Entdämonisierung und Verteufelung

What were the effects of texts dealing with the diabolical, and who profited by them? This study, ranging from -Doctor Faustus- via colonial novels and 'satanic' rock music to -The Satanic Verses-, argues that the complexities of rationalization and demonization cannot be contained in the simplistic - and contradictory - topoi of the decline and return of the devil since the Renaissance. Yet amidst these shifts and countershifts there is one phenomenon that seems to defy historical change: the diabolization of authors who dared to write of the devil. "