The Faust Legend | Frank Baron (essay date 1992)
Frank Baron (essay date 1992)
SOURCE: "The Making of the Historia von D. Johann Fausten: The Emergence of the Faustian Pact," in his Faustus on Trial: The Origins of Johann Spies's "Historia" in an Age of Witch Hunting, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1992, pp. 110-46, 157-68.
[In the following excerpt, Baron discusses the literary tradition of pacts with the devil that preceded the first known instances of the Faust legend in print.]
Augustin Lercheimer speaks of a pact that Faustus had made, but he supplies few details. As far as we know, Lercheimer was the first to claim that Faustus made a pact for twenty-four years and that when he later tried to repent, the devil forced him to sign a second pact and thus brought about his damnation.1
Aber sein geist warnet jn daß er davon [from Wittenberg, where he was about to be arrested] kamm, von dem er nicht lange darnach grewlich getodtet ward, als er jm vier vnd...
[The entire page is 7828 words long]
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