Faust (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Johann Goethe
- First Published: 1790
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Philosophical
- Time of Work: Timeless
- Setting: The world
- Genres: Poetry, Drama, Verse drama
- Subjects: Magic or magicians, Sin or Original sin, Ghosts or apparitions, Spiritual life or spirituality, Beauty, Good and evil, Faustian bargains, Spiritualism, Hell, Devils or demons, Demonology, Demoniac possession
- Locales: Earth
Characters Discussed
Faust (fowst), a perpetual scholar with an insatiable mind and a questing spirit. The middle-aged Faust, in spite of his enthusiasm for a newly discovered source of power in the sign of the macrocosm, finds his intellectual searches unsatisfactory and longs for a life of experiences in the world of humans. On the brink of despair and a projected suicide, he makes a wager with the Devil that if he ever lies on his bed of sloth- fulness or says of any moment in life, “Stay thou art so fair,” at that moment he will cease to be. He cannot be lured by the...
[The entire page is 960 words long]
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