Doctor Faustus

Question 1

what does Mangan state?

Answer 1

‘Marlowe uses the machinery of the world view to offset the potential attractiveness of Faustus’ daring’

Question 2

what is significant about Dunster’s 2012 production of Faustus?

Answer 2

the same actor plays both Lucifer and the Pope

Question 3

what did the Baines Report suggest?

Answer 3

Marlowe was ‘a fool who cares for only boys and tobacco’- highlights his atheist beliefs, Faustus as his mouthpiece? ‘I think hell’s a fable’

Question 4

what does Butcher refer to Faustus as?

Answer 4

an ‘idealised Renaissance scholar’

Question 5

what is the Pope positioned as in the contemporary Woodcut’s production just like that of Dunster’s production?

Answer 5

positioned as the anti-christ

Question 6

what has Deats stated that links to Enron?

Answer 6

Faustus is a symbol of ‘humanities aspirations, follies and impossible dreams’- links to Enron as Skilling is an unreasonable man- ‘all progress depends on the unreasonable man’-epigraph. Therefore both tragic heroes?

Question 7

what does Cox believe?

Answer 7

that the ambiguity is ‘intentional’

Question 8

what has Deat’s argued that positions Faustus as a tragic hero?

Answer 8

by magnifying his hero’s aspirations… Marlowe stresses the hiatus between Faustus’ over-reach and grasp and thus arguably renders his hero more truly tragic.”

Question 9

what has Ellis-Furmour emphasised Faustus is?

Answer 9

a ‘satanic tragedy’

Question 10

what does Deats state Faustus does?

Answer 10

“He employs fallacious reasoning.’’- links to ‘necromantic books are heavenly’ ‘my heart is hardened, I cannot repent’ - but he can?

Question 11

what have Christian advocates stated about Faustus in regards to the use of morality play and 7 deadly sins etc?

Answer 11

Christian advocates point out that the introduction of emblematic characters from the morality play further reinforces the centrality of human choice, stressing Faustus as an agent of his own fate rather than the victim of a malevolent deity.- responsible for his own actions. Links to belief in free will of Milton- Areopagitica etc. even almost 70 years on… Therefore, can we still feel sympathy? Solely responsible- yet still blames fate! ‘Cursed be the parents that endangered me!’. More of a tragic hero? Fatal flaw = ignorance?

Question 12

what does Deats state about the end of the play?

Answer 12

‘as relentless as classical tragedy’ it ends in ‘harrowing denouement’- links to how we feel sympathy and sense of unjust…

Question 13

what has Deat’s described Faustus as a form of drama?

Answer 13

‘interrogative drama’

Question 14

what has Webb observed about the ambiguity of Doctor Faustus?

Answer 14

the play ‘never allows the audience the satisfaction of certainty’ - of why Faustus is damned. Hubris? Hamartia? Blasphemous language? Pope stuff?

Question 15

what has Sinfield concluded about Faustus in terms of predestination?

Answer 15

although Faustus is predestined to hell ‘the play ironically condemns the God who sends him there’

Question 16

what is significant about the stock comedic characters and how they encourage the audience to view Faustus?

Answer 16

Faustus’ foils, the clowns, Dick and Robin, whose dramatic function as stock comedic characters to juxtapose and complement the main plot is made evident in Dunster’s 2012 production. Their inept and trivial theft of a cup from a tavern is presented as ridiculous, mirroring and therefore devaluing Faustus’ theft of the Pope’s dinner. For his “apish” deed, Dick is “transformed to an ape”, the derogatory punishment resulting in a physical transformation which serves as a visual metaphor for Faustus’ descent down the Great Chain of Being and thus his implied loss of rationality as he succumbs to his animalistic appetites.