Fortunes of Faust - Softcover

Butler, E. M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521295521 ISBN 13: 9780521295529

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1979

Synopsis

This is the third and concluding volume of Professor Butler's wide-ranging study of the Faust legend and its attendant mythologies - The Myth of the Magus, The Fortunes of Faust. In ancient times the Magus was likened to a priest, a king, or even a god; his origins were often supernatural, his death was often followed by resurrection. With the coming of Christianity, however, his status rapidly diminished to that of a wicked sorcerer who came to a bad end in lie and a worse one thereafter. This conception, which gained ground during the Middle Ages, received its most categorical statement in the Faust legend, which condemned the Magus inexorably to eternal perdition. The celebrated compact between Faust and Mephistopheles was in fact an invention of Christian mythologists who had misinterpreted occult rituals in accordance with the Christian belief that magicians were the servants of Satan. Occultists replied by denying the pact with the devil, and by associating Faust with the immemorial traditions of their craft. This conflict was later taken up in the poetic and dramatic treatments which form the subject matter of this book: the fortunes of Faust in literature from the Spiess Faustbbok of 1587 through Marlowe, Goethe, and a host of lesser versions, to Thomas Mann's great novel of 1947.

About this title

About the Author

Elizabeth M. Butler (1885-1959) was Schroder Professor of German at the University of Cambridge.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1979
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521295521
• ISBN 13: 9780521295529
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384