Ardea: A Philosophical Novella

What is soul? Can it be forfeited? Can it be traded away? If it can, what would ensue? What consequences would follow from loss of soul — for the individual, for society, for the earth? In the early nineteenth century, Goethe’s hero, Faust, became a defining archetype of modernity, a harbinger of the existential possibilities and moral complexities of the modern condition. But today the dire consequences of the Faustian pact with the devil are becoming alarmingly visible. In light of this, how would Goethe’s arguably flawed drama play out in a 21st-century century setting? Would a contemporary Faust sign up to a demonic deal? Indeed what, in the wake of two hundred years of social and economic development, would be left for the devil to offer him? A contemporary Faust would already possess everything the original Faust in his ascetic cloister lacked — affluence and mobility; celebrity and worldly influence; access to information; religious choice; sexual freedom and the availability of women — though women, it must be noted, currently also partake of that same freedom. The only thing a present-day Faust would lack would be his soul. Would he miss it? Does soul even exist? If it does, it would of course be the one thing the devil could not bestow. So from what or whom could Faust retrieve it? What, in a word, would a contemporary Faust most deeply desire? In pursuit of these questions, Ardea engages a familiar but possibly faulty archetype, that of Faust, with an unfamiliar one, that of the white heron, borrowed from a short story of the same name by nineteenth-century American author, Sarah Orne Jewett. In Jewett’s tale, a soul-pact of an entirely different kind from that entered into by Faust is proposed. It is a pact with the wild, a pledge of fealty, of non-forfeiture, that promises to redraw the violent psycho-sexual and psycho-spiritual patterns that have underpinned modernity. How would a present-day heir to the Faustian tradition, ingrained with the habit of entitlement but also burdened with the consequences of the old pact, respond to the new proposition

‘His most ardent desire is to be ranked with Zola and rejected by Mudie’: Gerard; or The World the Flesh and the Devil – M. E. Braddon’s Fin-de-Siècle Faustian Rewrite

Faust’s pact with the Devil and his subsequent decline into hedonism have been the basis for many rewritings and adaptations since Marlowe’s Elizabethan tragedy. Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s radical rewrite of the Faust myth from a fin-de-siècle perspective – Gerard; or the World, the Flesh, and the Devil (1891) – updates the conflict between God and the Devil vying for man’s soul into a non-supernatural tale to comment on fin-de-siècle bourgeois materialism, atheism and decadence. Braddon draws on two source texts for her adaptation: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust: A Tragedy (1808) and Honoré de Balzac’s La Peau de Chagrin (1831). Braddon’s three main characters critique different, yet interconnecting, social issues: the dandy hypnotist, Justin Jermyn, warns of the dangers of increasing pseudo-scientific knowledge; the nouveau riches Gerard Hillersdon illustrates the harm done to both mind and body when religious doubt and material culture collide; and the fallen woman, Hester, comments on women’s agitation for social change. Overall, Braddon’s combination novel transcends her trademark sensationalism to become an excellent example of the female aesthetic novel

Doctor Faustus

En esta obra de Marlowe, Doctor Fausto es el protagonista. Desde un primer análisis observamos que es un personaje antagonista y ciertamente ambicioso. La primera vez que Fausto aparece, se esta preparando para iniciar su carrera como mago. Fausto representa el espirítu del Renacimiento, con su rechazo de Dios. Habiendo decidido que el pacto con el diablo es la única manera de cumplir sus ambiciones, Fausto se ciega felizmente con dicho pacto.Faustus is the protagonist and tragic hero of Marlowe’s play. We can tell he is a contradictory character who possesses ambition. The first time that Faustus appears, he is just preparing to start his career as a magician. He represents the spirit of the Renaissance, with its rejection of God. Having decided that a pact with the devil is the only way to fulfill his ambitions, Faustus blinds himself happily to what such a pact means

Goethe's Faust and Calderón's El Mágico Prodigioso

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

‘His most ardent desire is to be ranked with Zola and rejected by Mudie’: Gerard; or The World the Flesh and the Devil – M. E. Braddon’s Fin-de-Siècle Faustian Rewrite

Faust’s pact with the Devil and his subsequent decline into hedonism have been the basis for many rewritings and adaptations since Marlowe’s Elizabethan tragedy. Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s radical rewrite of the Faust myth from a fin-de-siècle perspective – Gerard; or the World, the Flesh, and the Devil (1891) – updates the conflict between God and the Devil vying for man’s soul into a non-supernatural tale to comment on fin-de-siècle bourgeois materialism, atheism and decadence. Braddon draws on two source texts for her adaptation: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust: A Tragedy (1808) and Honoré de Balzac’s La Peau de Chagrin (1831). Braddon’s three main characters critique different, yet interconnecting, social issues: the dandy hypnotist, Justin Jermyn, warns of the dangers of increasing pseudo-scientific knowledge; the nouveau riches Gerard Hillersdon illustrates the harm done to both mind and body when religious doubt and material culture collide; and the fallen woman, Hester, comments on women’s agitation for social change. Overall, Braddon’s combination novel transcends her trademark sensationalism to become an excellent example of the female aesthetic novel

Maleficium ò »abuso di sacramento«? Konsensus i kardinal Scaglias inkvisitionsmanual og den posttridentine kirkes forståelse af trolddom i Italien 1560-1620

Maleficium ò "abuso di sacramento"? Consensus In Cardinal Scaglia's Manual and the Post-tridentine Church's Understanding of WitchcraftFor the Roman Inquisition papal bulls and decrees were the official law, but in dealing with superstition it was, in addition, also influenced by its own internal guidelines. These were found in manuals, which provided counsel on correct procedure in treating the crimes subject to its jurisdiction. One of these manuals, written around 1620 by a former inquisitor, Desiderio Cardinal Scaglia, contains a discussion of superstition. Some thirty years earlier Pope Sixtus V had issued the bulle Coeli et Terrae, which was especially directed against magical rites and warned against the common superstitions of country villagers. Such rites were not designated as heresy in the traditional sense of the term, but they were deemed erroneous and unlawful conceptions of Christian faith. An analysis of Scaglia's chapter on witchcraft supplemented with examples from closely examined trials shows that his manual accorded well with the stipulations of the papal bull regarding the correction of the populace's aberrations.The crucial concept in Scaglia's work is superstitione. For the post-Tridentine Church the concept always involved magic, and magic could only be practised by denial of the Catholic faith and in pact with the Devil. This implied that the villager's common superstitions, of which Sixtus had warned, were the result of an individual's denial of Christianity and a pact with the Devil. These were inseparably connected, but Scaglia distinguished between an explicit and an implicit pact, i.e., conscious and non-conscious. In order to determine the nature of the pact, it was crucial according to Scaglia to discover the intention behind magical arts. This meant that the inquisitor had to examine whether the accused had, first of all, been aware of the magical element in his or her deed, and then whether he or she knew that magic was premised on the denial of Christianity and a pact with the Devil. A number of studies have shown that most villagers were unaware that magic presupposed a liaison with the Devil, and they claimed that they had never intended to deny their faith. For Scaglia intention was therefore the decisive factor in determining the question of guilt. The post-Tridentine Church considered the rural population as ignorant and in need of guidance in attaining a correct understanding of the Catholic faith. It was not to be expected that the common man was versed in Church doctrine, and this was one of the reasons why Scaglia as well as the rest of the Inquisition worked with the concept of an implicit pact. They were fully aware that the rural villages, whatever the everyday practice of magic, were not populated by Devil worshippers. The question of intention together with the distinction between an explicit and an implicit pact was influential, on the one hand, in reducing the number of sentences for diabolical witchcraft and, on the other, in providing the Inquisition with grounds for condemning people for common superstition. In practice, it would seem that the Inquisition gave great attention to the education of the populace. Desiderio Scaglia warns against the practitioners of magic who misuse the Church (abuso di sacramento), an offense which like the pact can be divided into explicit and implicit. The worst form of magic was witchcraft (stregoneria), for the witch's intention in the use of magic was to cause harm and in the exercise of magical rites to wilfully desecrate the Church. The witch had entered into a pact with the Devil and was therefore subject to the severest punishment de formali. The death penalty, however, need not be the inevitable outcome for one condemned for explicit magic. Scaglia explains that if, for instance, the accused sees the error in believing that free will can be coerced, he or she can be sentenced more clemently to recant de vehementi. In the case of an implicit pact the inquisitor should sentence the accused to recant de levi, the mildest form. Paradoxically, the Church's and the Inquisition's conception of the common people as ignorant masses led to a significant reduction in the number of executions for witchcraft. Although many were accused of witchcraft and other acts of magic, Scaglia's manual lent support to the Inquisition (and therewith the Catholic Curch), when it chose to persuade the accused to recognise the errors in his or her sinful acts rather than sentence to the death penalty for diabolical witchcraft.Translated by Michael Wolf

Haiti’s Pact with the Devil?: \u3ci\u3eBwa Kayiman,\u3c/i\u3e Haitian Protestant Views of Vodou, and the Future of Haiti

This essay uses ethnographic research conducted among Haitian Protestants in the Bahamas in 2005 and 2012 plus internet resources to document the belief among Haitian Protestants (Haitians who practice Protestant forms of Christianity) that Haiti supposedly made a pact with the Devil (Satan) as the result of Bwa Kayiman, a Vodou ceremony that launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1803). Vodou is the syncretized religion indigenous to Haiti. I argue that this interpretation of Bwa Kayiman is an extension of the negative effects of the globalization of American Fundamentalist Christianity in Haiti and, by extension, peoples of African descent and the Global South