Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [155]
And she knew he would always wonder, even as he put a thousand leagues between them, if he had not left at least a little of his yearning, desperate soul behind him.
ASPECTS OF FANTASY
(PART 3)
In this third article concerning the undercurrents in much of our gothic and weird-story history, Michael Moorcock covers the good-and-evil hero-villain aspects of many classic writers and their works.
—John Carnell, SCIENCE FANTASY No. 63, February 1964
ASPECTS OF FANTASY
(1964)
3. Figures of Faust
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo’s laurel-bough, That sometime grew within this learnèd man. Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall, Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise, Only to wonder at unlawful things, Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits To practise more than heavenly power permits.
—The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
by Christopher Marlowe
A FITTING EPITAPH for the majority of hero-villains whose appearance in fantasy is the subject of this article. It helps, also, to illustrate why horror stories relying on the Christian idea of good and evil no longer convince us so much as they used to. Most modern readers can’t believe in the existence of rewards and punishments for the good or evil man. Yet Faust, and heroes like him, continue to convince in spite of this. There is no denying that even to a wicked old atheist like me, the pathos and tragedy of Marlowe’s closing chorus is moving (even though I suspect him of tacking it on as a sop to the Elizabethan censor).
I intend to make my “Faust-figure” category rather a broad one, partly for reasons of space, partly because Faust is marvelously interpretable. So here the Faust theme will mean roughly the tragedy of the curious and brilliant man destroyed by his own curiosity and brilliance.
In my last article, I described the device of using natural and architectural scenes to induce a mood of terror, strangeness or sublimation. Often this device could dominate the entire novel and characters were very much in second-place, not a serious defect in the terror tale or tale of wonder, but the best fantasies contain a complementary balance of marvel and characterization. The characters need not always be subtly drawn, but they are always archetypes.
The Faustian character-type appears again and again in fantasy tales. He has appeared, in various guises, more than any other type and his development in fantasy fiction is still going on. Ignoring his ancestors (including the magician-alchemist Dr. Johannes Faustus of German legend) we can begin with Marlowe’s rather bitty play about him which was first published in 1604. The play is memorable for some of its passages, but is clumsily constructed and does not have the impact on present-day readers which it obviously had on its Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences.
Basically the story is of brilliant Doctor John Faustus who is a dabbler in alchemy and magic. He contacts Mephistophilis the Devil’s agent, who tempts him to sell his soul. Friends and good angels urge him to desist, but he finally gives in on the following conditions:
First, that Faustus may be a spirit in form and substance. Secondly, that Mephistophilis shall be his servant, and at his command. Thirdly, that Mephistophilis shall do for him, and bring him whatsoever (he desires)…I, John Faustus, of Wittenburg, Doctor, by these presents, do give both body and soul to Lucifer prince of the east, and his Minister Mephistophilis; and furthermore grant unto them that, twenty-four years being expired, the articles above written inviolate, full power to fetch or carry the said John Faustus, body and soul, flesh, blood, or goods, into their habitation wheresoever.
After this businesslike document is prepared, Faustus asks