Faust, Robert Johnson, And The Film <i>Crossroads</i>: A Semiotic And Psychoanalytic Reading Of Musical Discourses

Abstract

The legend of Faust, the German scholar-sorcerer, has endured in Western folklore since an anonymous author first recorded accounts of his evil doings in the Faustbuch of 1587.1 Although this legend has its origins in what appears to have been a real-life, well-travelled and well-known scholar of the early 1500s, the details told of Faust's life are as numerous and varied as are the literary works to which it has since given rise.2 From these, essentially two versions of the legend may be discerned. The first follows Christopher Marlowe, wherein Faust ultimately receives his just desserts through eternal damnation. The second may be traced via Lessing to Goethe, where Faust's pursuit of enlightenment is understood as his redeeming feature, and where the authors arrange for his eventual reconciliation with God.

South African Music Studies Vol. 26-27 2006/7: pp.27-45