Faust

Sep. 8th, 2006 11:36 pm
pasithea: glowing girl (Default)
[personal profile] pasithea
I started reading Faust on the train on the way home from San Francisco last night and finished it up just now.

By in large, it's the same story as The Tragical Story of Dr. Faustus but made a bit clearer and about 3 times as long. There were things I liked about Dr Faustus better than Faust, and vice versa, but those were probably due to the translators more than the story itself.

Unlike the later americanized remake of these stories The Devil and Daniel Webster Neither Faust nor Faustus meet a happy end. Their version of God gives them no last-second redemption for a life of sin. Interestingly, Faust starts off much the same as the story of Job in the Old Testament, and maybe most simply put that's what Faust is about. A man tempted by the devil who didn't have the religious fortitude of Job.

Worth the time to read both of them. Together, they're scarcely 1/16th the length of the bible and quite a lot more fun.

I found the translator's footnotes in Faust to be much more interesting than the ones in Dr. Faustus. In particular, this one caught my eye as something that might be fun to read.

[Footnote 37: "The Talmudists say that Adam had a wife called Lilis before
he married Eve, and of her he begat nothing but devils." Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.


I can't help but think this isn't the kind of book one might find in the library of Egon Spangler. ;) Alas, gutenberg.org is down for updates so I can't search and see if they have a copy.

Ohwell. In the meanwhile, I've got plenty of other books to read.

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