Title: Myths of modern individualism : Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe /
Authors: Watt, Ian, 1917-1999.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press,
Year: 1996
Subjects: Individualism in literature; Literature and society.
Abstract: In their original versions, the ultimate fates of Faust, Don Quixote, and Don Juan reflect the anti-individualism of their time: Faust and Don Juan are punished in hellfire, and Don Quixote is mocked. The three represent the positive drive of individualism, which brings down on itself repression by social disapproval. A century later, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe embodies a more favorable consideration of the individual, but only if one refuses to take seriously Defoe's statement that Crusoe's isolation is punishment for disobeying his father.
Contents: Part I: Three Renaissance Myths -- 1. From George Faust to Faustbuch -- 2. The Tragicall history of the life and death of Doctor Faustus -- 3. Don Quixote of La Mancha -- 4. El Burlador and Don Juan -- 5. Renaissance individualism and the Counter-Reformation -- Part II: From Puritan Ethic to Romantic Apotheosis -- 6. Robinson Crusoe -- 7. Crusoe, ideology, and theory -- 8. Romantic apotheosis of Renaissance myths -- 9. Myth and individualism -- Coda: Thoughts on the Twentieth Century -- Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus -- Michel Tournier's Friday -- Some notes on the present.