Devil's Contract The History of the Faustian Bargain

by Simon, Ed

• ISBN13: 9781685891046
• ISBN10: 1685891047
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781685891039
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2024-07-09
• Publisher: Melville House
• More Book Details
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Summary

"Lively . . . excoriating, eloquent . . . We are all Faustians now." — James Wood, The New Yorker

A devilishly fascinating tour of the Faustian bargain through the ages, from brimstone to blues and beyond . . .

From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain—the exchange of one's soul in return for untold riches and power—has exerted a magnetic pull upon our collective imaginations.

Scholar Ed Simon takes us on a historical tour of the Faustian bargain, from the Bible to blues, and illustrates how the impulse fto sacrifice our principles in exchange for power is present in all kinds of social ills, from colonialism to nuclear warfare, from social media to climate change to AI, and beyond. In doing so, Simon conveys just how much the Faustian bargain shows us about power and evil . . . and ourselves.

Author Biography

Ed Simon is the executive director of Belt Media Collaborative and editor in chief of literary journal Belt Magazine. A staff writer for LitHub, his essays and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Paris Review Daily, the New Republic, and the Washington Post. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his family.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Appointment at Deptford 
        
Chapter 1: Simon Magus: Arch-Heretic, Supreme Necromancer
 
Chapter 2: Christ in the Desert: Two Millennia of Lent
 
Chapter 3: Of Saints and Succubi: Medieval Diabolical Contracts
 
Chapter 4: Great Reckonings, Small Rooms: Searching for the Historical Faust
 
Chapter 5: A Devil Too Many: Kit Marlowe and the Conjuring of Dr. Faust
 
Chapter 6: Going Upstairs, Coming Downstairs: On Witches’ Sabbaths and Black Masses
 
Chapter 7: Faust Is an Artist: Christoph Haizmann and the Infernal Painting
 
Chapter 8: A Romantic Hell: Goethe Saves Faust
 
Chapter 9: Melodies of Damnation: Faust Is a Musician and Composer
 
Chapter 10: Mephistopheles is American: Faustian Contracts in the United States
 
Chapter 11: The Darkest of Arts: Totalitarianism in the Faustian Century
 
Chapter 12: Mephistopheles in Hollywood: The Faustian Desires of Entertainment
 
Chapter 13: The Destroyer of Worlds: Condemned to Apocalypse in the Faustocene