from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Faust \Faust\, or Faustus \Faustus\ (f[^a]s"tus).,
Doctor Johann Faust, a person born at Kundling (Knittlingen),
W["u]rtemberg, or at Roda, near Weimar, and said to have died
in 1588. He was a man of licentious character, a magician,
astrologer, and soothsayer, who boasted of performing the
miracles of Christ. It was believed that he was carried off
at last by the devil, who had lived with him in the form of a
black dog.
[Century Dict. 1906]
Note: The legends of Faust were gathered from the then recent
traditions concerning him in a book which appeared at
the book-fair at Frankfurt-on-the-Main in 1587. It was
called "The History of Dr. Faustus, the Notorious
Magician and Master of the Black Art, etc." Soon after
its appearance it became known in England.
A metrical version of it into English was
licensed by Aylmer, Bishop of London, before the
end of the year. In 1588 there was a rimed
version of it into German, also a translation
into low German, and a new edition of the
original with some slight changes. In 1689 there
appeared a version of the first German Faust book
into, French, by Victor Palma Cayet. The English
prose version was made from the second edition of
the original, that of 1588, and is undated, but
probably was made at once. There was a revised
edition of it in 1592. In 1592 there was a Dutch
translation from the second German edition. This
gives the time of the carrying off of Faustus by
the devil as the night between the twenty-third
and twenty-fourth of October, 1538. The English
version also gives 1538 as the year, and it is a
date, as we have seen, consistent with
trustworthy references to his actual life.
Marlowe's play (' The Tragical History of Doctor
Faustus ') was probably written in 1588, soon
after the original story had found its way to
England. He treated the legend as a poet,
bringing out with all his power its central
thought -- man in the pride of knowledge turning
from his God. --(Morley,
Eng. Writers,
IX. 254.)
This play was brought to Germany about the beginning of
the 17th century, and, after passing through various
developments on the stage, finally became a
puppet-play, which is still in existence. Lessing wrote
parts of two versions of the story. M["u]ller, the
painter, published two fragments of his dramatized life
of Faust in 1778. Goethe's tragedy (which see) was not
published till 1808. Klinger published a romance
"Faust's Leben, Thaten und H["o]llenfahrt" (1791:
Borrow translated it in 1826). Klingemann published a
tragedy on the subject (1815), Heine a ballet "Der
Doctor Faust, ein Tanzpoem" (1851), and Lenau an epic
"Faust" (1836). W. G. Wills adapted a play from
Goethe's "Faust," which Henry Irving produced in 1885.
Calderon's play "El Magico Prodigioso " strongly
resembles Goethe's and Marlowe's plays, though founded
on the legend of St. Cyprian.
[Century Dict. 1906]