Dr Faustus:
Based on a Greek tragedy – chorus (one person) tells people what will happen
Chorus:
Faustus is a high achiever and so much so that he has become bored
Chorus begins with ‘not… nor… nor’ – Faustus is not like any of these things, builds anticipation
Grandiose things the chorus first starts with contrast what we are about to find out about
Faustus
Begins and ends in his study 24 years later – ouroboros he is isolated with his books
Faustus studies in Wittenburg – place of Catholic Revolution
Starts by saying it won’t be about wars and daring deeds but about Faustus’s fortunes – rise and
fall of character
Blank verse:
o Called ‘his heavenly verse’
o Iambic pentameter – metrical foot with 2 beats, 5 in a line
o Sense of rhythm and continuation
o 10 syllables per line – not always
‘Form… fortune’ – repetition of sounds and words
His family is poor from ‘base of stock’, he has come from humble beginnings but he has achieved
a lot – everyman character
The plot begins with him becoming a scholar and learning as much as he could – ‘fruitful plot of
scholarism’
‘Excelling all whose sweet delight disputes’ – he feels he has surpassed others and has as a result
become arrogant and narrow minded
‘heavenly verse’ and ‘heavenly matters of theology’ – wordplay on ‘heaven’ Marlowe
constantly changes words and manipulates them to fit the situation
‘Swollen with cunning of a self-conceit’
o ‘swollen’ – inflated, gorged
o ‘cunning’ – cleverness
o ‘self-conceit’ – hubris, arrogance idea of gluttony later on
References Ovid’s Metamorphoses – ‘waxen wings did mount above his reach’ – Icarus flew to
close to the sun and didn’t heed the warnings of his father, his wings melted and he fell to the
earth Faustus is the overreacher, doesn’t think about the consequences and will end up
falling
o Fall of man, fall of Lucifer
‘And melting heavens conspired his overthrow’ – personification
‘falling to a devilish exercise’ – falling is a recurring image in the play fall to hell
Discusses Faustus’s greed and black magic – ‘glutted more with learning’s golden gifts’ links to
page 110 about Faustus wanting to heap up gold
‘sweet theology’ contrasts ‘sweet… magic’
Lots of enjambment – speech flows
This is a morality play – will end with the taking back on of God and learning from mistakes but
Marlowe has adapted this, Faustus turns away from God and ends up in hell
The audience must learn from his mistakes
Act 1, Scene 1:
Soliloquy
Faustus is reading a variety of books in order to ‘settle’ his studies – place them in an order and
come to a conclusion on them
He finds the Latin where ideas were originated and analyses them, throws it off and moves onto
something else – he finds fault in everything use of Latin links to Latin mass
, In 1578, the Anatomy of Wit was written – scholar returns to study to better himself, antithesis
of what Faustus does
Is approaching the end of his studies and references Aristotle, Galen and Justinian – great
authorities at the time
Consider staging of this scene
‘Dispute’ – the opportunity to discuss something new Faustus is questioning what he has just
read
Starts with philosophy, then moves onto medicine, finishes with religion – must be most
important, been narrow minded about what he chooses to read
Faustus puts the book down – logic not satisfactory
Says heap up gold and become an authority on medicine – then decides that ‘if you cure
everyone what is the point’ – selfish as he does not have the passion to cure others but is
instead looking for riches
Faustus is conceited – he thinks about accomplishments rather than care for others however
he is well known for his medical knowledge and his treatment of people
Limitation of medicine – if you could cure everyone then would it mean eternal life and what
would its implications be is there the power in medicine to bring people back to life?
o At the end of the play he conjures up an apparition of a dead person
Omits the line in the Bible about redemption – picking lines to fit his own conceit
Rejects the Bible and instead turns to black magic which he believes holds the answer to his
problems and will give him an overarching view of the world and power
‘Yet level at the end of every art’, ‘Why, Faustus, hast thou not attained that end?’
o Repetition of ‘end’
o He is frustrated by the ‘ends’ or limits of knowledge
o Irony as at the end of the play, he wants an ‘end’ to his time in hell
Frustrated by the limits of knowledge – ironic as at the end of the play, he wants an end
He rejects a whole book just because of a single sentence
In the Bible, he reads that the reward of sin is death (a) and we are all sinful (b) so the conclusion
he draws from it is that we all must die an everlasting death syllogism (three staged
argument) – he has forgotten the role of Jesus who died for our sins
‘The reward of sin is death. That’s hard’, ‘we must die an everlasting death’
o Ironic as religion is the last thing he rejects before he turns to necromancy
o The whole of the rest of the play revolves around this quote
o Because of his refusal to consider this quote, he lives it for the rest of the play – the
Good Angel, the Old Man
o Whenever he has the chance to read the line he omitted at the beginning, he still pushes
away the thing that will save him from going to hell
o ‘That’s hard’ – harsh stop to line, emphasises the line
o He spends the play avoiding the ‘everlasting death’ right up until his last moment
‘Necromantic books are heavenly’ – again using the same word to describe multiple things,
interchanges words we associate with thing inconsistent character
‘Lines, circles, signs, letters and characters – Ay, these are those what Faustus most desires’ –
long list, as if he is getting overexcited about his prospects
‘O, what a world of profit and delight, Of power, of honour, of omnipotence’
o Faustus never really receives power, it is massively dependent on Mephistopheles
power
‘His dominion that exceeds in this stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man’ – the limit of magic
is the mind of man Renaissance trope
Faustus sends Wagner to seek out and bring him Cornelius and Valdes who will instruct him in
magic
, Syllogism- a mathematically precise method of argument in logic. A conclusion reached by
inference from two premises. May be valid or invalid but cannot be true or false
Good and Evil Angel appear- are they real visitations or possibly his own inner struggles? They
appear immediately, as if conjured
Faustus has decided on necromancy – the entrance of the angels are meant to question his
judgement when he has a choice to make he takes on the opinion of Martin Luther (the sense
of control over where you go after death)
o Contrast to Calvinism
o Audience of time would have been familiar with both Martin Luther and John Calvin –
contrast between how much choice you have over your fate
Use of lexis to do with temptation and salvation
Good Angel:
o ‘damnèd book’ – book of necromancy
o ‘lest it tempt thy soul’ – consequences heavily emphasized
o ‘heap God’s heavy wrath upon thy head’ – harsh sounds in the end the fire and fury
comes from hell
o ‘Read, read the Scriptures’ – criticism that Faustus isn’t a good scholar
o ‘blasphemy’
Evil Angel:
o ‘famous art’ – antithesis to description from Good Angel
o ‘nature’s treasury’
o ‘Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky’ – be a god, link to ‘gain a deity’ in line 65
o ‘Lord and commander of these elements’
As in a traditional morality play- Faustus only hears what the Evil Angel says- offering him power
over the elements
‘Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please’ – it is Mephistopheles that has the power to fetch
things
List of Faustus’ plans:
o ‘fly to India for gold’ going to almost rape the earth of its elements
o ‘ransack the ocean for orient pearl’
o ‘search all corners of the new-found world for pleasant fruits and princely delicates’
o ‘read me strange philosophy’ gain philosophical knowledge
o ‘tell the secrets of all foreign kings’ spirits will spy for him, espionage
o ‘wall all Germany with brass and make swift Rhine circle fair Wittenberg’ rule both
land and water
o ‘fill the public schools with silk’ change the dress codes in universities
o ‘levy soldiers with the coin they bring’
o ‘chase the Prince of Parma from our land’ Spanish governor-general of Netherlands,
hated by English as was a Catholic oppressor
o ‘reign sole king of all our provinces’
Valdes and Cornelius enter but Faustus keeps talking (hubris, self-pride) – his welcome speech is
a recap of him throwing away books in dis-satisfaction
Faustus believes they will ‘canonise us’ – means to become a saint which is highly ironic as you
must live an incredibly devout life blasphemous
Valdes says ‘If learned Faustus will be resolute’ – irony as Faustus never really is resolute
‘philosophy is odious and obscure; both law and physic are for petty wits’ – links to his first acts
of turning away from Elizabethan pillars of education
‘divinity is the basest of the three, unpleasant, harsh, contemptible and vile’ – list of harsh
describing words
‘’Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me’ – ‘ravised’ used earlier to describe ‘sweet analytics’
fickle nature
, The scene is about receiving knowledge and Faustus asks for them to demonstrate how the
magic will work – ‘show me some demonstrations magical, that I may conjure in some lusty
grove and have these joys in full possession’
‘Then wilt thou be perfecter than I’ – Valdes can instruct him in the basic principles of magic but
will soon be overtaken by Faustus
Valdes and Cornelius tell Faustus that the spells they will teach him will make devils and spirits
perform his commands (shape shifting)- a kind of slave owning condition. Faustus is more
interested in what the spirits can bring him. The more experienced magicians are more
interested in what the spirits themselves might mimic
Cornelius says that the spirits ‘can dry the sea and fetch the treasure of all foreign wrecks – Ay,
all the wealth that our forefathers hid within the messy entrails of the earth’ – magic is already
seen as the ransacking of the material wealth from the Earth early display of the limitations of
magic
Hilliam notes:
Faustus’s soliloquy
He’s become bored with books
Analyses the Latin quotes
Every time he reads something, he is dissatisfied
He questions what he reads
Thinks about philosophy
Comes to the conclusion that he will be a doctor – become rich and famous from forming a
cure for something. Then finds something wrong with being a medical marvel – doesn’t care
about the welfare of others.
Turns to law
Moves on to religion – issue with sin is death. If we say we have so sin, then we are lying to
ourselves (no man is free of sin). Faustus picks strands of disappointment from texts to fit his
own conceit (doesn’t mention redemption). Casts off divinity/rejects bible.
Metaphysics of magicians – holds answers. Thinks he is going to have overarching view of
world from black magic – power.
Contemporary Religious Ideology (at the time):
John Calvin:
July 1509-May 1564
‘The eternal decree of God, by which he determined that he wished to make of every man. For
he does not create everyone in the same condition, but ordains eternal life for some and eternal
damnation for others’
He put forward to The Doctrine of Election:
o The doctrine of election is the idea that God, with no regard to the will of man, made an
eternal choice for some people to go to eternal life and some to eternal damnation and
that number is so fixed that it cannot be changed
o Therefore (and because God has absolute power), he divides all humanity into two
predestined groups: the Elect (going to heaven) and the Reprobates (not going to
heaven)
o Humans have no control over God’s decision
o Jesus died but only for the elect (or those that God had chosen)
o Everyone else is damned
o No good deeds, acts, following sacraments can change our fate. God has already decided
who is saved and who is not
