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This book is about representations of the devil in English and European literature. Tracing the fascination in literature, philosophy, and theology with the irreducible presence of what may be called evil, or comedy, or the carnivalesque, this book surveys the parts played by the devil in the texts derived from the Faustus legend, looks at Marlowe and Shakespeare, Rabelais, Milton, Blake, Hoffmann, Baudelaire, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, and Mann, historically, speculatively, and from the standpoint of critical theory. It asks: Is there a single meaning to be assigned to the idea of the diabolical? What value lies in thinking diabolically? Is it still the definition of a good poet to be of the devil's party, as Blake argued? Dualism -- Soliloquy and the Genius -- Allegory -- Notes -- `The Tempter or the Tempted, Who Sins Most?' -- Doctor Faustus: The Good Angel and the Spirit -- Logo's Soliloquies -- Angelo, Iago, Macbeth -- Notes -- Medieval and Early Modern Devils: Names and Images -- Chaucer's Devil in Green -- Dante: The Devil a Logician -- The Pardoner's and Canon's Yeoman's Tales -- The Harrowing of Hell -- Goodman Devil -- The Porter in Macbeth -- Notes -- From Carnival to King Lear. Ships, Dogs, Fools, and the Picaro -- Bosch, Bruegel, and Dulle Griet -- Rabelais: Pantagruel and Panurge -- Rabelais: on Calumny -- Carnival Time -- Falstaff and Melancholia -- King Lear: Exorcism -- King Lear `I cannot dance it further' -- Notes -- Fallen Fire: Job, Milton, and Blake -- Poor Devil -- Luther, Lacan, Loudun -- The Vagabond God -- and The Pilgrim's Progress -- Milton: `Man's First Disobedience' -- Blake's Job and Milton -- Notes --Masks, Doubles, Nihilism -- The Comic: The Mark of Satan -- `He Who Gets Slapped': Moliere and the Genius -- Haunting: Hogg and Hoffmann -- Nihilism -- Notes -- Goethe: Faust and Modernity -- Part One: Mephisto and Negation -- Margarete -- Intermezzo: George Eliot -- Intermezzo: Mephisto, and Hannah Arendt -- Part Two: Das Ewig-Weibliche -- Faust's Wager -- Notes -- Dostoevsky: Murder and Suicide -- Turgenev: vera and Bazarov -- Demons and Suicide -- The Meek One -- The Karamazov Brothers -- The Grand Inquisitor --Parricide -- Ivan's Devil -- Notes -- Bulgakov, Mann, Adorno, and Rushdie -- Woland and Margarita: The Uses of Madness -- Doctor Faustus -- Adrian's Music: Risking Barbarism -- Conclusion: Mann, The Satanic Verses, and `Evil' -- Notes
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