Does the Devil lie at the heart of the creative process? In The Devil as Muse, Fred Parker offers an entirely fresh reflection on the age-old question, echoing William Blake's famous statement: "the true poet is of the Devil's party."

Expertly examining three literary interpretations of the Devil and his influence upon the artist--Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost, the Mephistopheles of Goethe's Faust, and the one who offers daimonic creativity in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus--Parker unveils a radical tension between the ethical and the...