BASC70033 - The Devil: Romantic and Modernist

Course Description

Two of the most complex literary incarnations of the Devil, found in Goethe’s drama, Faust – Part One (1808, revised 1828-1829), and Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel, The Master and Margarita (1928-1940, published 1967), complement each other in a number of ways beyond mere influence. Goethe’s Mephistopheles and Bulgakov’s Devil, Woland, embody the human quest for transcendent knowledge and freedom, including political freedom as well as the awareness of the limitations of human condition. While both works tell compelling universal stories of passion and destruction, Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita also responds to the terror in Stalinist Russia with imagination, sarcasm... and romanticism.

For our first meeting, please read the first 1,200 lines of Goethe’s Faust.