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Folklore Studies, No. 11, University Of California Publications. Additional Editors Are Charles Speroni And M. A. Zeitlin.
THE STORY: Jabez Stone, young farmer, has just been married, and the guests are dancing at his wedding. But Jabez carries a burden, for he knows that, having sold his soul to the Devil, he must, on the stroke of midnight, deliver it up to him. Shortly before twelve Mr. Scratch, lawyer, enters and the company is thunderstruck. Jabez bids his guests begone; he has made his bargain and will pay the price. His bride, however, stands by him, and so will Daniel Webster, who has come for the festivities. Webster takes the case. But Scratch is a lawyer himself and out-argues the statesman. Webster demands a jury of real Americans, living or dead. Very well, agrees the Devil, he shall have them, and ghosts appear. Webster thunders, but to no avail, and at last realizing Scratch can better him on technical grounds, he changes his tactics and appeals to the ghostly jury, men who have retained some love of country. Rising to the height of his powers, Webster performs the miracle of winning a verdict of Not Guilty.
A retelling of the story of Noah's ark, embellished with elements from Romanian folklore, including how the devil sneaked aboard, the reason Noah threw a cat overboard, and the role of a snake in saving the ark. In this Romanian folk version of the Noah story, getting the animals to march, two by two, onto the ark is the easy part. It's Noah's stubborn wife who insists that she's staying on dry land. Frustrated, Noah finally declares, "Oh, you devil, come in!" and not only persuades his wife but also gives the Devil himself the invitation he needed to come aboard.
New essays revealing the enduring significance of the story made famous in the 1587 Faustbuch and providing insights into the forces that gave the sixteenth century its distinct character. The Reformation and Renaissance, though segregated into distinct disciplines today, interacted and clashed intimately in Faust, the great figure that attained European prominence in the anonymous 1587 Historia von D. Johann Fausten. The original Faust behind Goethe's great drama embodies a remote culture. In his century, Faust evolved from an obscure cipher to a universal symbol. The age explored here as "the Faustian century" invested the Faustbuch and its theme with a symbolic significance still of exceptional relevance today. The new essays in this volume complement one another, providing insights into the tensions and forces that gave the century its distinctcharacter. Several essays seek Faust's prototypes. Others elaborate the symbolic function of his figure and discern the resonance of his tale in conflicting allegiances. This volume focuses on the intersection of historical accounts and literary imaginings, on shared aspects of the work and its times, on concerns with obedience and transgression, obsessions with the devil and curiosity about magic, and quandaries created by shifting religious and worldlyauthorities. Contributors: Marguerite de Huszar Allen, Kresten Thue Andersen, Frank Baron, Günther Bonheim, Albrecht Classen, Urs Leo Gantenbein, Karl S. Guthke, Michael Keefer, Paul Ernst Meyer, J. M. van der Laan, Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly, Andrew Weeks. J. M. van der Laan is Professor of German and Andrew Weeks is Professor of German and Comparative Literature, both at Illinois State University.
Of all the myths which have come down to us from the East, and of all the creations of Western fancy and belief, the Personality of Evil has had the strongest attraction for the mind of man. The Devil is the greatest enigma that has ever con-fronted the human intelligence. So large a place has Satan taken in our imagination, and we might also say in our heart, that his expulsion therefrom, no matter what philosophy may teach us, must for ever remain an impossibility. As a character in imagi-native literature Lucifer has not his equal in heaven above or on the earth beneath. In contrast to the idea of Good, which is the more exalted in proportion to its freedom from anthropomor-phism, the idea of Evil owes to the presence of this element its chief value as a poetic theme. The discrowned archangel may have been inferior to St. Michael in military tactics, but he cer-tainly is his superior in matters literary. The fair angels—all frankness and goodness—are beyond our comprehension, but the fallen angels, with all their faults and sufferings, are kin to us. There is a legend that the Devil has always had literary aspi-rations. The German theosophist Jacob Böhme relates that when Satan was asked to explain the cause of God's enmity to him and his consequent downfall, he replied: "I wanted to be an author." Whether or not the Devil has ever written anything over his own signature, he has certainly helped others compose their greatest works. It is a significant fact that the greatest im-aginations have discerned an attraction in Diabolus. What would the world's literature be if from it we eliminated Dante's Divine Comedy, Calderón's Marvellous Magician, Milton's Paradise Lost, Goethe's Faust, Byron's Cain, Vigny's Eloa, and Lermon-tov's Demon? Sorry indeed would have been the plight of litera-ture without a judicious admixture of the Diabolical. Without the Devil there would simply be no literature, because without his intervention there would be no plot, and without a plot the story of the world would lose its interest. Even now, when the belief in the Devil has gone out of fashion, and when the very mention of his name, far from causing men to cross themselves, brings a smile to their faces, Satan has continued to be a puissant personage in the realm of letters. As a matter of fact, Beelzebub has perhaps received his greatest elaboration at the hands of writers who believed in him just as little as Shake-speare did in the ghost of Hamlet's father.