Lives of Faust

The Faust Theme in Literature and Music. A Reader

Lorna Fitzsimmons

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9783110198232
• eBook ISBN:
  9783110973976
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: German Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

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.

Table of contents

• Preface
• Introduction – The Changing Faces of Dr. Faustus
• I The Historical Faustus
• Documents
• II The Faust Books
• How to Read a Volksbuch: The Faust Book of 1587
• The Historie of the Damnable Life and Dealignserved Death of Doctor John Faustus
• III Early Faust Plays and Music
• Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and the English Faust Book
• Early Faust Music
• The Just Judgment of God shew’d upon Dr. John Faustus
• Transformations of the Faust Theme
• Documents
• The Puppet-Play of Doctor Faust
• IV The Faust Theme in Romantic Music
• The Damnation of Faust – Berlioz
• Faust – Gounod
• V 19th-Century American Fausts
• The Birthmark – Hawthorne
• Ethan Brand (excerpt) – Hawthorne
• Moby-Dick (excerpt) – Melville
• VI Faust in the 20th and 21 st Centuries
• The Faust Theme in Twentieth-Century Opera
• My Faust (excerpt) – Valéry
• Faust in the Nuclear Age
• The Progress of Faust – Shapiro
• Faust Globalized
• Faust Rock Opera
• Further Reading
• Index