Comparative Literature 204 - WRITINGS AND REWRITINGS

Topics course. What could lead you to you sell your soul? And what fate would await you if you did? Since the 16th century, the story of Faust the scholar-magician-charlatan has explored these questions anew, and each retelling provides a window into the struggles and ambitions of its age: from Elizabethan drama to Soviet-era samizdat, from the Germany of Sturm und Drang to that of the Third Reich. Readings from Marlowe, Calderon, Lessing, Byron, Goethe, Bulgakov, Thomas Mann; films from Murnau, Sokurov.(E)

Topic: The Temptation of Knowledge: Faust, the Devil, and Modernity.