The name “Faust” recalls an early modern legend in which a man named Johannes Faustus sells his soul to the devil (Mephistopheles) in return for extraordinary powers. Almost as soon as the historical figure behind this story died (sometime around 1538), the narrative became extremely popular through chapbooks, puppet theater, and then a theatrical rendition by Christopher Marlowe (Doctor Faustus, c. 1590). In this early Renaissance depiction, Faust represents the new, modern spirit running afoul of the medieval, religious worldview: pride has its fall. In his introduction to Marlowe’s play, Sylvan Barnet suggests:

Faustus the magician is not a worshiper of God, but an operator who manages to impose his will on the material world. He is, in short, an applied scientist, rejoicing in power rather than in contemplation, and in this view, he is a symbol of the Renaissance, that second great attempt (after Periclean Athens) to free the mind from dogma and, by means of reason and experiment, to understand phenomena in terms of cause and effect. (p. xvii)

Faust is a man of extensive knowledge, to be sure. But rather than leading to wisdom, this knowledge creates a hubristic sense of the vanity of the prevailing moral and spiritual order, which he will circumvent in his machinations to achieve his ends. In Marlowe’s opening soliloquy, Faust runs down the list of his learning, and dispenses with all the fields he has mastered as being ultimately unworthy of his time:

Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess: Having commenc’d, be a divine in shew, Yet level at the end of every art, And live and die in Aristotle’s works. Sweet Analytics, ‘tis thou hast ravish’d me!     Bene disserere est finis logices. Is, to dispute well, logic’s chiefest end? Affords this art no greater miracle? Then read no more; thou hast attain’d that end: A greater subject fitteth Faustus’ wit: Bid Economy farewell, and Galen come, Seeing, Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus: Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold, And be eterniz’d for some wondrous cure: Summum bonum medicinae sanitas, The end of physic is our body’s health. Why, Faustus, hast thou not attain’d that end? Is not thy common talk found aphorisms? Are not thy bills hung up as monuments, Whereby whole cities have escap’d the plague, And thousand desperate maladies been eas’d? Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man. Couldst thou make men to live eternally, Or, being dead, raise them to life again, Then this profession were to be esteem’d. Physic, farewell!  Where is Justinian? [Reads] Si una eademque res legatur duobus, alter rem, alter valorem rei, &c. A pretty case of paltry legacies! [Reads] Exhoereditare filium non potest pater, nisi, &c. Such is the subject of the institute, And universal body of the law: This study fits a mercenary drudge, Who aims at nothing but external trash; Too servile and illiberal for me. When all is done, divinity is best: Jerome’s Bible, Faustus; view it well. [Reads] Stipendium peccati mors est. Ha! Stipendium, &c. The reward of sin is death:  that’s hard. [Reads] Si peccasse negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis veritas; If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there’s no truth in us. Why, then, belike we must sin, and so consequently die: Ay, we must die an everlasting death. What doctrine call you this, Che sera, sera, What will be, shall be?  Divinity, adieu! (ACT I, Scene 1, lines 1-46)

Thus dispensing with Logic, Medicine, and Theology, Faust turns to a forbidden learning: the dark arts.

These metaphysics of magicians, And necromantic books are heavenly; Lines, circles, scenes, letters, and characters; Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires. O, what a world of profit and delight, Of power, of honour, of omnipotence, Is promis’d to the studious artizan! All things that move between the quiet poles Shall be at my command: emperors and kings Are but obeyed in their several provinces, Nor can they raise the wind, or rend the clouds; But his dominion that exceeds in this, Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man; A sound magician is a mighty god: Here, Faustus, tire thy brains to gain a deity. (ACT I, Scene 1, lines 47-60)

As modernity progressed and developed, so did the legend of the Faust figure. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, through his plays Faust, Parts I & II (1808, 1832), brought him into the Romantic era, envisioning the character as a tormented thinker, explorer, and visionary of possible worlds—one who isn’t damned for his hubristic aspirations. His Faust’s opening soliloquy has a similar trajectory as Marlowe’s:

I have, alas! Philosophy, Medicine, Jurisprudence too, And to my cost Theology, With ardent labour, studied through. And here I stand, with all my lore, Poor fool, no wiser than before. Magister, doctor styled, indeed, Already these ten years I lead, Up, down, across, and to and fro, My pupils by the nose—and learn, That we in truth can nothing know! That in my heart like fire doth burn. ‘Tis true I’ve more cunning than all your dull tribe, Magister and doctor, priest, parson, and scribe; Scruple or doubt comes not to enthrall me, Neither can devil nor hell now appal me— Hence also my heart must all pleasure forego! I may not pretend, aught rightly to know, I may not pretend, through teaching, to find A means to improve or convert mankind. Then I have neither goods nor treasure, No worldly honour, rank, or pleasure; No dog in such fashion would longer live! Therefore myself to magic I give, In hope, through spirit-voice and might, Secrets now veiled to bring to light, That I no more, with aching brow, Need speak of what I nothing know; That I the force may recognise That binds creation’s inmost energies; Her vital powers, her embryo seeds survey, And fling the trade in empty words away. (lines 354-85)

Faust is a victim of over-reflection. Renaissance, Romantic, or Modernist, the figure remains a symbol of modernity. His reflection drives him to remake the world according to his schemes and designs, at any cost. Of the famous phrase “Faustian bargain,” Barnet notes: “These two words are commonly taken to refer to the belief—one might say to the myth at the heart of Western culture—that we can remake reality to suit our desires” (p. vii; emphasis added). Indeed, cultural theorist David Harvey, in his analysis of Modernism and Postmodernism referenced by A. Severan (see the Preface to the First Edition), insightfully remarks:

The image of ‘creative destruction’ is very important to understanding modernity precisely because it derived from the practical dilemmas that faced the implementation of the modernist project. How could a new world be created, after all, without destroying much that had gone before? You simply cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, as a whole line of modernist thinkers from Goethe to Mao have noted. The literary archetype of such a dilemma is, as Berman (1982) and Lukacs (1969) point out, Goethe’s Faust. An epic hero prepared to destroy religious myths, traditional values, and customary ways of life in order to build a brave new world out of the ashes of the old, Faust is, in the end, a tragic figure. (p. 16)

Such logic, of course, ultimately leads inexorably from the “disenchantment of the world” (Weber) to the “iron cage” of modernity (also Weber). Reacting against the latter was the entire Postmodern tradition. And, indeed, Julian seems to be more or less attempting to bring Faust into the Postmodern age (and beyond). For, despite many overlapping details, the relationship of Julian’s Faust to the  figure of the Faust legend is ambiguous. It is probably best understood, then, as a continuation/elaboration of the traditional legend into the 20th and 21st centuries, just as Goethe had brought the figure into the 19th.