Eugène Delacroix. Mephistopheles Flying, from Faust. 1828.

• _{Play Title: Doctor Faustus (The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus)}
• _{Author: Christopher Marlowe}
• _{Written: 1588 or 1589}
• _{Printed: 1604}
• _{Page count: approximately 45}

Summary

Doctor Faustus is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Christopher Marlowe. The play, which is based on the German legend of Faust, exists in two versions: the A-text (1604) and the B-text (1616). It is generally accepted that the A-text is solely Marlowe’s work while the B-text includes another author’s changes and additions. Both versions essentially tell the same story, but scholars advise that they be treated as separate texts.

Faustus signs a deed with the Devil for 24 years of unlimited power in exchange for his immortal soul. The main setting is the university city of Wittenberg, Germany, where Faustus is an eminent scholar. Faustus goes on several fantastic journeys; the episode in Rome receives the most attention. Like most Elizabethan plays, the work has several comic scenes. The central themes explored in the work are those of pride, ambition, and religious faith.

Ways to access the text: reading/listening.

The play is freely available online via Project Gutenberg. The 1604 quarto version includes footnotes, which are particularly important as they provide translations of the various Latin quotes and explain outdated terms and allusions.

There is an audio version of the play on YouTube, entitled, “BBC Radio Drama Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe.” It has a running time of two hours.

Why read/listen to Doctor Faustus?

_{The first and possibly the best version.}  

Doctor Faustus is one of the greatest tales of all time. Marlowe’s dramatization was based upon the German “Faustbuch,” but he was the first to make this story a commercial success on the stage. Innumerable versions of the tale have been told ever since in practically every medium: movies, novels, short stories, operas and even symphonies. Marlowe’s play is not simply about a deal with the Devil, which is a lazy man’s one-line synopsis. It is an engaging and quite complex dramatic work. A man from humble origins goes on to achieve great academic success but his insatiable ambition leads him to make a tragic choice. Only by reading one of the earliest and still most successful versions of the legend will one understand the full implications of a Faustian pact.

_{A feast for the imagination.}

Marlowe’s play is replete with episodes of shapeshifting, invisibility, transportation, and conjuration. Faustus becomes a great master of black magic, so one gets to read fantastic scenes that will fully come to life in one’s mind. It is a wonderful play for a modern reader whose imagination is already stuffed full of fantastic scenes from movies. For example, when Mephistopheles first appears to Faustus, he is so grotesquely ugly that he is asked to change his shape by the terrified mortal. When Faustus soon asks his new servant, Mephistopheles, to supply him with a wife then the results are both amusing and hideous.

_{A deal that no one can refuse.}

At the heart of the play is the deal that Dr Faustus makes with the Devil. It is too simplistic to say that Faustus has been tricked when he signs away his soul. Faustus is an exceptionally intelligent and astute man so the crucial question is how he could sign the deed as assuredly as he does. What Marlowe explores is how Faustus or any one of us will respond when we seem to have attained our wildest desires through a simple deal. What makes Marlowe’s play complex is how he exhibits Doctor Faustus’ psychological response to this agreement as time goes on. One sees how distractions and illusions cloud Faustus’ mind, and one gradually learns what makes this deal so important. If all deals are breakable, then why exactly does the deal at the centre of this play cause such problems? Should one beware of whom one makes a deal with, or is it paradoxically that one should beware of one’s own wishes? The play answers such questions.

Post-reading discussion/interpretation.

_{Multiple ironies.}

Many people would not identify irony as one of the key features of the play. However, it has a vital role. For example, Faustus first practices his magic incantations to “try if devils will obey my hest.” When Mephistopheles immediately appears, Faustus genuinely believes this devil to be under his command. On the contrary, Mephistopheles makes it clear that Faustus’ blasphemous behaviour has put his soul in danger of damnation and that devils naturally rush to such a scene for the potential prize of a soul. This declaration by the Devil’s associate sets the tone for the entire play. Faustus is enamoured with his feeling of power: never fully accepting its false and fleeting nature.

Another major irony is the fact that Faustus signs an agreement with a representative of Hell that consigns his soul to eternal damnation while he simultaneously holds to his belief that Hell is no different from the pagan Elysian Fields (i.e., no punishments). What proof of a fiery Hell would satisfy Faustus if not the physical presence of one of its chief emissaries? Why does Faustus additionally ignore Mephistopheles’ plain admission that he himself is tormented in Hell? This devil even advises Faustus to “leave these frivolous demands” when referencing magic. The tantalizing fulfilment of Faustus’ wildest dreams overwhelms his normal capacity for critical thought, making him vulnerable.

The final and greatest irony is that Faustus’ wish for the power granted by Lucifer eventually thwarts his long-held ambitions instead of fulfilling them. With black magic at his command, Faustus initially declares “I’ll be great emperor of the world.” Despite that, he ends up conjuring spirits of the dead for the entertainment of a real ruler, Emperor Charles V, or getting grapes for the pregnant wife of the Duke of Vanholt, but he never achieves his own goals. In summation, Faustus refuses to acknowledge that the devils always hold ultimate power, that Hell is a real and horrible place, and that his dreams have disintegrated into dust. This is evidence of structural irony in Marlowe’s work; a fallible character, Faustus, fails to gain true insight into the various predicaments he encounters because his reasoning is fundamentally distorted by his prejudiced view. Readers comprehend these situations objectively, and this is how Marlowe communicates Faustus’ brain fog, which was brought about by the intoxicating deal that promised too much.

_{The unbreakable deal.}

Why is the deal that Faustus makes with Lucifer apparently unbreakable? In other words, why must he end up in Hell? There are various interpretations of the play, for example, that Faustus is predestined to be damned, that he loses hope of salvation and despairs, or that he is simply too proud to mend his ways. If one considers Faustus to be predestined for damnation in the religious sense, then the play loses all value as a tragedy because the conclusion holds no surprise. Interestingly, the Chorus open the play by comparing Faustus to Icarus, “his waxen wings did mount above his reach,” which foreshadows his imminent fall. In Faustus’ own last words, he cites fate as the reason for his downfall, “you stars that reigned at my nativity / whose influence hath allotted death and hell.” Nevertheless, it is demonstrated in the play that Faustus has numerous opportunities to break the deal with Lucifer and thereby save himself. The play is deliberately named The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus as he is a man with free will. Therefore, we must consider pride and despair as the key factors in explaining why Faustus does not or simply cannot save himself.

The deal with Lucifer and its potential dissolution are two separate issues. Faustus first signs a legal deed thus promising his soul to the Devil; this is the one-time physical act of putting a blood-wet pen to paper! After this, Faustus proceeds to indulge in a series of misdeeds as part of his new life path that he has consciously chosen. In this respect, the initial signing merely gestures toward but does not actually initiate his slow and tragic descent into Hell. This interpretation explains why any thought of dissolving the deal is not simply a rejection of an old mistake but is instead a rejection of the path he enthusiastically follows for so long. Faustus is an eager minion of Lucifer. To prove his mettle, Faustus blasphemes the Catholic Church, disrespects the Pope in the Vatican, and repeatedly conjures souls from the dead. To renege on the deal would mean the loss of all this power and advantage. However, when Faustus is ultimately faced with Hell as his new home, one may ask why he does not break the deal.

Many representatives of God offer Faustus hope. The Good Angel says, “never too late, if Faustus can repent,” and the Old Man advises Faustus to repent and save himself. At one point, Faustus says “My heart’s so harden’d, I cannot repent.” He despairs at his own litany of misdeeds. The consolations offered by the good side are countered by blood-curdling threats from the evil ones. For instance, the Bad Angel says to Faustus, “if thou repent, devils shall tear thee in pieces,” and Mephistopheles threatens, “I’ll in piece-meal tear thy flesh.” In the end, Faustus feels his wrongs are so injurious to God that he can never be forgiven. He says to his scholarly friend, “Faustus’ offence can ne’er be pardoned.” Before Lucifer comes to collect on his deal, Faustus shudders before a God that he believes can only be punishing, “hide me from the heavy wrath of God.” It is Faustus’ excessive pride and his belief that he has offended God in a way no other man could that seals his fate and blocks his redemption. One must try to understand the psychology of a man who cannot see beyond his sin. A man who, through feeling lost, does indeed become lost.

Works Cited.

Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus and Other Plays, edited by David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen, Oxford World’s Classics, 2008.