I was just studying through the different versions of the classic Doctor Faustus and Faust plays and I was just wondering why the original name changed to Faustus. The original by Marlowe was supposedly loosely based on the man Johann Georg Faust, so why change the name to Faustus? It was later returned back to Faust with Goethe’s version a couple hundred years later. Iv heard that Faustus is the English version of Faust but I don’t know German so I cannot confirm. Though the two names are very often used interchangeably. I know it’s a pretty minor change but I was curious so I thought to ask. Thanks.
by Killer_KitsuneXIII
2 Comments
Latin? Faustus is certainly not the German name. I always assumed it had Latin roots.
So in German, we sometimes tend to leave out endings like -us, because they are just Latin case markers and not actually part of the name. For example, Marcus Aurelius is mostly called Marc Aurel in German.