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Faust
Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a Crossroads (folklore), crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for Works based on Faust, many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "''Faustian''" imply sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain. The Faust of early books – as well as the ballads, dramas, movies, and puppet-plays which grew out of them – is irrevocably damned because he prefers human knowledge over divine knowledge: "He laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of medicine". Chapbooks containing v ...
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Doctor Faustus (play)
''The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus'', commonly referred to simply as ''Doctor Faustus'', is an Elizabethan era, Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for magical power. Written in the late 16th century and first performed around 1594, the play follows Faustus’s rise as a magician through his pact with Lucifer—facilitated by the demon Mephistopheles—and his ultimate downfall as he fails to repent before his damnation. The play survives in two major versions: the shorter 1604 "A" text and the expanded 1616 "B" text, which includes additional scenes and material of debated authorship. Though once considered less authoritative, the "B" text has gained renewed scholarly interest, especially regarding its comic elements and their thematic significance. Doctor Faustus blends classical tragedy with Elizabethan drama, employing a five-act structure and a chorus. T ...
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Works Based On Faust
Faust has inspired artistic and cultural works for over four centuries. The following lists cover various media to include items of historic interest, enduring works of high art, and recent representations in popular culture. The entries represent works that a reader has a reasonable chance of encountering rather than a complete catalog.Lorna Fitzsimmons (ed.), Charles McKnight (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Faust in Music' (2019) Ballets * ''Faust (ballet), Faust'' by Jules Perrot (1848) * Faust ballets Classical music * Ludwig van Beethoven's Opus 75 no 3 (1809) Song – List of works by Beethoven, Aus Goethes Faust: "Es war einmal ein König" * Franz Schubert's ''Gretchen am Spinnrade'' (1814) * Giuseppe Verdi's ''Perduta ho la pace '' (1838) * Richard Wagner's ''Faust Overture'' (1840) * Felix Mendelssohn's ''Die erste Walpurgisnacht'' (1843) * Hector Berlioz's ''The Damnation of Faust'' (1845–46) (sometimes performed in staged opera versions) * Charles-Valentin Alkan's Gran ...
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Goethe's Faust
''Faust'' ( , ) is a tragedy, tragic Play (theatre), play in two parts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, usually known in English as ''Faust, Part One'' and ''Faust, Part Two''. Nearly all of Part One and the majority of Part Two are written in rhymed verse. Although rarely staged in its entirety, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages. ''Faust'' is considered by many to be Goethe's ''Masterpiece, magnum opus'' and the greatest work of German literature. The earliest forms of the work, known as the ', were developed between 1772 and 1775; however, the details of that development are not entirely clear. ''Urfaust'' has twenty-two scenes, one in prose, two largely prose and the remaining 1,441 lines in rhymed verse. The manuscript is lost, but a copy was discovered in 1886. The first appearance of the work in print was ''Faust, a Fragment'', published in 1790. Goethe completed a preliminary version of what is now known as ''Part One'' in 1806. Its ...
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Johann Georg Faust
Johann Georg Faust ( , ; or 1466 – c. 1541), sometimes also Georg Sabellicus Faustus and known in English as John Faustus, was a German itinerant alchemist, astrologer, and magician of the German Renaissance. He was often called a conman and a heretic by the people of medieval Europe. ''Doctor Faust'' became the subject of folk legend in the years soon after his death, transmitted in chapbooks beginning in the 1580s, and was notably adapted by Christopher Marlowe as a tragic heretic in his play '' The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus'' (1588-1592). The '' Faustbuch'' tradition survived throughout the early modern period, and the legend was again adapted in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's closet drama '' Faust'' (1808), Hector Berlioz's musical composition '' La damnation de Faust'' (premiered 1846), and Franz Liszt's ''Faust Symphony'' of 1857. Historical Faust Because of his early treatment as a figure in legend and literature, it is difficult to e ...
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Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles ( , ), also known as Mephostophilis or Mephisto, is a demon featured in German folklore, originating as the chief devil in the Faust legend. He has since become a stock character appearing in Mephistopheles in the arts and popular culture, other works of arts and popular culture. Mephistopheles never became an integral part of traditional magic. He is also referred to as the Shadow of Lucifer and Prince of Trickery. During the medieval and Renaissance times, Mephistopheles is equated with the devil due to his high position in the hellish hierarchy. He is one of the seven great princes of Hell, along with being one of the first four angels who rebelled against God and fell. In the popular fiction of Tenida, mephistophilis is used as a humourous and satirical dialogue. Origins Around the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries in Europe, the age of witchcraft waned, and the Devil became more of a fixture in literature until the later eighteenth century. Once the idea of ...
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Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe ( ; Baptism, baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the English Renaissance theatre, Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon the "many imitations" of his play ''Tamburlaine'', modern scholars consider him to have been the foremost dramatist in London in the years just before his mysterious early death. Some scholars also believe that he greatly influenced William Shakespeare, who was baptised in the same year as Marlowe and later succeeded him as the preeminent Elizabethan playwright. Marlowe was the first to achieve critical reputation for his use of blank verse, which became the standard for the era. His plays are distinguished by their overreaching protagonists. Themes found within Marlowe's literary works have been noted as humanistic with realistic emotions, which some scholars find difficult to reconcile with Marlowe's "anti ...
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Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Political philosophy#European Enlightenment, political, and Western philosophy, philosophical thought in the Western world from the late 18th century to the present.. A poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre-director, and critic, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe bibliography, his works include plays, poetry and aesthetic criticism, as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. Goethe took up residence in Weimar in 1775 following the success of his first novel, ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (1774), and joined a thriving intellectual and cultural environment under the patronage of Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Duchess Anna Amalia that formed the basis of Weimar Classicism. He was ennobled by Karl August, G ...
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Eternal Feminine
The eternal feminine, a concept first introduced by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe at the end of his play ''Faust'' (1832), is a transcendental ideality of the feminine or womanly abstracted from the attributes, traits and behaviors of a large number of women and female figures. In ''Faust'', these include historical, fictional, and mythological women, goddesses, and even female personifications of abstract qualities such as wisdom. As an ideal, the eternal feminine has an ethical component, which means that not all women contribute to it. Those who, for example, spread malicious gossip about other women or even just conform slavishly to their society's conventions are by definition non-contributors. Since the eternal feminine appears without explanation (though not without preparation) only in the last two lines of the 12,111-line play, it is left to the reader to work out which traits and behaviors it involves and which of the various women and female figures in the play contribute ...
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Deal With The Devil
A deal with the Devil is a cultural motif exemplified by the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles, as well as being elemental to many Christian traditions. According to traditional Christian belief about witchcraft, the pact is between a person and the Devil or another demon, trading a soul for diabolical favours, which vary by the tale, but tend to include youth, knowledge, wealth, fame and power. It was also believed that some people made this type of pact just as a sign of recognising the minion as their master, in exchange for nothing. The bargain is a dangerous one, as the price of the fiend's service is the wagerer's soul. For most religions, the tale may have a bad end, with eternal damnation for the foolhardy venturer. Conversely, it may have a comic twist, in which a wily peasant outwits the devil, characteristically on a technical point. The person making the pact sometimes tries to outwit the devil, but loses in the end (e.g., man sells his soul f ...
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Crossroads (folklore)
In folklore, crossroads may represent a location "between the worlds" and, as such, a site where supernatural spirits can be contacted and paranormal events can take place. Symbolically, it can mean a locality where two realms touch and therefore represents liminality, a place literally "neither here nor there", "betwixt and between". Ancient religions In Greek mythology, crossroads were associated with both Hecate and Hermes, with shrines and ceremonies for both taking place there. The herm pillar associated with Hermes frequently marked these places due to the god's association with travelers and role as a guide. Though less central to Greek mythology than Hermes, Hecate's connection to crossroads was more cemented in ritual. 'Suppers of Hecate' were left for her at crossroads at each new moon, and one of her most common titles was 'goddess of the crossroads.' In her later three-fold depictions, each of the three heads or bodies is often associated with one of three crossing ro ...
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Theophilus Of Adana
Saint Theophilus the Penitent, also known as Theophilus of Cilicia or Theophilus of Adana (Greek language, Greek: Θεόφιλος Άδανας, died 538) was a cleric in the sixth century Christianity, Church who is said to have made a deal with the Devil to gain an ecclesiology, ecclesiastical position. His story is significant as it is one of the oldest popular stories of a pact with the Devil and was an inspiration for the Faust legend. Eutychianus of Adana, who claimed to be an eyewitness of the events, is the first to record Theophilus's story. Although Theophilus is considered to be an historical personage, the tale associated with him is of an apocryphal nature. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church, with a feast day on 23 June and 4 February respectively. Legend Theophilus was the archdeacon of Adana, Cilicia, then a part of the Byzantine Empire. He was unanimously elected to be a bishop, and when out of humility he turned ...
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German Folklore
German folklore is the folk tradition which has developed in Germany over a number of centuries. Seeing as Germany was divided into numerous polities for most of its history, this term might both refer to the folklore of Germany proper and of all German-speaking countries, this wider definition including folklore of Austria and Liechtenstein as well as the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Italy. Characteristics It shares many characteristics with Nordic folklore and English folklore due to their origins in a common Germanic mythology. It reflects a similar mix of influences: a pre-Christian pantheon and other beings equivalent to those of Norse mythology; magical characters (sometimes recognizably pre-Christian) associated with Christian festivals, and various regional 'character' stories. As in Scandinavia, when belief in the old gods disappeared, remnants of the mythos persisted: There are: * Frau Holle or Perchta, a "supernatural" patron o ...
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