Also called 'Faustus' of 'Doctor Faustus', the story of the German necromancer and astrologer who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for knowledge and power is one of the most durable legends in western folklore. There was an historical Faust, possible even two, one of whom more than once alluded to the Devil as his 'Schwager', or crony. One (or both) died around 1540, leaving behind a tangled tale of sorcery and alchemy, astrology and sooth-saying, studies theological and diabolical, necromancy and excess. Contemporary sources indicate that he was widely travelled and fairly well-known, but all commentators testify to his evil reputation. Humanist scholars of the day dismissed his 'magical feats' as pretty and fraudulent, but the Lutheran clergy, including Martin Luther himself, took his activities seriously. Ironically the relatively obscure Faust came to be remembered in legend as the representative of an age which produced such occultists as Paracelsus and Nostradamus.
Faust owes his enduring notoriety to the anonymous author of the first 'Faustbuch', a collection of tales of the 'Magi' (wise men skilled in science and the occult) which had been told since the Middle Ages and featured such renowned 'wizards' as Merlin, Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon. In the 'Faustbuch', these stories were retold, this time with Faust as the central character. They were crudely narrated and supplemented with clumsy humour at the expense of Faust's victims.It was less the stories themselves and more the author's graphic and unflinching descriptions of hell and the state of his hero's mind which inspired unquestioning belief among readers. Indeed, some of the passages were used verbatim by Thomas Mann for his 1947 novel 'Doktor Faustus'.
The 'Faustbuch' was swiftly translated and read throughout Europe. An English prose translation of 1592 was the likely inspirations for Marlowe's famous play which, for the first time, invested in the Faust legend with a tragic dignity, although, in spite of magnificent scenes of dramatic poetry, such as the summoning from the Underworld the manifestation of Helen of Troy, Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus' retained much of the clowning and comic buffoonery of the source text. This blend of high tragedy and coarse burlesque remained as inherent part of subsequent 'Faust' dramas and puppet plays which held sway during the following two centuries. Yet, despite the comic antics of 'Caspar the Clown' and other grotesques, Fautus's ultimate damnation remained awash with lashings of high drama and epic poetry.
There was even a lucrative trade in do-it-yourself magic books bearing Faustus's name, complete with instructions on how to avoid the pact with the Devil or, if necessary, how to break it. The most famous of these works, 'Magi Naturalis et Innaturalis', was to be found in the grand-ducal library in 'Weimar' and would certainly been known to the German intelligentsia.
The German writer Gotthold Lessing undertook to bring Faustus to salvation in an unfinished play (c. 1784). Lessing, an enlightened rationalist, saw Faustus's pursuit of knowledge as a noble obsession and arranged for a reconciliation with God. This theme was pursued by the outstanding chronicler of the Faust legend, J.W. Von Goethe. His 'Faust' (part 1, 1808; part 2 1832) made of the story a profoundly serious yet highly ironical commentary on the diverse potentialities of Western society's cultural heritage. The poem contains a wide range of epic, lyical, operatic and balletic elements, exploiting an assortment of poetic styles, to present an immensely varied commentary which included elements of theology, philosophy, political economy, science, aesthetics, music and, of course, literature. In the end, God saves Faust by bringing about his purification and redemption.
Hector Berlioz was inspired by a French version of Goethe's work to create his own dramatic cantata, 'The Damnation of Faust', which was first performed in 1846 and is still regularly staged as an opera. Gounod's 'Faust', premiered in 1859, was based on part 1 of Goethe's epic.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, many other writers sought, with limited success, to emulate Goethe's salvation of Faust's soul, while others retained Marlowe's grim finale. In recent times, some have seen in the legend an equation of the dangers of seeking absolute knowledge and power in a nuclear age which possesses absolute destructive capability. An earlier 'collage' production of 'Doctor Faustus' by Charles Marowitz compared Faustus to the architect of modern atomic weaponry, J. Robert Oppenheimer, giving expression to the widely-held fear that the Faustian spirit of insatiable scientific enquiry has been given an all-too evident modern expression.