The Faustus myth, before being identified as a myth, was the folktale of a man named Faustus who lived in Germany. Underneath the popularity of this myth lies the basic human instinct to trespass the limits of traditional knowledge in pursuit of self-definition, authentic knowledge and power. This search and transgression also involve the desire to exercise the right of making free authentic choices. Faustus represents universal issues that are relevant for all human beings, which explains the reason why he has acquired mythic stature. Indeed, a most persistent myth has evolved, the appeal of which has led one writer after the other to reshape it. After his story became popular, he reappeared, even in contemporary culture, in different art forms such as literature, both high-brow and popular, including comics, the ballet and the opera. The real historical Faustus came onto the scene as a scholar and persistently reappeared in literature assuming different identities which, however, shared basically the same qualities. This book demonstrates and offers different perspectives to versions of the Faustus myth in literature: Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Goethe’s Faust and John Fowles’ The Magus. The Faustus Myth is a cycle which starts and ends in tragic circumstances in Christopher Marlowe’s Renaissance Faustus, in salvation in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, and in meaninglessness, ambiguous collapses in John Fowles’ existentialist Nicholas Urfe.

This volume collects a series of writings exploring the notion, the experience and the representation of madness from different disciplinary perspectives and in different cultural contexts.

This e-book presents the findings of the 2nd global, interdisciplinary conference on Villains and Villainy, which was held at Oriel College, Oxford in September 2010 as part of the research network Inter-Disciplinary.Net.

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 68, University of Warwick, language: English, abstract: A ~5,500 word critical examination into the role and employment of myth, magic and the supernatural within Marlowe's play 'Dr Faustus'. Includes academic referencing and bibliography of all works cited.

This book is an interdisciplinary reader on the Faust theme in literature and music from the Reformation to the present. Essays by Faust scholars set the texts in context. Peter Werres introduces the collection with The Changing Faces of Dr. Faustus. Osman Durrani and Gerald Strauss discuss contexts of the Faust Book, given in the English translation The Historie of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus. David Wootton compares Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and the English Faust Book. Klaus L. Berghahn’s analysis of transformations of the theme and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance announcements contextualize the popular Puppet-Play of Doctor Faust. Works of Faustian music include the ballad The Just Judgment of God shew’d upon Dr. John Faustus, Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, and Gounod’s Faust. Essays by Henry Bacon and Steven R. Cerf engage the Faust theme in Romantic music and twentieth-century opera. Osman Durrani introduces 19th-Century American Fausts, represented by Hawthorne’s The Birthmark, and excerpts from Ethan Brand and Melville’s Moby Dick. Faust themes in the 20th and 21st centuries are represented by Valéry’s My Faust, Shapiro’s The Progress of Faust, Osman Durrani’s overview of Faust globalized, and Paul M. Malone’s work on the Faust theme in rock opera. A reading list is included.

This book traces the evolution of the Faust myth from the Sixteenth century to modern times. The authors studied include Marlowe, Calderon, Milton, Goethe, Byron, Dostoevsky, Wilde, Thomas Mann, and Salman Rushdie.

One of the glories of Elizabethan drama: Marlowe's powerful retelling of the story of the learned German doctor who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power. Footnotes.

A comprehensive exploration of Dr. Faust, the man who sold his soul to the devil, and those who lived to tell his tale. Volume I includes: New insights into the life and times of the historical Dr. Faustus, the notorious occultist and charlatan who reputedly declared the devil was his brother-in-law. A detailed study of the first Faust books and the popular Faustian folk tales. Original discussions on Christopher Marlowes famous drama and his atheistic rendition of the Faustian myth, including a unique and controversial analysis of the A and B texts. The days of the Faust puppet plays. Gotthold Ephraim Lessings unfinished Faust drama. Volume II features: A unique, in-depth account of Johann Wolfgang von Goethes masterpiece, Faust, Parts One and Two. An examination of the early sketches of his classic drama. Includes detailed explanations of Goethes hidden symbolism in the text, his interest in history and science, the occult, alchemy, Freemasonry and his warnings to future generations.

Carrying a story to tell is the “ancient burden” of craftsmen, and it is one of the characteristics of the quest to find oneself, since a journey requires recognition of the aspects of self and anti–self. Like the speaker of his poems, W.B. Yeats has something to tell. His poetry draws nourishment from the battle between the dichotomies of self and anti–self, human and divine, mind and intellect, past and present, and body and soul. This book covers a selection of Yeats’s poems from 1889 to 1939, discussing them within the frame of the quest to find oneself and its gyroscopic transformation. The book illustrates that self is not a single entity, but has multiple layers, and it can be found within the quest in which it experiences a simultaneous transformation with every phase of the antithetical structure of gyroscopic movements. In addition, the way of the quest is cyclical; however, it is not a vicious cycle, since, in life, every end is a phase of a beginning and every beginning is a phase of an end.