Faust

Faust is a human from a popular German legend who makes a deal with the Devil. Greg Weisman has stated his intention to incorporate the character and legend into the Gargoyles Universe one day. [1][2]

Real World Background

Johann Faust or Faustus, according to legend, was a scholar in Wittenberg, Germany, in the early 16th century who made a deal with the Devil; the contract granted him twenty-four years of great magical powers, but at the end of that term, the Devil dragged him off to Hell.

Christopher Marlowe told the story of Faust in his play, The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, around 1592. In it, he recounted Faustus' pact with the devil Mephistopheles, his various deeds (ranging from conjuring up the shades of Alexander the Great and Helen of Troy to eating an entire wagon-load of hay, playing practical jokes on the Pope, and planting stag's horns on the head of a knight openly skeptical about his abilities), and how, at the end of his life, he was seized by Mephistopheles and fellow devils and borne away to Hell.

In the early 19th century, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe retold the story of Faust in a two-part play, Faust. (The first part was published in 1808, the second part in 1832.) Goethe changed the ending to have Faust saved and borne up to Heaven. Charles Gounod adapted Part One of Goethe's Faust into an opera in 1859.

See also

• Faust at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia