The Faustian legend and accompanying bargain is based on the historical figure Johann Georg Faust. Dissatisfied with his life, Faust makes a pact with the Devil at the crossroads where he exchanges his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. It serves as a popular tool in literature, film, and practically all other cultural spaces to bring attention to the moral crises we all face as humans. V.E. Schwab uses the folklore surrounding Faust to center her book around Addie’s moral crisis of living forever without anyone remembering her.
Article
What the Myth of Faust Can Teach Us – https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170907-what-the-myth-of-faust-can-teach-us
Literary Adaptations
Christopher Marlowes’ Doctor Faustus (1589)
From Goodreads: “Faustus, a brilliant scholar, sells his soul to the devil in exchange for limitless knowledge and powerful black magic, yet remains unfulfilled. He considers repenting, but remains too proud to ask God for forgiveness. His indecision ultimately seals his fate. Faustus’ story serves as a warning to those who would sacrifice righteous living for earthly gain. But Marlowe’s play is also a deeply symbolic analysis of the shift from the late medieval world to the early modern world—a time when the medieval view that the highest wisdom lay in the theologian’s contemplations of God was yielding to the Renaissance view that the highest wisdom lay in the scientist’s and statesman’s rational analysis of the world around them. Caught between these ideals, Faustus is both a tragic fool destroyed by his own ambition and a hero at the forefront of a changing society. In Doctor Faustus, Marlowe thoughtfully examines faith and enlightenment, nature and science—and the terrible cost of the objects of our desire.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust takes the form of a poetic drama in two parts; part one was published in 1808 and part two was later published in 1831.
From Goodreads: “Goethe’s Faust reworks the late medieval myth of a brilliant scholar so disillusioned he resolves to make a contract with Mephistopheles. The devil will do all he asks on Earth and seeks to grant him a moment in life so glorious that he will wish it to last forever. But if Faust does bid the moment stay, he falls to Mephisto and must serve him after death. In this first part of Goethe’s great work, the embittered thinker and Mephistopheles enter into their agreement, and soon Faust is living a rejuvenated life and winning the love of the beautiful Gretchen. But in this compelling tragedy of arrogance, unfulfilled desire, and self-delusion, Faust heads inexorably toward an infernal destruction.”
Stephen Vincent Benét’s The Devil and Daniel Webster (1937)
From Goodreads: “‘The Devil and Daniel Webster’ is a short story about a successful lawyer who believes you can win your soul back from the devil.”
Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus (1947)
From Goodreads: “Mann’s protagonist, the composer Adrian Leverkühn, is the flower of German culture, a brilliant, isolated, overreaching figure, his radical new music a breakneck game played by art at the very edge of impossibility. In return for twenty-four years of unparalleled musical accomplishment, he bargains away his soul – and the ability to love his fellow man.Leverkühn’s life story is a brilliant allegory of the rise of the Third Reich, of Germany’s renunciation of its own humanity and its embrace of ambition and its nihilism. It is also Mann’s most profound meditation on the German genius – both national and individual – and the terrible responsibilities of the truly great artist.”
Popular Culture
In this clip from The Simpsons Season 7, Episode 4, Bart sells his soul to his friend Milhouse for $5 because he does not believe he actually has one.
Damn Yankees (1958) retells the Faust legend using baseball as a backdrop and turns the legend into a musical. A middle-aged baseball fan makes a deal with the devil to help his team beat the Yankees. This feels like some all non-Yankee fans could identify with and support.
Robert Johnson’s skills as a blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter showcase him as a master of the Delta blues style. At the time of his death in 1938, no one really knew much about him outside of the Mississippi Delta area and its music scene. However, the tale most associated with his story finds him selling his soul to a devil at the crossroads to attain musical greatness.