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The Legend Of Faust Research Paper

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To begin, Faust is a fictional scholar in literature who sells his soul to the Devil. The legend is loosely-based on an actual magician who lived in northern Germany during the fifteenth century. Faust was once idealistic, but now disillusioned and bitter with despair. “He foresakes God and makes a perilous deal with the Devil in which he commits his soul to eternal damnation in return for power and knowledge in this life” (The legend of Faust from the Renaissance times, 2016). Faust has studied for years without pleasing progress and loses his faith in his idealism. In his frustration, Faust becomes a black-magic sorcerer and beckons the Devil. The demon he summons is named Mephistopheles. Together they make a pact in which the devil offers to serve Faust for a period of time, in return for his soul and damnation. …show more content…

The term faustian has come to mean a “tarnished deal for worldly power or knowledge at the expense of a higher (spiritual) value or reward, or, simply, ‘possession’ with a thirst for skill or knowledge” (The legend of Faust from the Renaissance times, 2016). Wendell Berry is an American author, farmer, environmentalist, philosopher and visionary who wrote Faustian Economics, Hell hath no limits issued in Harper’s Magazine in May, 2008. Mr. Berry writes that our society’s current dilemma is well symbolized by the Renaissance tragedy, in which the title character wants to obtain all knowledge and the entire world for him; However, Faust is a man supremely lonely and as a final point,

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