THREE VARIATIONS OF THE FAUST MYTH IN 20TH-CENTURY LITERATURE (Tri variace faustovskeho mytu v literature 20. stoleti)

The article analyses three novels of the 20th-century (Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus, Vladimir Nabokov: Luzhin's Defense and Jachym Topol: Night Job) on the basis of their engagement with the Faust myth on various levels. The problem is productive not only in relation to the understanding of the myth as 'an unceasing cosmic dynamics of the multi-layered contingencies and dependencies of all inter-world entities' that guarantees a transcendence of individual consciousness, but also the genre of the novel, which has an ambiguous relationship towards the myth - either it accepts the mythical imagination of the cosmic order, or it accepts the 'world order'. Readings of these three 20th-century novels bring opportunities for their contextualization within the world of myths from these two perspectives.