Faustian novels

[Melmoth]

Back there in Pre-history when I was preparing what would become the embrio of my unfinished PhD I thought about dealing with such a pretentious topic as the Faustian Novels....

I didn't become more concrete on this aspect and I finally decided to change the theme -the project is still unfinished- disencouraged by the words of one of my professors: " You know... There are thousands of Faustian novels.... You'd not even know where to begin"

So, here goes the question... Apart from the -obvious- works by Marlowe and Goethe... what other novels/writings having this myth as their basis could you tell me?

Thanks in advance.

[johann cruyff]

Thomas Mann - Doctor Faustus.
Fernando Pessoa - Faust Subjective Tragedy
Ivan Turgenev - Faust


And if you're into classical music, there's the opera Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito, La Damnation de Faust by Hector Berlioz, Faust by Charles Gounod...

Hope that helps a little, there are obviously many more works of art that retell this myth.

[jgweed]

To add to the musical list: Liszt, A Faust Symphony.

[JBI]

Are we talking ones featuring Faust, or ones featuring a version of Faust (such as Dorian Gray)?

Wilde remarked that all first novels feature either Jesus, or Faust as the protagonist, and for a lot of works, that seems to hold true.

[stlukesguild]

Add to the above:

Washington Irving- The Devil and Daniel Webster
Oscar Wilde- The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mikhail Bulgakov- The Master and Margarita
Klaus Mann- Mephisto
John Banville-Mefisto
and the Broadway musical- Damn Yankees

[PeterL]

It depends on what makes it "Faustian". There are thousands of stories and novels in which someone sells his or her soul to a devil of some sort, and that theme preceded any use of the name Faust.

[kiki1982]

I suppose most of the books after Faust of Goethe were based on Goethe's work, because it was so hugely popular and translated in so many languages that it was really, for writers, impossible to not be interested in it and not have read or heard about it...

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Les Misérables, Victor Hugo, opposite Faust in Jean Valjean (his soul gets bought by the Bishop Myriel of Digne)
Wuthering Heights, Anne Brontë (?), Heathcliff would be a Faustian character
Manfred. A Dramatic Poem, Lord Byron (appeared around the same time as Goethe's Faust

I something still pops into my head I'll come and note it down for you...

[Carpalim]

I suppose most of the books after Faust of Goethe were based on Goethe's work, because it was so hugely popular and translated in so many languages that it was really, for writers, impossible to not be interested in it and not have read or heard about it...

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Les Misérables, Victor Hugo, opposite Faust in Jean Valjean (his soul gets bought by the Bishop Myriel of Digne)
Wuthering Heights, Anne Brontë (?), Heathcliff would be a Faustian character
Manfred. A Dramatic Poem, Lord Byron (appeared around the same time as Goethe's Faust

I something still pops into my head I'll come and note it down for you...

How is Heathcliff Faustian? He makes no bargain with any devil - he simply is a devil. But he has no interest in buying souls!

[Melmoth]

How is Heathcliff Faustian? He makes no bargain with any devil - he simply is a devil. But he has no interest in buying souls!

I absolutely agree, Carpalim...

Faustian novels: novels/writings dealing with the Faust theme, i.e., someone who sells his soul to the devil in exchange of immortality, absoulte knowldege, the love for a woman etc.... that would be a Faustian character for me... not one who is simply wicked or even byronic, like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights...

[Carpalim]

And what's more, Bronte (Emily!) makes Heathcliff a devil from birth, giving us the idea that the 'imp'-like baby H just sort of crawled out from under a rock somewhere.

But to help with your list:

F.M Von Klinger - Faust's Leben, Thaten und Hollenfahrt (1791)
M.Lewis - The Monk (1796)
Charles Mathurin - Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)
GWM Reynolds - Faust, the Romans and the Secret Tribunals; Wagner the
Werewolf (1847)
Louisa May Alcott - A Modern Mephistopheles (1877)
Samuel Adams Drake - Jonathan Moulton (1884)
Peadar Ualaoghaire - Seadna (1890s)
Joachim Maria Machado de Assis - Qiuncas Borba (1891)
Mary Corelli - The Sorrows of Satan (1896)
Alfred Jarry - Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician (1898)
Valerie Bryusov - The Fiery Angel (1908)
Gaston Leroux - Phantom of the Opera (1909)
Stephen Vincent Benet - The Devil and Daniel Webster (1937)
Douglas Wallop - The Year the Yankees Lost the Penant (1954)
Philip K. Dick - Galactic Pot Healer (1969)
William Gaddis - The Recognitions (1955)
Roger Zelazny - For a Breath I Tarry (1966)
John Hersey - Too Far to Walk (1966)
John Banville - Mefisto (1986)
Clive Barker - The Damnation Game (1986)
Carl Deuker - On the Devil's Court (1989)
Roger Zelazny & Robert Sheckley - If at Faust you don't Succeed (1993)
Tom Holt - Faust Among Equals (1994)
Michael Swanwick - Jack Faust (1997)
Angus Fergusson - The Empress (1997)

Got these from a list of seemingly hard-Faust novels (some are recent SF or Fantasy) but I'm interested in uncovering the soft-Faust ones.

A contender might be 'The Magus' by John Fowles. The 'magician' Conchis systematically degrades his subject, Nicholas, in return for an 'experience'.

[Erichtho]

I can think of some more:
Doktor Faust by Heinrich Heine, a ballet (with a female Mephistophela);
Franziska by Frank Wedekind, a drama (female Faust); and
Ichundich by Else Lasker-Schüler, a drama.

[kiki1982]

How is Heathcliff Faustian? He makes no bargain with any devil - he simply is a devil. But he has no interest in buying souls!

I read an essay that argued that Heathcliff had a lot of reasons to sell his soul to the devil: money, manners/gentlemanly allures, revenge were among them... It was an Oxfort University Press essay, so it had some sense in it. Heatcliff changes dramatically in three years in the book. Before he was a ploughboy... The reason the bargain with the devil is not featured in the book, is that he is not concerned at that moment, but it doesn't make him less faustian...

In the book it even says: 'It appeared [to Nelly] as if the lad were possessed of something diabolical'. Especially after Heathcliff's return he is described with words as: 'hell, devil, demon, goblin, Satan, imp, infernal, diabolical, fiend'. I do not see how it can then be doubted that Heathcliff was intended as a faustian figure.
In Faust, the devil features himself, as in a typical Medieval story, as firstly a dog, black poodle (?) and then changes into a man who will become the servant of Faust. The devil is usually depicted in some or other form and then, when his mask falls off, he goes back to hell and the form in which he appeared entirely disappears. Heathcliff repents. It seems to me hardly possile for the devil himself to get a breakdown of any kind and to abandon his vendetta...
Heathcliff is not merely a figure that walks past and disrupts the lives of others, no, he is a human being that is possessed or makes a pact with the devil because he gains from it, it's a totally different thing...

There were some more books in that article...
The Monk, M. G. Lewis (1796)
The Fatal Revenge or Melmoth the Wanderer, C. R. Maturin (1820)
Die Elixiere des Teufels, E. T. A. Hoffmann (1816, English translation in 1824)