German Studies 417.  (Also CompLit 417)
4 credits
Tues/Thurs 2:55 - 4:10

FAUST. TRANSFORMATIONS OF A MYTH.

Few legends have so engaged the imagination as that of the man who signed a pact with the devil to obtain pleasure, power and knowledge. While the myth itself is timeless, the modern version takes its cue from one real Georg Faust (about 1480-1540), a magician and erratic scholar of dubious character during the time of the German Reformation. A popular account of his alleged activities and adventures in university towns like Wittenberg, Erfurt and Ingolstadt, the Historia von D. Johann Fausten (1587) became the inspiration for Marlowe's Tragical History of Doktor Faustus, performed as early as 1594, published in 1606. Goethe returned to the Faust legend again and again in the course of some sixty years, completing the final installment of his own Faust only months before his death in 1832. While Marlowe's Faust deserves hell for his hubris, Goethe's protagonist finds favor with God for the same reason.

We will look at various representations of the myth through the centuries, concentrating on the late 16th through the early 19th. The Faust Book, Marlowe, and Goethe will be our main texts. We will listen to some of the music they have inspired: Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz, Gounod, Mahler; and look at related mythical figures like Lucifer, Prometheus, Don Juan, Ahasverus, Schlemihl. Time permitting we will discuss selections from several recent versions, Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (1938, publ.1966/67),Valéry's Mon Faust (1940) and Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus (1947).

The course will be conducted in English. All texts in English. No knowledge of German required. In addition to the weekly seminar meetings there will be several required screenings and conferences to discuss the paper(s).

1.  THE FIRST MEETING. Brief outline of agenda. Partial screening of Murnau's FAUST.

2.  The English Faust Book.

"The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus, Newly imprinted and in convenient places imperfect matter amended: according to the true Copy printed at Frankfort, and translated into English by P.F.Gent. Seen and allowed. Imprinted at London by Thomas Orwin, and are to be sold by Edward White, dwelling at the little North door of Paules, at the sign of the Gun. 1592."

3.  Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.
      Two sessions. Partial screening of the film starring Richard Burton (who also directed it) and Elizabeth Taylor.

4.  Goethe's Faust. Several sessions. Partial list of topics below.

        Prologue in Heaven. The frame work.

        Faust. The scholar. Plus a brief family history. Partial screening of Paracelsus.

        Mephisto. Who is he?

        The Pact. What does it really say?

         Faust. The lover.

         Faust. The lover as fugitive. Gretchen in Hell. The failed rescue.
                Final scenes from Gounod's Faust and Berlioz' Damnation of Faust.
                  A new beginning: Part II. Scene 1 ("Prologue"). The gift of forgetting.

           Part II. Act Three. Helena.

           Part II. Act Five. Crime and Redemption.

                             Mahler's Eighth Symphony, Finale.
 

Final Session(s). Mozart's Don Giovanni.  Peter Sellars and Franco Zeffirelli.
                                                                            Furtwaengler, Karajan, Leinsdorf (time permitting).

Background Information. (Not on reserve).

For an account of the tumultuous 150 years of discovery that stretch from the publication of Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" in 1543 to Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" of 1687 please read:

Alexandre Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe. First published in 1957.
Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, has brief biographical sketches of Galileo and the obnoxious Newton.
J. Bronowski & Bruce Mazlish, The Western Intellectual Tradition.
Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers.
Will & Ariel Durant, The Age of Reason Begins, vol. VII of their Story of Civilization.

This is a good opportunity as well to review a bit of the history of the Reformation. H. Daniel Rops, Hans Hillerbrand, Hajo Holborn and Lewis W. Spitz are excellent accounts. And don't forget Will Durant's volume The Reformation in the Durants' ever useful The Story of Civilization.

The splendid four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, Oxford UP 1996, is still in print and an indispensable reference.
Gerhard Ritter, Die Neugestaltung Deutschlands und Europas im 16. Jahrhundert.
Leopold Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation. Berlin, 1839. (A classic)
Richard van Duelmen, Reformation als Revolution (1987) deals with social movements and religious radicalism during the German Reformation.
Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, ed. G.H. Williams and A.M. Mergal. Texts and comments.
Ernst Bloch, Thomas Muenzer (1921) remains a curiosity.

Frances A. Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972).
Andrew Weeks, Boehme (1991).
                           See my review in JEGP, July 1994.
Jochem Schmidt, Die Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens 1750-1945 (1985).
Guenther Boehme, Bildungsgeschichte des europaeischen Humanismus (1986).

 RESERVE LIST.

The following books are, or will soon be, on the German Studies 417 reserve shelf in the Uris Library Reading Room. Please do NOT take them out but use them in the library, preferably in the Reading Room itself.

Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine; Doctor Faustus, A- & B-texts, etc.... Ed. Bevington and Rasmussen. Oxford UP, 1995.

William Empson, Faustus and the Censor. The English Faust-book and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.
Frank Baron, Doktor Faustus.
Frank Baron, Faustus on Trial. The Origins of Johann Spies's "Historia" in an Age of Witch Hunting.

The most comprehensive Goethe edition, the monumental Weimarer Ausgabe, is available on CD-ROM in the Electronic Text Center in Olin Library. For additional items check: Cornell Holdings .
The library has now added a networked version of this extensive database.  You may want to take a look from your own computer. It can be found at http://etext.library.cornell.edu/goethe/.  It is also on the Library Gateway.  Search with "Goethe."
The most useful study edition of Goethe's works in German is the famous Hamburger Ausgabe, ed. Erich Trunz.
Uris Library stacks:  PT1891 .C58

Stuart Atkins, Essays on Goethe.
Nicholas Boyle, Goethe. vols I&II
Richard Friedenthal, Goethe. His Life and Times.
Ronald Gray, Goethe. A Critical Introduction.

Jane K. Brown, Goethe's Faust: The German Tragedy.
Liselotte Dieckmann, Goethe's Faust: A Critical Reading.
Eudo. C. Mason, Goethe's Faust: It's Genesis and Purport.

Jeffrey Burton Russell, Mephistopheles.
Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan.
Jaroslav Pelikan, Faust the Theologian (see my review in JEGP, July 1998).
Roger Shattuck, Forbidden Knowledge.

Consult also (not on reserve):

Herbert Deinert, "Die Entfaltung des Boesen in Boehmes MYSTERIUM MAGNUM." PMLA, September '64. Please read part II, "Luzifer", in particular. (German hand-out).
Jochen Schmidt, Die Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens 1750-1945. 2 vols. (1985).
Guenther Boehme, Bildungsgeschichte des europaeischen Humanismus (1986).

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