“Demand’st thou, Pedant, too, a document?” – The Past and Future of the Form of the Contract in the Light of Goethe's Faust

The Devil's Pact scene is one of the most famous passages from Goethe's Faust. Until now, little attention has been paid to its underlying theme: the self-binding of the free, enlightened human being through the contract. With this, Faust takes up a turning point in Western philosophical thinking and contract theory. Due to the digitalisation and automation of business processes, we are currently facing another paradigm shift for the contract. In this context, its development in terms of the history of ideas is of particular interest. Using the premises and methodology of Law and Literature research, this paper examines the mechanisms of contractual binding negotiated between Mephistopheles and Faust. The findings are then used to consider the extent to which these concepts may also be effective in the future. The overall result is that the mechanisms outlined in the Devil’s Pact scene will remain important, albeit in new forms and with a different relevance; however, completely new phenomena are not to be expected in this field. Keywords: Devil's Pact scene, form of contract, contractual compliance, digitalisation and automation, future binding mechanisms