The Indifferent Children of the Earth

My main topic was to determine the power dynamic between Faustus and Mephistopheles through a lens of the erotic. We’d spent the whole term looking at how the Elizabethans were actually pretty into having power over others, thus the erotics of a young boy’s body on stage (there’s lots of shit with this). So I thought, well if we can identify erotic elements of a relationship based on the difference in power, we should be able to go the other way, and determine a power dynamic based on the erotic elements.

I started this paper going there is clearly something going on between Mephistopheles and Faustus, right?? Like surely there will be no shortage of scholarship identifying the homoerotic language in this play... RIGHT? Well as it turns out it was actually difficult to find scholarship on the erotics in this play specifically. Weird. So I had to turn to more general topics-- how do men show affection to each other normally in this period? By determining the norm, and attempting to quantify how the relationship between Mephistopheles and Faustus does or does not fit within it, I could study the queer qualities in their relationship, and hopefully from this I could determine who holds the power between the two of them.

So, let’s talk male-male relationships in this time, shall we? I relied heavily on the works of Alan Bray in this particular regard. He wrote an article titled “Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England” in around 1990 that summarizes what he considers to be the normal relationship between two gentlemen of equal or very similar rank. An important detail: this relationship that I am about to summarize is not in fact queer because it was a perfectly normal relationship. That’s not to say they are not gay as hell (pun not intended). As we define relationships now, this absolutely would constitute a gay relationship so please don’t panic as I continue to use the term “gentleman’s friendship.” I am with you all. I just want to point out the weird intricacy of this relationship. It was not considered sodomy to the Elizabethans, and they didn’t have the identity concept of homosexuality we have. It doesn’t mean we are trying to erase the queer aspects in any way, it just means we need to deal with it slightly differently (one reason I put off writing this so long is I’m very afraid people will be like ‘you promised us gay code and now you’re just calling them friends’). That said, Bray outlines two very important features of a friendship between two gentlemen: an outwardly-directed physical relationship, and an inwardly-directed emotional bond.

Let’s break that shit down now. What do I mean when I say outwardly-directed physical aspects? Bray explains that these relationships included public displays of affection. Gentlemen could embrace in public, kiss in public, and in fact share a bed with each other. While the bed-sharing would not be public in itself (they weren’t like hey look watch us sleep!), people would make it very clear who they were sharing a bed with and people would know they were “bedfellows” (Bray 4). This public side of the relationship was incredibly important because these relationships between gentlemen of rank were often power plays in themselves. Everyone wants someone to cuddle and smooch, but at this point in time two gentlemen could essentially protect each other’s rank by showing their bond. Same concept as having powerful friends to my understanding. You have someone to call on if someone wrongs you, who will undoubtedly be on your side. Looking at the public aspects of this, it opens our options for finding examples of this relationship in Faustus a little bit more--rather than just looking for examples of them kissing or embracing (relatively scarce seeing as no stage direction like ever)-- we can look for examples of favors between them (literally everything that happens).

That said, there are some very real places that we do see evidence of Faustus and Mephistopheles sharing a bed. Take for example when Faustus and Mephistopheles visit Rome, Meph has this lovely little present for Faustus:

...and because we will not be unprovided, I have taken up His Holiness’ privy chamber for our use.

                                                                                              (3.1.843-845)

Now ok so a privy-chamber isn’t exactly a bedroom, though some privy chambers may in fact have had a bed, the intimacy of sharing that space remains. So is this in fact an implication that Faustus and Mephistopheles would share a bed there, perhaps even with the Pope (ok but a threesome with the Pope and a literal devil?? Marlowe buddy)? Another piece of evidence for Mephistopheles and Faustus sharing a bed is that right at the end of his life, Faustus confesses to some fellow scholars, crying to one:

Ah, my sweet chamber fellow! Had I lived with thee, then had I lived still, but now I die eternally!

                                                                                               (5.2.1390-1391)

So maybe Faustus and this scholar used to be close and share a bed, but they no longer do. Why? Most likely because Faustus has been bedding down with somebody else recently. Also note Faustus’ use of the word die there, because it has one of my favorite double meanings. “Die” was at this point very much a slang word for orgasm. Amazing Faustus super subtle bro. (I mean to be fair he likely means his actual impending damnation here, but also Marlowe most certainly chuckled as he wrote that shit, and it is still significant that elements of their relationship are coded as erotic).

And I’m not gonna get into the specific favors that I covered in my paper because this is already super long and I haven’t even touched sweetness yet. But idea being, go through the play if you’d like and note all the favors Mephistopheles does for Faustus. You can argue that Faustus “owns” Mephistopheles and thus Mephistopheles has to follow his orders, but I think the next section may complicate that understanding.

OK NOW WHAT MOST OF YOU ACTUALLY WANTED: “sweet.” 

The source you should all start with for interest in the use of this word is Jeffrey Masten’s “Toward a Queer Address: The Taste of Letters and Early Modern Male Friendship.” It is incredibly interesting, and covers what Masten discovers to be “a rhetoric of sweetness between men” (Queer Address 370). First of all, what a fucking great way to put that. he examines the use of “sweet” between Valentine and Proteus and Hamlet and Horatio (”Goodnight, sweet prince” anyone? literally kill me it’s so good). So maybe it wasn’t “queer code” then because that relationship was normal but it sure as hell points to a queer relationship in modern view. Now looking at Faustus, this play is absolutely fucking littered with the word “sweet.” 

Now the angle I used from this article was actually Masten’s examination of the etymology of “sweet” as coming from the word meaning “to persuade” and therefore its use in persuasion between men (think “my good sweet honey lord” Poins turning on that charm to get Hal to play along). But remember how I said the play is littered with sweetness? The thing that struck me when I was looking more into it is that I could not find one example of Mephistopheles addressing Faustus as sweet. Ever. Maybe I missed one but I don’t think I did. So in an equal relationship, Faustus and Mephistopheles ought to share this rhetoric equitably right? So what is up with this why does Faustus call Meph sweet all over the damn place and Meph never reciprocates?? Like honestly what a dick move Meph. This is where my thesis comes in (and I will reiterate, I’m not fully sold on this thesis myself) -- their relationship is not equal. The power truly rests in Mephistopheles’ hands; however, Mephistopheles is clever and knows he cannot let the proud Faustus realize this. So, Mephistopheles allows their relationship to become framed as a gentleman’s friendship in order to rhetorically dominate Faustus.

I ended up looking specifically at the situations in which Faustus uses “sweet” and it is most often at times when Mephistopheles has appeared unwilling to follow his order. Take for example when Faustus asks Mephistopheles to bring him a wife

Faustus. …let me have a wife, the fairest maid in Germany, for I am wanton and lascivious, and cannot live without a wife.

Mephastophilis. How? A wife! I prithee, Faustus, talk not of a wife.

Faustus. Nay, sweet Mephastophilis, fetch me one, for I will have one.

                                                                             (2.1.587-592)

Mephistopheles immediately denies Faustus’ request, and this drives Faustus to flex his persuasive rhetoric with his use of “sweet Mephistophilis.” 

Basically this is where my paper fell apart in my opinion. I don’t think my thesis is necessarily wrong, but it does not cover the intricacies of their relationship. I also am unsatisfied because I essentially draw the conclusion that Mephistopheles only ever is doing his job to drag Faustus to hell and never becomes really close to him, which I just don’t think is true. It bugs me to no end that Mephistopheles never uses the word “sweet” in reference to Faustus. So I’m still examining the text, looking for new sources, I may dip into the B-text a little bit sometime because I used only the A-text for this because it is the one more accepted as “accurate.” 

I hope this interested some of you, I’ll include my whole bibliography that I used for this paper (lots of it was not covered in this summary, and also several things didn’t even make it into my paper because I hit 12 pages very fast). There were a couple more relationships I wanted to examine the erotics of, but I really only got to talk about 2 of them in my full paper. 

Thanks for your interest though y’all! I’m very proud of this work, even though it has a very very long way to go and I’d be interested to hear thoughts on this one.

Bibliography:

Barrie, Robert. “Elizabethan Play-boys in the Adult London Companies”. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 48.2 (2008): 237–257. Web.

Bray, Alan. "Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England." History Workshop 29 (1990): 1-19. Web.

Cox, John D.. “Devils and Power in Marlowe and Shakespeare”. The Yearbook of English Studies 23 (1993): 46–64. Web.

"die, v.1." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 29 May 2016.

"familiar, n., adj., and adv." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 29 May 2016.

Goldberg, Jonathan. Sodometries: Renaissance Texts, Modern Sexualities. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. Print.

Masten, Jeffrey. “Between Gentlemen: Homoeroticism, Collaboration, and the Discourse of Friendship.” Textual Intercourse: Collaboration, Authorship, and Sexualities in Renaissance Drama. Ed. Stephen Orgel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 28-62. Print.

---. "Toward a Queer Address: The Taste of Letters and Early Modern Male Friendship." GLQ:      A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 10.3 (2004): 367-384. Project MUSE. Web. 29         May. 2016. <https://muse.jhu.edu/>.

"ravished, adj." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 29 May 2016.

Richmond, Velma Bourgeois. “Renaissance Sexuality and Marlowe’s Women.” Forum. 16.4 (1975): 36-44. Electronic.

Smith, Bruce R. Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare’s England: A Cultural Poetics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991. Print.

Stockholder, Kay. “‘Within the massy entrails of the earth’: Faustus’s Relation to Women.” “A Poet and a filthy Play-maker”: New Essays on Christopher Marlowe. Ed. Kenneth Friedenreich, Roma Gill, and Constance B. Kuriyama. New York: AMS Press, 1988. 203-219. Print.