Are there precedents for a female Mephistopheles?
Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal (1857) lays the groundwork—especially when considered alongside the Symbolist art typically used to illustrate them—but there is no Mephistopheles in those poems. There is an 1889 novel Mephistophela, by Catulle Mendès, but the story is not Faustian. In a 1925 edition of Goethe’s Faust, the many drawings by the Irish illustrator and stained glass artist Harry Clarke suggest a feminine aspect (see accompanying image) and in those where Mephistopheles is specifically identifiable it is often not clear what the character’s sex is—they are quite androgynous. But—apart from the occasional provincial production where the character is played by an actress—in literature, art, and opera, Mephistopheles is male.
There are few enough precedents for a female Mephistopheles; there are none, as far as the author is aware, for a Mephistopheles who seeks to enlighten rather than inveigle Faust.
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