Mephistopheles

This thesis’ objective is to present characters of Satan, Lucifer and Mephistopheles in the English literature from the Middle Ages and make a definite statement whether they are one and the same being or not. The first chapter covers the biblical, theological, religious, folklore and mythological origins of the devil and explains the meaning of this term. It also defines the term evil. The expert in the field that I frequently make references to in this contribution is Jeffrey Burton Russell. Chapter two analyses the characters of Satan, Lucifer and Mephistopheles in John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Charles Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus. Moreover, other resources that approach those three figures are mentioned, alongside the results of the short questionnaire that I have prepared in order to get a better understanding of where the devil stands in contemporary society.

Nei primi mesi del 1868 il "Mefistofele" di Arrigo Boito (Padova 1842 - Milano 1918), «opera» di soggetto fantastico e filosofico, insolitamente lunga, tutt'altro che convenzionale e in odore di eresia germanico-wagnerista, riscrittura dell'intero Faust goethiano composta da un artista ventiseienne, scapigliato, autore sia della poesia sia della musica, operista esordiente improvvisatosi maestro concertatore e direttore d'orchestra nientemeno che alla Scala, incarnava la quintessenza dell'anomalia. E assolutamente atipica era anche la pubblicazione anticipata del rivoluzionario libretto, dramma in versi del quale l'autore rivendicava con forza la qualità letteraria, qui presentato per la prima volta in edizione critica, corredato di un ampio commento, che include il riscontro puntuale col capolavoro di Goethe e le sue traduzioni francesi e italiane, e introdotto da un saggio che, dalla genesi discontinua al glorioso fiasco del 5 marzo, svela la complessa natura della versione originaria del problematico capolavoro boitiano, del primo dei «due Mefistofeli», due testi in buona parte sovrapponibili ma distinti, non confondibili e nati con ottiche e obiettivi differenti, inconciliabili.

Mephistopheles is the term for the demon or devil found in the Faust tradition, going back to its origins in the sixteenth century. Kierkegaard’s writing on the figure, then, at times touches upon the conception of the Devil in Christian theology, but often his observations about Mephistopheles are confined to the demonic literary figure and cannot necessarily be applied directly to traditional Christian conceptions of the Devil. For example, in one journal entry Kierkegaard quotes Goethe’s Mephistopheles, despite his demonic identity, and seems to approve of his words as a patient reminder of the existence of eternity and God.

Several villains are compared regarding ambition-driven violence, the ontological status of the supernatural, and the nature of evil. When the Earth changed from the center of the universe to a planet orbiting a star, Hell changed from a physical place at the Earth's center to a state of being. Faustus says " I think Hell's a fable " even while signing a contract with Hell's king; such conduct implies the unreason of the whole story. Might Hell prove to be " a fable, " just as Purgatory had recently done? Being extrinsic sequels to human conduct, Heaven and Hell alike make ethics impossible, as they supplant empathy from its place as virtue's central motive and replace it with reward-and-punishment. So if religious ideology is to be affirmed in the theatre despite this deep philosophical weakness at its core, any transgressors must either be visibly damned at death (Faustus), reduced to despair by the shallowness of ill-gotten gains (Macbeth), or defeated by other people's right conduct (Claudius and Macbeth). Before the Renaissance, Hell is a place, full of physical torments, and evil the Satanic influence that drove people there; later, Hell becomes a mere state of mind, and evil an ethical category, no longer a substance.

A comprehensive exploration of Dr. Faust, the man who sold his soul to the Devil, and those who dared to tell his tale.

Volume 1 includes:
New insights into the life and times of the historical Dr. Faustus, the notorious occultist and charlatan who reputedly declared the devil was his ´brother-in-law´. A detailed study of the first Faust books and the popular Faustian folk tales.    Original discussions on Christopher Marlowe´s famous drama and his ´atheistic´ rendition of the Faustian myth, including new a unique and controversial  analysis of the A and B texts.  The days of the Faust puppet plays.  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing´s unfinished Faust drama.

A short essay where the usual identification of Lucifuge Rofocal (Prime-Minister of Hell in the Grimoire Tradition) with Focalor (41st Goëtic Daemon), based on the similarity of their names, is exposed as being impossible. This is also an attempt to unveil some of the mysteries of the "Demon of Pacts", the Black Man of the Witches' Sabbath, the Fool and Devil – Lucifugus Reficul.

“On Rofocale & Focalor, or the Riddle of Lucifuge”:
https://www.academia.edu/resource/work/44125874

My thesis is that Faustus fails in his attempt at self-transcendence because what he asks and receives from Mephistopheles merely substantiate his human nature. Mephistopheles can therefore be viewed as Faustus’ assistant in a quest for self-knowledge.

In this study, the term intermediality, together with the term intertextuality, should serve as a theoretical model for analyzing two diverse texts or types of text from the fields of literature and music on the basis of their medial transmission. The intention is to determine the mutual effects of literature and music on the basis of diachronic text which are to be semantized with one another in the first instance. In addition, it should be stated that the term intermediality, which comes from the corpus of media studies, also makes a notable contribution to new discourses within the recalibration of the subject of German studies in the 21st century. On the basis of theories of intermediality and intertextuality, the following central questions are to be dealt with in the present work: - What is the intermedial relationship between literature and music? What are the similarities or differences between the writing systems of literature and music? Which stylistic devices play a role in the media transformation? At the level of these questions, two texts from different epochs and art genres are used as objects of investigation; Johann Wolfgang Goethe and his great work "Faust" (19th century) and the German-speaking rapper Bushido and his lyrics "Mephisto" (21st century).

Granting corporeality to the elusive Devil has engendered two aesthetics: the figure of the circus-master, and the grotesque. Filmmakers Murnau, Sokurov and Svankmajer have responded to these two figures of diabolical iconography in various ways. In order to depict the inherent intangibility of the Devil figure, they experiment with visual and temporal distortion, special effects, juxtaposition of multiple diegetic worlds and the deployment and reinterpretation of archetypes. These progressive re-imaginings invent new ways of presenting the un-presentable.

Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" has been read to holes by mankind. But, I affirm, no one has yet answered it main question: from where and why did Woland (Satan) come to Moscow. The whole mystery of the novel lies in the answer to this, and this answer is this. // Роман Михаила Булгакова «Мастер и Маргарита» зачитан человечеством до дыр. Но, утверждаю, никто еще не ответил на главный вопрос его: откуда и зачем прибыл Воланд (Сатана) в Москву. В ответе на это заключена вся тайна романа, и вот каков он.

Marlowe’s integrity is nothing in politics and everything in religion; in neither sphere will he tolerate wishful thinking. Milton’s integrity is everything in politics, and nothing in religion; in neither sphere will he give up his wishful thinking. Milton deceives himself, where Marlowe deceives his audience. Milton the republican writes a tyrant God, his text haunted by his own repressed atheism, which is unconsciously concealed by the author from himself. Marlowe the royal spy writes a tyrant God, his subtext an illegal atheism deliberately concealed by the author from most of his audience, and from the authorities.
    When the Earth changed from the center of the universe to a planet orbiting a star, Hell changed from a physical place at the Earth’s center to a state of being. Faustus says “I think Hell’s a fable” even while signing a contract with Hell’s king; such conduct implies the unreason of the whole story. Might Hell prove to be “a fable,” just as Purgatory had recently done? A reading of the justice of Milton’s God is offered, in which the preeminence of the Son over the angel Lucifer is subject to the same critique Thom Paine made of aristocracy (outcomes are determined not by what you do, but by whose son you are), or feminists make of primogeniture (not deeds, but gender and birth order): the Son’s claim is based on difference in kind (“begotten, not made”), matters of birth, not of action or thought. Finally, the false dichotomy between God and Satan excludes the third alternative that this is all a fiction; this structure is important, because common.

This paper belongs with two others, also posted here: "Tragedy, Hamlet, and Luther" and "Guilt, Evil, and Hell in Doctor Faustus and Macbeth."

Document website: https://transdisciplinarypsych.wordpress.com/volume-4-issue-1-2015/

Despite their marginalisation in mainstream Christianities after the European Enlightenment, the figure of the demon endures within modern literature and popular culture, its many artistic "lives" standing in stark opposition to its "deaths" in both the field and narrative frame of Christian theology. Perhaps two of the most famous and influential literary devils are Milton’s Satan and Goethe’s Mephistopheles. Yet while the former rages against his defeat and strives to undo creation, the latter languishes in the half-life of damnation, half-heartedly tempting those deemed already lost. Using a poststructuralist framework drawn from Jacques Derrida, this chapter analyzes both Milton’s Satan and Goethe’s Mephistopheles as occupying a site categorized by Derrida’s concept of survival—a spectral “living on” present both after and before actual death—one in which the sovereign decree of perdition marks both their "death" in theology and their "lives" in literature.

Goethe, var ettiği Faust ile birlikte neredeyse tüm hayatı boyunca yaşamış ve Faust, Goethe ile birlikte büyümüş, olgunlaşmıştır. Çünkü o, Faust adlı eserini henüz 18 yaşındayken yazmaya başlamış ve tam 83 yaşındayken de eseri sonlandırabilmiştir. 1806 yılında ilk bölümü ve 1832 yılında ise ikinci bölümü yayımlanmış olan Faust, Goethe’nin özel hayatından, ruhsal buhranlarından, özellikle de varoluşsal kıvranışlarından önemli izler taşımaktadır. Karakteri eylemlerinin belirlediğini sert bir biçimde ortaya koyan bu büyük eser Faust’u, Mefisto’yu ve dolayısıyla Goethe’yi bizlere sunar iken aynı zamanda tüm bir insanlığın çıkarımını yapmamızı da sağlamaktadır. Goethe, şiddetli arzularını Mefisto üzerinden, bunlardan kaynaklı sancılarını ise Faust üzerinden açığa çıkarabilmiştir.
Bu çalışmada Faust genel hatları ile incelenmiş, Faust’un Goethe’yi anlamada nasıl bir önem taşıdığını ortaya çıkarılmış ve Faust bir insanlık eleştirisi olarak ele alınmıştır.

In Geburt der Tragödie (The Birth of Tragedy) Nietzsche emphasises that "it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified." The fusion of existence and art, as suggested here, is predicated on a synthetic individuation of the Apollinisch and the Dionysisch that Nietzsche seems to tacitly contrast with an ethical-moral phenomenon. However, the prevailing social-conventional polarisation of values - especially of good and evil - are barely repealed in an aesthetic phenomenon. Nietzsche's later reflections in the middle phase of his philosophising point to the fact that aesthetics transcends the moral or ethical dichotomies. In my paper I try to show how Nietzsche seeks in his conception of the aesthetic phenomenon a certain substitute for the 'principium individuationis' that he inherits from Schopenhauer, and how this motif unfolds in his later works into a basic idea of "mask" that "is constantly growing around every profound spirit". Mask as principium individuationis clearly attains the status of an aesthetic phenomenon in which - as Nietzsche puts it - the artist himself becomes a work of art. This requires an extended study of the use of masks in aesthetic contexts - both in the Occident as well as in the Orient - from medieval bacchanalian masquerades or Theyyam to the modern performing arts such as opera, theatre, Kathakali, etc.

Marlowe’s integrity is nothing in politics and everything in religion; in neither sphere will he tolerate wishful thinking. Milton’s integrity is everything in politics, and nothing in religion; in neither sphere will he give up his wishful thinking. Milton deceives himself, where Marlowe deceives his audience. Milton the republican writes a tyrant God, his text haunted by his own repressed atheism, which is unconsciously concealed by the author from himself. Marlowe the royal spy writes a tyrant God, his subtext an illegal atheism deliberately concealed by the author from most of his audience, and from the authorities.
    When the Earth changed from the center of the universe to a planet orbiting a star, Hell changed from a physical place at the Earth’s center to a state of being. Faustus says “I think Hell’s a fable” even while signing a contract with Hell’s king; such conduct implies the unreason of the whole story. Might Hell prove to be “a fable,” just as Purgatory had recently done? A reading of the justice of Milton’s God is offered, in which the preeminence of the Son over the angel Lucifer is subject to the same critique Thom Paine made of aristocracy (outcomes are determined not by what you do, but by whose son you are), or feminists make of primogeniture (not deeds, but gender and birth order): the Son’s claim is based on difference in kind (“begotten, not made”), matters of birth, not of action or thought. Finally, the false dichotomy between God and Satan excludes the third alternative that this is all a fiction; this structure is important, because common.

The following story is taken from G.W.M. Reynolds' novel Faust: A Romance of the Secret Tribunals, which was serialised in the London Journal between 1845 and 1846. Reynolds was of the most popular novelists of his day, being the author of several penny bloods and penny dreadfuls such as The Mysteries of London (1844-48). Reynolds also served as the editor for three highly popular newspapers and periodicals: Reynolds's Miscellany, Reynolds's Political Instructor, and the long-running Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper (1850-1967). Reynolds' Faust novel is based upon the centuries-old eponymous German folktale about a man who sells his soul to Satan to enjoy luxury and fame on earth for a limited period, after which demons drag him to Hell. Although a sympathetic character in adaptations written by the likes of Christopher Marlowe, in Reynolds' novel, Faust is a Gothic villain who often enjoys, through the exercise of his supernatural powers, harming the lives of other people. Having been wronged by the novel's hero, Count Otto of Vienna, Faust determines to punish the city and asks his demon-companion Mephistopheles to see it done. The Demon decides that he will bring a pestilence upon the city and Faust, unaware that Mephistopheles is planning a pestilence, watches in horror as miasmatic vapours envelop the Austrian capital.

A 19th century Catalan author, Vicenç Baruta Valls, wrote Mefistòfeles, a play
in verse and a parody of Gounod’s Faust. It was performed in Barcelona in
1877. Baruta wrote other successful plays and participated in many literary
journals. In Vienna’s 1892 Cultural Exhibition, where the importance of
Catalan theatre is made apparent, this author is mentioned, among others.