kay reviews ~ Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Doctor Faustus, written by Christopher Marlowe in 1064, revolves around a doctor turned magician as he strives for greater knowledge than conventional teaching can provide. He strikes a deal with Mephistopheles to sell his soul to the devil and spend the rest of his existence in hell, in return for 24 years of being able to practice magic as well as having Mephistopheles as his servant. Once Faustus becomes omniscient, he takes to pranks, meddling and even manifests Helen of Troy to be his lover for some time. In the final scene, the 24 years are finally up, and after refusing to repent his sins, Mephistopheles then comes to drag Faustus into hell. The play touches upon themes of pride, along with hubris; knowledge; power; religion, and anti-Catholicism; discussions of heaven and hell; sin; ambition and social mobility.
The piece arrives at the beginning of the Renaissance period, and puts a large amount of focus on the idea of hubris, which is “the self elevation of man into the sphere of the divine”, from Bouchard, L. (1989), and how the tragedy of Faustus should be a lesson to the audience. The Renaissance period began spreading out into Europe during the 14th Century, and was a result of many Greek texts and ideologies being discovered and reborn. Faustus could be considered a Renaissance man by some interpretations, he is well read in philosophy, mathematics and the sciences, but still strives for more than what is available to him. Marlowe himself was almost like Faustus in the way that he attended a university and being the “son of a shoemaker” (from Jeffrey Scott’s article in 2008), and social mobility being a theme of the play. Moving from being “base of stock”, Faustus is reading Latin and practicing philosophy with the best of the best, but his need to move further up the ranks, his hubris, leads to his downfall of delving into demonology and making deals with the devil.
Politics and religion were heavily intertwined at the time of publication, and at the time the Protestant faith was the national faith of the country under Queen Elizabeth I. Many Catholics were condemned as a result, and one of the sentiments also held through Marlowe’s work is the anti-Catholic rhetoric. Faustus punches the Pope in the ear during one of the scenes, possibly one of the most anti-Catholic images that Marlowe could have written. Being a Catholic in the Elizabethan era was a very dangerous thing, and Marlowe was likely involved in spying for the Queen by pretending to be Catholic and had Catholics arrested under Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Putting pop-culture references, or as close to, into texts was not an uncommon thing. Shakespeare did the same for Elizabeth I as well as James I, making references to his interest in witchcraft in Macbeth and warnings towards plots to his monarchy in King Lear.
It would be very easy to make Faustus relevant to today’s audience, and perhaps because of the change of attitudes towards religion there could be an even deeper discussion of the Catholic/Protestant/Atheist debate without the strong fear of prosecution. The need to find out more about how the world and the universe works has obviously evolved since Marlowe’s day, but it could be adapted to a more modern look on the existential problems and the things that we are still trying to discover in modern times. The attitudes to hubris, sin and downfalls are also almost universal in the sense that there will always be “sins” or concepts of temptation that could lead to drastic consequences. Perhaps making Faustus a modern man and using technology to replace the “magic” that was used within the play would make it more attractive to a younger audience as well. If a “queer” eye was used to address the play, more LGBTQ+ themes could be explored, the relationship between Faustus and Mephistopheles could be emphasised and clarified under a queer eye. Perhaps even diversifying the gender of the cast, not only genderbending Faustus so that she becomes a woman, but perhaps even eliminating gender altogether so that they become non-binary. This could be exploited even more with Mephistopheles, the shapeshifting demon, and having their gender, their race, their age and their appearance change throughout the piece.
Overall, Doctor Faustus is a slightly challenging read if the reader is not used to the concept of verse and iambic pentameter, but once performed I think the audience would still engage with what it a very controversial and discursive text.
Bevington, D. & Rasmussen, E., 1995. A source of information. In: Marlowe, C., Doctor Faustus and Other Plays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bouchard, L. D. 1989. Tragic Method and Tragic Theology: Evil in Contemporary Drama and Religious Thought. London: The Pennsylvania State University Press. (p. 83)
Cengage Learning Gale, 2016. A Study Guide for Christopher Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus”. Detroit, MI: Gale.
Gill, R. & King, R., 2008. A source of information. In: Marlowe, C., Doctor Faustus. UK: Methuen Drama.
Loehlin, J. N, 2016. A source of information. In: Marlowe, C., Doctor Faustus. London: Palgrave.
Scott, J., 2008. The Influences of Elizabethan Society on the Writings of Christopher Marlowe. The Marlowe Society Research Journal. [online] Volume 05. Abstract only. Available through: https://www.marlowe-society.org/pubs/journal/downloads/rj05articles/jl05_03_scott_societyinfluence.pdf [Accessed: 3rd April]
Sheppeard, S. J., (n.d.). Marlowe’s Icarus: Culture and Myth in Dr. Faustus. In: D. G. Allen & R. A. White, eds. 1995. Subjects on the World’s Stage: Essays on British Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Newark: University of Delaware Press. (pp. 133-145.)
