ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one of the greatest modern works in the German language: Thomas Mann's reprise of the Faust myth in his novel Doktor Faustus, first published in 1947. It also focuses on the text of Doktor Faustus itself and seeks to draw some conclusions about the relationship between theology, philosophy, and realist narrative. The myth of Faust is both theological in origin and one which describes the secularization of the European mind and European literature. It articulates the explosion of secular and scientific knowledge in the Reformation and Renaissance, the intellectual and cultural situation of the Protestant philosopher and theologian in the classical age of German philosophy and theology, and the public and political implications of the Christian tradition in the greatest tragedy of German history. However the myth of Faust, partly because it is a myth about secularization, is also about the problem of writing in modernity which is the problem of European realism.
