Faust

Faust or Faustus, semi-legendary scholar who made a pact with the devil to gain knowledge.

Although the fictional Faust had been mistakenly traced to Johann Fust, his real forebear is thought to have been Dr Johann Faust, who was born in Württemberg in about 1480. Johann Faust was a university student who made a living teaching, conjuring, and telling fortunes. As he travelled (or was moved on) from town to town, his reputation spread, and the mysterious circumstances of his death (after boasting he had sold his soul to the devil) confirmed his notoriety. Martin Luther believed Faust was possessed of diabolic powers, and many considered him a charlatan and debaucher. Others claimed he came to enjoy the patronage of the Archbishop of Cologne from 1532, and died a respectable man. Either way, folktales and stories about the occult gathered around him throughout the 16th century, and were published as Johann Spiess's Historia von D. Johann Fausten (also known as the Spiess'sches Faustbuch, 1587) in Frankfurt. It was as a result of this biography that Faust's pact with the devil became fixed in folk mythology. In Spiess's version, Faust buys youth, knowledge, and magical power from the devil for a period of 24 years, at the price of his immortal soul.

Marlowe's version of the Faust myth The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (first staged c. 1594; published 1604) closely follows Spiess. In it, Faustus progresses from proud seeker after divine power to desperate penitent, too late in his repentance to save himself from hell. It was, however, a German dramatist and critic, Gotthold Lessing, who first explored the possibility of redeeming Faust, instead of damning him. In his friend C. F. Nicolai's weekly, Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend (Letters Concerning the Latest Literature), he published a scene from his fragmentary Faust play, as an example of how Faust could be saved if God recognized the earnestness of his quest for knowledge. This notion became the basis for Goethe's hugely influential Faust (Part I, 1808; Part II, 1832), which cast Faust as a rationalist philosopher who risks everything to advance human knowledge, even his soul, and is pardoned by God because of his noble intentions.

Apart from these plays, versions of the Faust myth include countless popular clown and puppet plays; operas, and overtures (by composers including Gounod, Boito, Busoni, Spohr, Richard Wagner, and Berlioz); novels, plays, and poems (by Klinger, Chamisso, Grabbe, Lenau, Heine, Valéry, and Thomas Mann); and even an animated film (Svankmajer's Faust, 1994).