Lives of Faust

Brief Description: This book is an interdisciplinary reader on the Faust theme in literature and music from the Reformation to the present. Essays by Faust scholars set the texts in context. Peter Werres introduces the collection with The Changing Faces of Dr. Faustus. Osman Durrani and Gerald Strauss discuss contexts of the Faust Book, given in the English translation The Historie of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus. David Wootton compares Marlowes Doctor Faustus and the English Faust Book. Klaus L. Berghahns analysis of transformations of the theme and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance announcements contextualize the popular Puppet-Play of Doctor Faust. Works of Faustian music include the ballad The Just Judgment of God shewd upon Dr. John Faustus, Berliozs The Damnation of Faust, and Gounods Faust. Essays by Henry Bacon and Steven R. Cerf engage the Faust theme in Romantic music and twentieth-century opera. Osman Durrani introduces 19th-Century American Fausts, represented by Hawthornes The Birthmark, and excerpts from Ethan Brand and Melvilles Moby Dick. Faust themes in the 20th and 21st centuries are represented by Valrys My Faust, Shapiros The Progress of Faust, Osman Durranis overview of Faust globalized, and Paul M. Malones work on the Faust theme in rock opera. A reading list is included. Biographical Note: Lorna Fitzsimmons, California State University, Dominguez Hills, USA. Review Quotes: "Fitzsimmons unterteilt ihre Zusammenstellung von Bearbeitungen des Faust-Stoffes in sechs Teile [...]. Die Zusammenstellung kombiniert Primarquellen und einleitende Sekundartexte, deren Auswahl freilich auf beiden Ebenen [...] kontingent scheint."Marina Munkler in: Germanistik Redaktion 2011, Band 52, Heft 1-2"

Contributor Bio:  Fitzsimmons, Lorna Lorna Fitzsimmons is Associate Professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills, Los Angeles, USA.