The two centuries following Goethe’s publication of Faust witnessed a proliferation of dramas based on the Faust legend, representing a wide diversity of nations and languages. Chapter IV discusses the following adaptations of the Faust legend: George Sand, A Woman’s Version of the Faust Legend: Seven Strings of the Lyre (written in French, 1838); W. B. Yeats, The Countess Cathleen (written in English, 1892-1913); A. V. Lunacharsky, Faust and the City (written in Russian, 1908-1916); Frank Wedekind, Franziska (written in German, 1911); Arthur Davison Ficke, Mr. Faust (written in English, 1913-1922); Michel de Ghelderode, The Death of Doctor Faustus: A Tragedy for the Music Hall (written in French, 1925); Dorothy Sayers, The Devil to Pay (written in English, 1939); Paul Valéry, My Faust (written in French, 1940); Lawrence Durrell, An Irish Faustus (written in English, 1963); Vàclav Havel, Temptation (written in Czechoslovakian, 1985); David Mamet, Faustus (written in English, 2003); and David Davalos, Wittenberg (written in English, 2008).

Chapter V traces the fortunes of Faust as he thrived in European, British, and American films. In its analysis of cinematic treatments of the Faust legend, this chapter distinguishes between adaptations and appropriations, defining adaptations as films that make explicit reference to the Faust legend, featuring a character named Faust and a Mephistophelian figure, and appropriations as films that are not explicitly based on the Faust legend, but nevertheless contain most of the characteristics of the traditional Faustian format. This chapter analyzes the following cinematic adaptations of the Faust legend: Murnau’s silent film Faust (German, 1926), René Clair’s The Beauty of the Devil (French, 1952), Nevill Coghill and Richard Burton’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (English, 1967), Jan Svankmajer’s Faust (Czechoslovakian, 1994), and Sokurov’s Faust (Russian, 2011). The chapter also discusses the following British and American cinematic appropriations of the Faust narrative: The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), Alias Nick Beal (1949), Damn Yankees (1958), Bedazzled (1967), Oh, God! You Devil (1984), Crossroads (1986), Angel Heart (1987), and a remake of Bedazzled (2000).