Faust

[close] Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (c.1480 - 1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a crossroads, 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 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 variants of this legend were popular throughout Germany in the 16th century. The story was popularised in England by Christopher Marlowe, who gave it a classic treatment in his play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (c.1592). In Goethe's reworking of the story over two hundred years later, Faust seduces a pious girl who then dies by suicide, but after many further adventures Faust is saved from damnation through the intervention of penitent women, including the girl whose life he ruined.