Three American Modifications of the Faustian Theme: Stephen Vincent Benét, Gertrude Stein, Jack Kerouac

The article examines three American modifications of the Faustian theme, manifesting essential tendencies of American culture between the two world wars, or more precisely, in the 1930s. S.V. Benét and G. Stein turned to Faust theme in late 1930s, for Jack Kerouac the atmosphere of the 1930s became the cultural substrate that determined his individual interpretation of the Faustian legend, which took its final shape in the 1950s. For Stephen Vincent Benét, the main source of the short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (1937) was the Romantic version of the deal with the devil of W. Irving, which he enriched with the motif of talent as a bargaining chip with the devil. The popularity of S.V. Benét’s version of the Faustian theme, with its stylization of American folklore and delving into national history, is symptomatic of the popularity of the historical genre in the US in the 1930s. Gertrude Stein’s libretto Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (1938) is cross-genre and cross-cultural in nature. This absurdist version of the legend of Faustus, who gains power over electricity and is disappointed with his victory, can be interpreted as a graphic illustration of the modernist crisis of humanism, as evidence of the impotence of man abandoned by God, deprived of morality and a real idea of who he is. Jack Kerouac gained the interest in the Faustian theme from O. Spengler, and his novel Doctor Sax: Faust Part Three (1959, written in 1952) was conceived as a personal-autobiographical sequel of Goethe’s two-part Faust, to incorporate his individual version of Doctor Faust legend as the most important element of his automythology, in toto decisively influenced by mass culture, rapidly developing in the USA in the 1930s.