Faust

Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend. He is a scholar who is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success for a delimited term.

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 to 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". Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular throughout Germany in the 16th century, often reducing Faust and Mephistopheles to figures of vulgar fun. The story was popularised in England by Christopher Marlowe, who gave it a classic treatment in his play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604). In Goethe's reworking of the story two hundred years later, Faust becomes a dissatisfied intellectual who yearns for "more than earthly meat and drink" in his life.

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Faust (disambiguation)

Faust is the protagonist of a popular German tale who makes a pact with the Devil; the tale is the basis of many works.

Works based on the tale of Faust

The name may refer to one of these notable works of art based on the tale:

Film

Faust (1926 film), directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

Faust (1960 film), directed by Peter Gorski

Faust (1994 film), directed by Jan Švankmajer

Faust: Love of the Damned (2001), a film directed by Brian Yuzna

Faust (2011 film), directed by Alexander Sokurov

Literature

"Historia von D. Johann Fausten*", a 1587 chapbook published by Johann Spies and written by an anonymous German author

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (A-text 1604, B-text 1616), a work by Christopher Marlowe

Goethe's Faust (Part I in 1806 Part II 1831), a work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Faust (1866), a work by Estanislao del Campo

The Death of Doctor Faustus (1925), a work by Michel de Ghelderode

Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (1938), a work by Gertrude Stein

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Faust (opera)

Faust is a grand opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1. It debuted at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris on 19 March 1859.

Performance history

Faust was rejected by the Paris Opera, on the grounds that it was not sufficiently "showy", and its appearance at the Théatre-Lyrique was delayed for a year because Adolphe d'Ennery's drama Faust was playing at the Porte St. Martin. The manager Léon Carvalho (who cast his wife Marie Miolan-Carvalho as Marguerite) insisted on various changes during production, including cutting several numbers.

Faust was not initially well received. The publisher Antoine Choudens, who purchased the copyright for 10,000 francs, took the work (with added recitatives replacing the original spoken dialogue) on tour through Germany, Belgium, Italy and England, with Marie Miolan-Carvalho repeating her role.

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