Works based on Faust explained
Faust has inspired artistic and cultural works for over four centuries. The following lists cover various media to include items of historic interest, enduring works of high art, and recent representations in popular culture. The entries represent works that a reader has a reasonable chance of encountering rather than a complete catalog.[1]
Ballets
Classical music
Operas
Comics and animation
Manga and anime
Popular music
- Blues guitarist Tommy Johnson claimed to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for guitar mastery. Tommy Johnson's claim precedes that of Robert Johnson's.
- Blues guitarist Robert Johnson fancifully said to have acquired his playing skill from the devil at a deserted crossroads. Songs such as "Cross Road Blues" (1936) and "Me and the Devil Blues" (1937) allude to his pact with the devil.
- Faun's song "König von Thule" is a cover of Gretchen's song in the first part of Goethe's Faust (lines 2759-82). Goethe wrote this particular song in 1774.
- Poet JB Goodenough's "Children of Michael" which tells the story of a man named Michael who makes a deal with the year (the devil or fate), to have many children but the year has to "choose one for himself". The story features a chorus throughout, and was recorded by Irish folk singer Tommy Makem on his album Ancient Pulsing.
- The Band's "Daniel and the Sacred Harp" (from the album Stage Fright, 1970)
- Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (from the album A Night at the Opera, 1975)
- Frank Zappa's "Titties & Beer" (from the album Zappa in New York, 1977)
- The Charlie Daniels Band's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" (from the album Million Mile Reflections, 1979)
- Blue Öyster Cult's "Burnin' for You" (from the album Fire of Unknown Origin, 1981)
- The Police's "Wrapped Around Your Finger" single (from the album Synchroncity, 1983) refers to Mephistopheles by way of analogy
- Konrad Boehmer Apocalipsis cum figuris (electronic, instrumental, vocal, 1984)
- The Fall's "Dktr Faustus" (from the album Bend Sinister, 1986)
- Sabbat's "A Cautionary Tale" (from the album History of a Time to Come, 1988)
- Randy Newman's Faust (1995)
- Moonspell's "Mephisto" (from the album Irreligious, 1996)
- Akercocke's "Marguerite & Gretchen" (from the album Rape of the Bastard Nazarene, 1999); the band's name is taken from the talking Capuchin monkey in Robert Nye's Faust.
- Current 93's album Faust (2000), based on a story by Count Eric Stenbock
- The Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Beethoven's Last Night (2000)
- Secret Sphere's "Dr. Faustus" (from the album A Time Never Come, 2001)
- Dimmu Borgir's "The Maelstrom Mephisto" (from the album Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia, 2001)
- Gorillaz' "Faust" (from the album G-Sides, 2001)
- Septic Flesh's "Faust" (from the album Sumerian Daemons, 2003)
- Muse's "The Small Print" (from the album Absolution, 2003; originally titled "Action Faust")
- Kamelot's Epica Saga (Epica, 2003, and The Black Halo, 2005)
- Cradle of Filth's "Absinthe with Faust" (from the album Nymphetamine, 2004)
- Immortal Technique's "Dance With The Devil" (from the album Revolutionary Vol. 1, 2006)
- Konrad Boehmer Doktor Fausti Höllenfahrt (orchestra, 2006)
- Tom Waits's "Lucinda" (from the album , 2006)
- Enigma "Dancing With Mephisto" (from the album A Posteriori, 2006)
- Tenacious D's The Pick of Destiny (2006)
- Little Tragedies' New Faust (2006)
- Switchfoot's "Faust, Midas and Myself" (2006)
- Streetlight Manifesto's "Down, Down, Down to Mephisto's Cafe" (from the album Somewhere in the Between, 2007)
- Radiohead's "Faust Arp" and "Videotape" (from the album In Rainbows, 2007)
- Ihsahn's "Alchemist" (from the album angL, 2008) quotes two passages from Goethe's Faust. The songs "Malediction" and "Elevator" likewise allude to Faustian themes
- Dark Moor's "Faustus" (from the album Autumnal, 2009)
- The Human Abstract's "Faust" (2011)
- Agalloch's Faustian Echoes (2012)
- SicKtanicK's "Faust" (from the album Chapter 3: Awake (The Ministry of Hate), 2012)
- Marilyn Manson's "The Mephistopheles of Los Angeles" (from the album The Pale Emperor, 2015)
- Halsey's "Hold Me Down" (from the album Badlands, 2016) makes a number of sexualized Faustian allusions
- Iron Mask's "Doctor Faust" (from the album Diabolica, 2016)
- Faust is the stage name of black metal musician Bård Eithun.
- Faust, a German Krautrock band
- Ghost's "Call Me Little Sunshine" (From the album Imperia, 2022). Mephistophles is the main protagonist of the song, trying to steal "little sunshines" body.
Fairy tales
Film and television
Non-English-language films
English-language films
Television:
Paintings
Plays
- Faustbuch, anonymous German (1587), the earliest known Faust work
- Jacob Bidermann's Cenodoxus (1602)
- Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (A-text 1604, B-text 1616)
- William Mountfort's The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, made into a farce (1697)
- John Rich's The Necromancer, or Harlequin Dr. Faustus (1723)
- John Thurmond's Harlequin Doctor Faustus (1723) and The Miser, or Wagner and Abericock (1726)
- Gotthold Lessing's Doktor Faust, mentioned in a contribution to a magazine (1759), but otherwise left unfinished and collected and published posthumously (1784) in its original, incomplete form
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust (1806–1832)
- Christian Dietrich Grabbe's Don Juan und Faust (1829)
- Alexander Pushkin's A scene from Faust (1830)
- Nikolaus Lenau's Faust (1836)
- George Sand's Les Sept Cordes de la Lyre (1838)
- Heinrich Heine's Der Doktor Faust. Ein Tanzpoem (1851)
- Dion Boucicault's Faust and Margaret (London, 1854)
- Friedrich Theodor Vischer's Faust. Der Tragödie dritter Teil (Faust: Part Three of the Tragedy, 1862), a parody of Goethe's Faust Part Two
- H. J. Byron's Little Doctor Faust (1877) (a musical burlesque at the Gaiety Theatre)
- W. S. Gilbert's Gretchen, an 1879 play based on Goethe's version of the Faust legend
- Igor Stravinsky's Histoire du soldat (1918), a theatrical piece "to be read, played and danced" with a libretto by C.F. Ramuz
- Anatoly Lunacharsky's Фауст и город (Faust and the City) (1918)
- Michel de Ghelderode's La Mort du Docteur Faust (1925)
- Fernando Pessoa's Fausto Tragédia Subjectiva (Faust Subjective Tragedy)
- Dorothy L. Sayers' The Devil to Pay (1939)
- Paul Valéry's Mon Faust (unfinished 1940)
- Cabin in the Sky (1940)
- Richard Adler and Jerry Ross's Damn Yankees (1955)
- Václav Havel's Temptation (1986)
- Richard Schechner's Faust Gastronome (1994)
- Todd Alcott's Jane Faust (1995)
- George Axelrod's Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1955)
- Little Shop of Horrors, a musical by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken based on The 1960 Film (1982)
- David Ives's Don Juan in Chicago (1995)
- John Jesurun's Faust/How I Rose (1996)
- La Fura dels Baus's (1998)
- David Mamet's Faustus (2004)
- Punchdrunk's Faust in Promenade (2006–2007)
- David Davalos' Wittenberg (2008)
- Edgar Brau's Fausto (2009), a play
- David Massingham and Matthew Townend's Plague! The Musical (2008)
Poetry
Prose fiction
Games
See also
Notes and References
- Lorna Fitzsimmons (ed.), Charles McKnight (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Faust in Music (2019)
