Marlowe's Doctor Faustus

Question 1

What are some issues wiht the text?

Answer 1

Two versions of the play:
- The 1604 version (the “A Text”)
- The “A Text” is “shorter, harsher, more focused, and more disturbing”
- The 1616 version (the “B Text”)
- The “B Text” has new material added & the revisions made the show the censorious influence.

Question 2

Elizabethan Drama

Answer 2

• Morality plays
• Medieval era
• Inclusive / accessible

Question 3

Blank Verse

Answer 3

• Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter
• Echoes the sound and rhythm of spoken English
• Becomes the verse form of choice of Drama
• Blank verse seems to to be used for characters of upper class

Question 4

Tragedy

Answer 4

• It is concerned with the fortunes and misfortunes that befall human beings of title, power and position.
• on of the four oldest forms of Drama.
• The three unities

Question 5

The Three Unities

Answer 5

According to Aristotle, tragedies should adhere to the unities of “time, place, & action” .

Question 6

The Main Plot

Answer 6

• Faustus determines upon magic as the subject worthy of his attentions; summons Mephastophilis, makes pact.
• With Mephastophilis as his guide, views the world & all there is to be known; these studies / lessons begin in some significance, but become increasingly trivial, mundane, meaningless.
• Has moments of guilt & repentance, but always falls back to despair & fails to actually repent.
• In the end, the devils come to claim his soul, dragging him to hell

Question 7

The Subplot

Answer 7

• Wagner, Robin, Rafe  Act 1, Scene 3; Act 2, Scene 2; Act 3, Scene 2
• A comic doubling of the main plot; alleviates the sustained tension of the main plot, treating its serious material more comically.
• Wagner, servant to Faustus, enlists Robin to aid him in his master’s work; Robin, in ‘borrows’ one of Faustus’s books.
• Robin & Rafe summon Mephastophilis, hoping to do further mischief to the Vintner; annoyed by this summoning, Mephastophilis turns Robin & Rafe into an ape & a dog, respectfully.

Question 8

What innovative formal features of “Doctor Faustus” signalled to his contemporaries that his play was somthing new and different?

Answer 8

His use of blank verse.

Question 9

Beyong his defiance of the “three unities”, what other classical dogma or belief did Marlowe defy in his construction of “Doctor Faustus”?

Answer 9

He elected to place a man who is arguably not “great” at the centre of his tragedy.

Question 10

What are the two different ways we can analyze the play?

Answer 10

1) Against the backdrop of the rise of humanism in the period (medieval vs renaissance attitudes).
2) Against the backdrop of Protestant debates about Calvinism.

Question 10

While Marlowe’s play activates some of the familiar features of medieval morality plays, what feature most distinguishes it from them?

Answer 10

The focus on Faustus’s worldly activities and failure to repent.

Question 11

The Three Unities in “Doctor Faustus”

Answer 11

• Two plots: no unity of action
• 24-year timeline: no unity of Time
• Multiple locations: no unity of Place
• Mixing of Tragic and Comedic