Act 1 Scene 1 Flashcards
Context
Renaissance brought advancements in science exploration and arts were often clashed with mediaeval religious values
“ then read no more thou has attained that end a greater subject fitteth faustuses witt ”
There is no point in doing it anymore
-Fastest sees human knowledge as restrictive and seeks God like power
- Faustus rejects logic and Aristotle is opening soliloquy therefore showing signs of a Renaissance man
-he says the subject is too poor for him and a greater subject is for him showing his pride and hubris
“ there is a whole glistening clean industry above what you’re talking about that no one even thought of yet”
“Yet art thou still but Faustus and a man”
He wants to be more than a man
-He wants to transcend human limitations
-He embodies pursuing knowledge that challenges divine authority
“ the reward of sin is death”
His interpretation reflects his arrogance and superficial understanding of divine authority
-His rejection of authority signals his moral blindness
“ be like we must sin and so consequently die”
It foreshadows his future
-He does not realise how relevant the nature of sin is to his own life
-he knows the consequences of sin is death
-So perhaps he’s responsible for his fall
“ necromantic books are heavenly”
-again representing iconoclast
-It’s a subversion of what other people think is Satanic he sees as heavenly
-This reveals his descent to sin
-He replaces the holy book with the most unholy book he can find
-The oxymoron shows that awareness is abstract for him he’s blinded by selfish desire to constantly chase the next best thing
-He for sakess his faith and goodness in the pursuit of his own satisfaction
-heaven is a Medieval idea
-But he embraces the old-fashioned active necromancy which was common during the renaissance era
-Therefore this is paradoxical as he combined mediaeval and renaissance in one line
-It’s heavily ironic describing the necromantic books as considering the books cause him to turn away from heaven and embrace hell
“ stretches as far as doth the mind of man a sound magician is a demigod”
-Humanism
-Reflects his ultimate ambition to achieve God like power
-Fs in bodies those who define traditional limits reflecting the protestant belief about the dangers of pride and ambition
- lowers gods authority and power by saying he will be like him
- he is saying God is like us which religious people would dispute
-It comes at the end of his cell confirming his aims that he was talking about
-The use of the clique shows his confidence in what he is about to do as he stands alone on stage
” rend the clouds”
He wants to have power over nature as well
-He’s a product of his environment
-The Renaissance of the time which was filled with ambition and growth
- good angel* * bad angel* “ lay that damn book aside” “ go forward”
Allegorical figures embody the struggle between repentance and temptation
-morality plays
- It highlights he has free will and growing alignment with evil
-They symbolise his tempting desires and potential for redemption
-The good angel acts as his moral compass and represents a morality play
-As good and evil angels indicate Faust’s internal conflict
-They are allegories of his mental processes and thus they are allegorical characters
The evil angel symbolise his contradictory thoughts in fastest his mind to embrace necromancy urging him onto sin
-As he follows the evil angel so easily he said to be gullible and innocent
-The fact that she speaks last shows that she has the last say over the good angel
-Like a character in a traditional morality play f appears to hear only the last speaker
-These elements of morality suggest it’s a mediaeval play
“ the conference will be agreed to help to Me that all my labours”
Well, fs is rather self reliant and confident he still relies on others to teach and help him
“I’ll have them wall of Germany” “ I’ll have them fly to India for gold” “ransack the ocean” “ make swift rhine circle fair Wittenberg
The lateral alliteration of the liquid L sound shows impetuous indulgence it makes the list of fs ambitions seem charming and harmless maybe because they are now more reachable
H he does not care at the harm that he will cause
- his desire for knowledge at its core is a desire for power and ambition extends all the way to becoming a king
-It’s all about him he’s indulgent and ego testicle
-his ambitions now seem less outreaching and more materialistic than before
-Rather than wanting to be a God he now just wants a river around Whittenburg for example to create protection
-His ambitions now seem a lot easier to achieve than previous
“Greed”
Absolutely infatuated with the desire for knowledge and power
“ yeah, not your words only but mine own fantasy”
He has now already decided
“ unpleasant, harsh contemptible and vile tis magic magic that hath ravished me”
This is what philosophy law and divinity now are to him
-He repeats magic to emphasise and support his claim
-He has been overtaken and kidnapped by his glutenous desire for knowledge, wealth and power
The sexual and sensual language in ravished makes it sound like his obsession magic has taken control of him without his responsibility
-Therefore it is though he doesn’t deserve what he gets here as he blames magic for ravishing him rather than him rubbishing magic
-Linking to how’ Melting heavens conspired his overthrow’
“ like lions, shall they guard us when we please”
F is tempted by Valdez’s description of immense power fs desire for knowledge is Merely a red herring what he really wants is the power
“ shall make all nations to canonise us”
To become a saint, one must be a servant of God and perform miracles
-The idea that them learning magic and performing this will lead them to be becoming canonised is a paradox as practice of magic requires loyalty to Lucifer and any miracles performed won’t be sly as it’s not God’s will
-Valdez paradoxical understanding of Sainthood makes it obvious when he equates it to mastery and domination expressing a desire to bend the world at his will the exact opposite of what a saint would do
“ be a physician Faustus heap up gold”
“ the end of physics is our bodies health Faustus hast thou not attained that end?
-he considers medicine as a way of making money
-But rejects this once finding out that all this does is achieve health which he already has
-His arrogant and claims he has already achieved the thing that has achieved
-As he has health and that’s all medicine has given
-He also refers to himself using his own name here
-Showing his arrogance therefore rejecting medicine after logic
“ Wouldt thou make men live eternally or being dead, raise them to life again, then this profession were to be esteemed- F
-being a doctor is only good if you can bring back the dead
-This is blasphemous as it goes against God talking about rising the dead
-Blasphemy was an allegation made againt marlow following his arrest so perhaps he was blasphemous and this influenced the play
“ if we say we have no sins, we deceive ourselves” F
- this is admirable as to modern audience members, as we are all humans and it highlight the human conditions
-However here he misses out the other part of the biblical line
-Which goes to say that you can be forgiven if our sins are confessed and mentioned repentance
-He only focuses on the negative part of denial which foreshadows later on when he doesn’t see his sin
-He only uses the lines that suit his argument before he finds nothing but sin and death in the Bible
-Perhaps this could be why he doesn’t repent
-He misses out the last line about repentance suggesting it isn’t religious to repent/
“ divinity adieu”
-he rejects divinity and God
-Transgresses and blasphemous
-could be mirroring Marlow who was arrested for blasphemy
“ all things that move between the quiet poles shall be at my command” F
-The whole world will be at his command
Showing his overreaching ambition be Like God
-He wants to take on the role of God which goes against Medieval idea ideas as this was about being content in the position God gave you
“ ha i am Enron” - skilling
“ reign sole kind of all our provinces ‘’- f
-he shows more signs of a renaissance man
-He aims to be the king proud and arrogant, overreaching ambition
-He goes against mediaeval ideas here as they state that we are in the position God gave us and must be content with this. He clearly isn’t.
“ philosophy is odious an obscure, both Law and physics are a petty wits”
-he compares his feeling for the two subjects in a comic way
-Saying that law and physics are for petty wits
-Comic interludes like this are common features of Elizabeth and tragedies
-He tests medicine more and logic and divinity and sticks to magic
-Refusing to see the wrong in this area of study
-But his study is magic and is yet to be tested and we will later to find out the floors associated with it
“ divinity is basest of the three”
-religion is the worst of the three studies
-Society expected people to conform to the religious faith
-So this is really blasphemous as he transgress his boundaries
-However modern audience members may see this as more admirable because he speaks his mind rather than conforming
-We are also more secular now so may agree with what he is saying
“unwedded maids, showing more beauty in the airy brows” Valdez
- he talks about how F will be able to come up beautiful women with his powers and therefore his sexual intent is seen from the start
-This is seen Claire again and seen 12 when he conjures Helen of Troy
-This suggestion of sexual desire could just be the first hint towards his later intent
“ this night ill conjure though I’ll die therefore”
- skilling risk weekends “ no man who’s prepared to lose is ever going to win
-He says even though he knows the consequences, maybe death he will still conjure - It foreshadows that Faustus will not die in a simple sense in the Christian sense of dying because he went against god - punishment almost
-So he dies because he rejects God showing adding a Christian element to the play
-He knows he will die but he does it anyway showing his ambition
