Faust Research (Jason Bremner)

Faust

Faust or Faustus which is Latin for "auspicious" or "lucky" is the protagonist of a classic German legend. Though a highly successful scholar, he is unsatisfied, and makes a deal with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many forms of artistic entertainment like music and film. The meaning of the word and name has been reinterpreted through the ages. Faust, and the adjective Faustian, is often used to describe an arrangement in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success: the proverbial "deal with the devil." The terms can also refer to an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
Summary of the Story
Faust is bored and disappointed. He decides to call on the Devil for further knowledge and magic powers with which to indulge all the pleasures of the world. In response, the Devil's representative Mephistopheles appears. He makes a bargain with Faust: Mephistopheles will serve Faust with his magic powers for a term of years, but at the end of the term, the Devil will claim Faust's soul and Faust will be eternally damned.
During the term, Faust makes use of Mephistopheles in various ways. In many versions of the story, Mephistopheles helps him to seduce a beautiful and innocent girl, usually named Gretchen, who is destroyed. However, Gretchen's naive innocence saves her in the end and she enters Heaven. However, Faust is irrevocably corrupted; when the term ends, the Devil carries him off to Hell.

Musician
The idea of "selling your soul for instrumental mastery/fame" has occurred several times within music usually in guitar dominated genres and more specifically in pre-World War II rural Blues. Bluesmans' crossroads, located in Tchula Junction, Mississippi, is said to be the universal meeting grounds for such exchange.
• Niccolo Paganini, Italian violinist, who may not have started the rumor but played along with it.
• Giuseppe Tartini, Venetian violinist and composer, who believed that his Devil's Trill Sonata was inspired by the Devil's appearance before him in a dream.
• Tommy Johnson, blues musician
• Robert Johnson, blues musician, who some people claimed he met with Satan at the crossroads and signed over his soul to play the blues and gain mastery of the guitar.