter See also:scepticism which can see no distinction between high and low, between good and See also:bad, and is therefore without aspiration because it knows no " divine discontent." And the compact which Faust makes with this spirit is from the first doomed to be void. Faustus had bartered away his soul for a definite See also:period of See also:pleasure and power. The conception that underlies the compact of Faust with Mephistopheles is far more subtle. He had sought happiness vainly in the higher intellectual and spiritual pursuits; he is content to seek it on a See also:lower plane since Mephistopheles gives him the See also:chance; but he is confident that nothing that " such a poor devil " can offer him could give him that moment of supreme See also:satisfaction for which he craves. He goes through the traditional mummery of See also:signing the See also:bond with scornful submission; for he knows that his damnation will not be the outcome of any formal compact, but will follow inevitably, and only then, when his soul has grown to be satisfied with what Mephistopheles can purvey him.
" Canst See also:thou with lying flattery See also:rule me
Until self-pleased myself I see,
Canst thou with pleasure See also:mock and fool me,
Let that See also:hour be the last for me!
When thus I See also:hail the moment flying:
' Ah, still delay, thou art so See also:fair!'
Then bind me in thy chains undying,
My final ruin then declare!"2
It is because Mephistopheles fails to give him this self-satisfaction
2 See also:Bayard See also: In the old Faust-books, Faust had been given plenty of opportunity for repentance, but the inducements had been no higher than the See also:exhibition of a throne in heaven on the one See also:hand and the tortures of hell on the other. Goethe's Faust, for all its Christian setting, departs widely from this orthodox standpoint. Faust shows no signs of " repentance "; he simply emerges by the innate force of his character from a lower into a higher state. The triumph, foretold by " the See also:Lord " in the opening scene, was inevitable from the first, since, though
' Man errs so long as he is striving,
A good man through obscurest aspiration
Is ever conscious of the one true way.' "
A man, in short, must be judged not by the sins and follies which may be but accidents of his career, but by the character which is its essential outcome.
This idea, which inspired also the kindred theme of See also:Browning's Paracelsus, is the main development introduced by Goethe into the Faust legend. The episode of Gretchen, for all its tragic interest, does not belong to the legend at all; and it is difficult to deny the pertinency of See also: (W. A. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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