Luther, Faust und der Geist des Kolonialismus

Abstract

The legends about Dr. Faustus date back to Luther’s lifetime with astonishing precision. Even before Johan Spies published the Historia von D. Johann Fausten in 1587, various morally ambivalent motifs associated with Luther had evidently been incorporated into the legendary figure of Faustus. I will concentrate on two of these motifs - the interpretation of the Bible and the pact with the devil - and trace their reception from Spies to Christopher Marlowe’s drama Dr. Faustus (1604) and Goethe’s Faust, the German drama par excellence. Is Faust an alter ego of Luther, a personalization of fundamental questions about the world, about knowledge and ignorance, but also about the modern lifestyle, sublimated through history? And how is Faust connected in this context with colonialism, with the capitalist conquest of the world? I will discuss this more recent history of the impact of Lutheran-Faustian motifs on the basis of the study Fitzcarraldo Faust: Werner Herzogs Film als postmoderne Variation eines Leitthemas der Moderne by Gerhard Kaiser (1993).