Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The Faust legend is the Hydra of literature. One of its heads pops up in the story of Simon Magus, its body reaches from New Testament times to the days of Goethe, while a new head has just sprouted in Stephen Philips's latest drama. The Faust story has all the ear-marks of a legend endowed with eternal youth. More than three hundred years ago the most popular tragedy on the London stage was Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, while the play which is creating the greatest interest to-day on our American stage is a modern treatment of the Faust legend under the title of Der Teufel. So much for the absorbing interest which the story has (and ever will have) in its dramatic form.
page 34 note 1 The English Wagner Book of 1594, edited by A. E. Richards (Literarhistorische Forschungen, vol. 35, 1907), page 54.
page 35 note 1 Pages 67 ff.
page 35 note 2 Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. xxi, 4.
page 35 note 3 Page 68.
page 36 note 1 Page 94.
page 36 note 2 Pages 77, 78.
page 36 note 3 Pages 72 ff.
page 36 note 4 French Influence in English Literature, Upham, New York, 1908.
page 37 note 1 Page 99.
page 39 note 1 See M. L. N., February, 1904.