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- The legendary tales that accumulated round the historical figure of George, later Johann, Faust (c. 1480 – 1540) embody one of man's oldest dreams, that of acquiring boundless knowledge and happiness through a spiritual alliance with superhuman forces.
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Sep 26, 2017 · Why does this 500-year-old folk legend resonate in times of crisis, and why does it continue to haunt the Western imagination?
Sep 1, 2024 · His verse drama Faust (Part I, 1808; Part II, 1832) makes of the Faust myth a profoundly serious but highly ironic commentary on the contradictory possibilities of Western man’s cultural heritage.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.
Medieval and modern myths relating to the Faust legend have taken on more ambiguous and morally fraught interpretations. While many of these early myths of divine interplay featured characters who remained morally and spiritually upright, newer versions of this myth, such as Faust , offer characters that give into temptation and are refused ...
Oct 8, 2024 · Faust, two-part dramatic work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Part I was published in 1808 and Part II in 1832, after the author’s death. The supreme work of Goethe’s later years, Faust is sometimes considered Germany’s greatest contribution to world literature.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Having canvassed the literary influences on the Faust legend, this chapter undertakes a search for the historical Faust. In 1587, the numerous accounts of a rather shady miracle worker named Faust were published by Johann Spies in a book popularly known as The German Faustbook.
Faustus was an astrologer, but he also gained a reputation for dabbling in magic. Renaissance magic seemed to be a magnet, which possessed an extraordinary power to draw into its orbit a whole range of associations. Many feared magic as a dangerous adventure of curiosity into the realm of the devil.
