Marlowe's Doctor Faustus Summary - Complete Analysis - Drama By Christopher Marlowe

Doctor Faustus

                          -By Christopher Marlowe

INTRODUCTION

Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564, and he can be considered the first major Dramatist of the Elizabethan period. Christopher Marlowe was actually of very humble birth. He was born of a shoemaker family but, he was finally educated at the University of Cambridge and he went to think school in Canterbury. All of this education was made possible by several scholarships and the fact that he had a university education helped him to move upwards in the world. so, from being the son of a shoemaker he eventually of course moved in circles of educated people but also amidst royalty to a certain extent because he was said to have been a spy for Queen Elizabeth. However his education was also significant for other things not just for his social mobility because he was educated in Latin and Greek and because he had a university education he was introduced to ways of thinking which were very different from what was popular or amongst the ordinary people of England at that time. So, he learned about civilizations and cultures that were not necessarily English as well as ways of governance such as, the Roman which was a republic and also about religions. Which did not include original sin and the concept of death upon the cross and so on and so forth. So, Marlowe's education then gave him a way of looking at the world which was very different from what was already available to the ordinary people of England. In 1593 at a very young age, Marlowe went to a tavern and there he was stabbed to death. Later on of course there is a discussion as to whether he was a spy and he was under investigation for spike. In addition there are several other problems he was also supposed to have been an atheist in an age when atheism was not permitted and he was also supposed to have with homo sexual or even if not homosexual interested in young boys. 

So, all of these things then make him an outsider figure in a world which we'll see in a fairly uniform. We will now move on to a discussion of the major works of Marlowe and then key ideas and themes in that as well. Marlow's reputation today as a playwright wrestled for major works traveling the great riches and two parts Dr. Fostus's the tragedy of the rich Jew of Malta and Edward ii. In addition to these four he is also said to have written video queen of cartridge as well as the massacre at Paris but those are minor and disputed or maybe written in collaboration with others. Whereas these four are attributed to him and to him alone the fact that his reputation in certain circles equals or nearly equals that of William Shakespeare is significant because what we are seeing then is that before the age of 29 he had written four great plays which are valued the world over and he was dead whereas Shakespeare of course lived to a ripe old age and so on and so forth in the course of which he wrote 38 plays. So these four plays which make up the reputation of Christopher Marlowe can be read together as it can be seen that there are certain themes that occur across these four phase.

MAJOR THEMES IN MARLOW’S WORK

One of the first major themes that record across them is the use and abuse of power first of all is called Marlow examines power itself and various versions of that power. So, if in Edward ii he looks at monarchy power and how mana has to be subdued to the needs of a community. He examines commercial power or how does money buy you power. In Dr.Fostus of course he is talking about the power of knowledge and in travel in declaimed he shows us how an individual from a low birth can come to power and then of course how he abuses that power. so in one sense also all of these plays are to do with social mobility. Now Tamlyn is about somebody who is an impala typically arrogant, ambitious, and powerful. He has many Dramatic speeches and through the exactly Marlow examines what it means to have power when you grew up without it. Also of course the fact that he is lame so somebody who is has a physical problem who then ascends to such great power is examined through this display in the Jew of Malta. what we have is a very interesting play where you have a Jew an outsider to society who delights in the power that his wealth said to him but also delights in the power that he gets because of his evil. His main occupation is to go around doing evil deeds so that people suffer and here the wealth in that sense of power that he gains from watching their suffering. Dr.Fostus's is well known and as the rest of this lesson elaborate is about the desire to control all power and if necessary via demonic or satanic power. So, it is also about the transaction of the human with demons or with the devil to gain power on earth. Here below and there is then of course Edward ii, which again provides us with a saddening tragic picture of a king who in his pursuit of his personal desires. Then has a problem with the kingly power that he exercises and in the end suffers and dies because he is unable to give up his personal desires in the pursuit of his kingly goals.

Marlow's characters then therefore show us how the subject of power is injected into the reading of each of these plays. But it also shows on how individual ambition then negotiates with the structures of the world, but also with the tablets associated with this conflict between personal desire and social or state goals. Social mobility also is something that is integral to Shakespeare - Marlowe's characters and we see this because also Marlow’s himself is an instance of social mobility as is evidenced by the fact that the son of a shoemaker then goes on to become a great playwright but also a spy in the English Court and so on. Now he himself also then speaks of taboos discrimination and how it is possible to be ruined personally and socially because of the social mobility. The other theme that has garnered great attention in Marlow’s work is the theme of predestination or the fact that humans in spite of social mobility in spite of their attempts to move within society. Eventually, lack all agency in determining the course of one's life so even as Marlowe seems to show us that it is possible to do so at the end of the play. We are then told that actually the structures of society will shut you down and eventually you will die in a position of some ruin as opposed to the upward mobility that might initially have the true case. This theme is important because it works as a commentary on social mobility in Renaissance England as well. Now, Renaissance England is a society which is in from upheaval and wherein people were seen to be able to make their fortunes or make their way in life not because of their birth but because of either the education that they gained or because of status that they were occlude to them because of the work that they did. Now even as Marlowe shows us that this can happen he also shows us that the world is not so generous as to allow it to happen in peace and that structures such as either religion or the government at the center will eventually put a stop this kind of upward mobility. We see religion as one of those central structures which govern people's lives and which make them adhere to one set of norms is something that Marlow plays around with this.

In Dr.Faustus where Dr. Faustus is a Doctor of Divinity and is then made to fit into a framework which he does which he wishes to escape from. He does escape from it temporarily but eventually, he is made to fit into that framework and he's made to die because he refuses to fit into it so Marlow also then demonstrates to us how belonging to one faith determines the extent to which you can be seen as a safe and loyal member of a country. wherein it was important to publicly perform loyalty to the monarch over and over again it is also important to really look at the fact that in Marlow what we see is that even though there is free will and agency that free will and agency is limited because eventually if you defy monarchic rules doctrines norms then free will and agency stops coming into play and instead what comes into play is the role of governance within the society which will then eventually lead to your death. so what we can see is that certain key themes record in Marlowe's plays and these were teams which would also have been faced by individuals in the England that Marlowe lived in and this battle between individual interests and beliefs and social and monarchic mandates is something that records across all the four main plays of the Christopher Marlowe that we are here looking at also there is a problem that Marlowe even as you seems to tell us that hard work or education or knowledge can help us to move forward also shows us this beliefe that is at the center of Renaissance Christian society during this period that it is not the individual work that earns in salvation but rather of fact that it is a gift from God so therefore over and over again we're told that good work or the work that we do during our lifetime will not save us or will not damage instead that is something that has been determined before our birth itself.

SUMMARY

Dr.Faustus tells us a story of a renaissance called namely Dr. Faustus himself, who is at the forefront of knowledge in fact, Dr. Kostin begins with a chorus which tells us that, he is somebody who has achieved learning in practically all field and yet he is like caressed Michaelis. who is from classical mythology and who mounts up on wax and wings and then because the Sun melts the wax he falls down and this is of course what Faustus resolved to suppose Sentosa first is who creates by his own work his own ambitions. He creates the possibility that he can rise up and yet because he rises up against the rules and the norms of society he will of course eventually fall and that will be a great fall. Indeed, we are also told that this this desire for knowledge that Faustus epitomises. If, something that he has worked hard for that knowledge. As it is in Darius ll. So, he is a doctor of medicine. He is a doctor of divinity. He is also a doctor of law and all of these he has excelled in and yet he decides that all of these are not really satisfactory.And instead he will then give himself over to necromancy and magic and in doing so then he will gain extra honor extra power. Of course he will become all-powerful. so first is then once he has taken the decision that he will become a student of necromancy if helped in this ambition by other scholars such as values and then together they can't do up message to Phyllis. Now this is of course the entry of the demon into the study of Dr. Faustus and through Mephistopheles. Dr. Faustus makes a pact with Lucifer that he will have 24 years of pleasure and knowledge and power on earth and at the end of 24 years he will then of course give up his soul to Lucifer and it is this gaining of the soul of Dr. Faustus that Lucifer is interested in now the rest of the place then he traces what he does in 24 years. what you see is that he has brief episodes where he tries to achieve some learning so he travels across. He does some interplanetary travel. He goes across and sees the Sun the Moon and all the stars. He asked questions of Nafissatou feelings which basically sometimes answers sometimes does not but most of the time he spends it in luxurious living and in very petty ambitions. He plays games with the Pope. He plays tricks upon the Pope. He does cajoling tricks for the nobility for adductors. He brings grapes which are out of season he goes to Rome and then pesters the Pope. He doesn't feel small funny tricks but nothing which is seriously significant went to have given away one soul to play tricks upon the Pope or to entertain the Emperor does not seem to be an equitable bargain. Instead, he also of course watches masks later performed by devils and eventually, he has a brief affair or a relationship or one-night stand so to speak with Helen of Troy the most beautiful woman in the world. Now this is as much as what he achieves. He given the fact that the pact is for learning and knowledge in exchange for his soul. what we see is that Faustus begins with the desire for learning and knowledge but ends up with having made an exchange wherein he only gains grief fatigue pleasure and eventually, loses a soul and as the 24 years Draw to a close first as is no longer able to believe that he has done something great. Instead, he feels a great anxiety about the damnation that is about to come upon him. He of course at that point is then given the choice by the good angel and the bad angel by an old man that, he could still repent but first is this descends into despair believes that he cannot repent and at it the play ends as it began in Faustus of study. Now what we see is that the fastest who in the beginning was ambitious confident in fact overconfident arrogant and full of certainties is now somebody who is alone despairing and extremely scared. Only wishing to escape the death that waits for him. 

The other major contrast at a setup is that in the beginning first this is somebody who is full of companionship. He has various scholars who come to meet him. Everybody hangs out around him and yet at the end he is this person who's completely alone there is only an old man who comes to meet him and who offers him good advice. By then,   He his only companionship is to be derived from the devil with whom he has been associating through the 24 years.  The epilogue with which the play ends gives us a brief summary of his career and shows us that something that could have gone full fate has then of course being thwarted has been warped out of shape. Instead, he descends into the damnation that the Devils have awaiting for him.

THE SOURCE OF THE PLAY

The significance of Faustus  comes to us from supposedly a real-life  figure who lived in Germany in the 1400 .who was supposed to have  sold his soul to the devil for night and  this person died and there were several  legends which attach themselves to him. Legends of witchcraft and magic and the fact that he sold his soul and eventually, lost his life. All of this was put forward in the form of a biography and it was published in 1587 in England. It comes to the English persons in 1592. As the history of the damnable life and deserve death of Dr. Johan Faustus. It was translated by somebody called PS gent in 1592 and this is the text on which Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus is said to have their base. Because many other things that we find in Marlowe's play we've seen in this text as well Christian tomorrow's text also draws upon English society of this time. Which had a few key figures such as Dr.Faustus. People who were both valuable and are knowledgeable. But who were also dangerous one key person such as the Sir Walter Reilly who was supposed to have achieved great perfection in knowledge and learning and yet was also set to dabble in witchcraft and devil worship. So this association of extreme learning with witchcraft and necromancy is something that was a popular trope in Elizabethan times and in an age when discoveries about the universe about the planets and about the ways in which learning itself was changing. That learning was changing from something that was given to people in books to something that was more of an experiential mode. 

ANALYSIS

The Renaissance of course is the period which inaugurates the questioning sceptical Renaissance mind 

and Faustus epitomizes that but the play as we read it also demonstrates to us that even as you can question as you can be sceptical. There are also limits to how what you can question and how far you can go in your pursuit of learning. So, when we first meet Dr. Faustus surrounded by various colors. These are scholars who represent then to us what is permissible what is acceptable and what is seen as good in the realms of learning Dr. Faustus. Of course transcends this  because then he decides that he will try  out necromancy he will then explore  magic and his transactions with the  devil with methods to Phyllis and with  Lucifer then transcend and move a very  from his institutional affiliation with  the schools of learning that are permissible and acceptable. He of course remains a scholar through the twenty four years of his life which he has given to loose. Which he has gained because of his pact with Lucifer but through those 24 years even though he remains a scholar. What we see is that he indulges far less in scholarly pursuits and indulges far more in random completely petty acts of trickery humor and also just random joking which does not in any way advance his standing as a scholar. So what we see is that initially he begins with the University of Wittenberg. Which is where the play is said the first scene is set his study is in the University of Wittenberg. He moves out from those institutionally sanctioned spaces and then goes into areas where there is a forbidding of the pursuit of learning itself. Which is within the state and within religious authority. So when he has his transactions or his games which he plays with the Pope and with the Emperor we are looking at how learning escapes from sanctioned spaces into non sanction spaces. But what we also see is that even as focus decides that he is superior to my sister Felice and that he is superior also to all other demons he wishes to control them and here then we are looking at the hierarchies that exist within knowledge.

We also see another hierarchy which is put in place because message to feelings is both servant to Faustus but he is also bound to Lucifer so he is servant as well as master to Faustus. He is utterly servant to Lucifer so all the time we are also being told that there are certain hierarchies which are in place and those hierarchies cannot be escaped from and the parody of the clown and Wagner. In which is seen in the cliques that they play are also then scenes which demonstrate to us this hierarchy which is in place the learning that he gains and which he believes will result in damnation. Eternal slavery to Lucifer is how Marlowe exposes the flaw in this absolute straight arrangement which otherwise can be seen between education and social advantage. So, education up to a point is seen a sanctioned. Education up to a point is seen as good but if people transgress those boundaries then of course everything falls apart and which is why in the end when Faustus is awaiting damnation he is scared and he is despairing. He says he will burn all his books but at that point then what he discovers is that even by burning all his books he cannot dead be guaranteed life or even salvation at that point in time. But this leads us to the next major thing within the play and this is of course a team of salvation damnation and the corporeality of all punishment. 

Salvation and damnation is central to the reading of doctor Hospice he gives up his eternal soul to Lucifer he sells the soul knowing in advance that if he does so he will be damned for all eternity he sells it for 24 years of pleasure and of knowledge. what we see is that all of this is linked to the human body as well. so even as knowledge seems to help the human to transcend limitations what we see is that knowledge is also vested in the human body. It is in the human body that one suffers and one dies and this is seen right from the beginning because we are told that there is an experiential form of knowledge which is initially given to us via Mephistopheles and via Faustus itself first is learned by experiencing what he needs to learn and this me see when he travels Mephistophilis takes him to see the Heaven and Hell itself. Where he traveled across the planets across the globe and it is about experience and yet we are told about another range of experiences message to Phyllis when asked by Faustus about how terrible is health comes back with the answer that he had tasted eternal joys of heaven and see in the face of God. So experience is essential both to knowing salvation as well as to be doing damnation. Later on what we see is that this critique of religion is sure in the petty gifts that Faustus receives from necessaries in exchanges for his soul so he gives over his soul and what he receives is experiences of small pleasures. He sees a page it he go he is able to fetch grapes for the Duchess he is able to play tricks upon a pope and he is able to piece several people but these are all things that he experiences in his human body and the final experience is of course when he needs Helen of Troy at the famous speech where he speaks about the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of ilium. All of that is all very well but at the end of it there is the end of mortal life and that end is rested in pain as when we see that initially, when he has to sign away his body. 

He is told to cut his and Draw his blood and his blood disease we are introduced to the theme of corporeality or the necessity for the human body. In this first instance when he is about to sign away his soul later on what we see is that even as he fears damnation it is in his body that he fears it so when we over and over again what we realize is the soul is set up in opposition to the body. Eventually, at the end of the play what we see is that the soul and the body are both required for human life and fastest is about to lose both which is why we are told that the devil's will come to fetch away his soul and yet the last scene of the play tells us that his body has been torn asunder and it scattered his bits upon the state when the clay is so it has a spirit that he enjoys superhuman privileges but it is as a man with a body of flesh and blood that feels pain that he suffers death. So Faustus mother's place then brings together both the human body as well as the eternal spirit and shows us that neither of them can survive a Faustian bargain such as the one which we see here Multan bargains are of course part of popular culture and several works of literature have built upon this one of the most famous was of course Mary Shelley's Frankenstein which shows us about the consequences of attempting to be more than human or trying to reach above human abilities and trying to create something along the lines of what Faustus himself did. He wanted to be more than human in his learning and in his knowledge Frankenstein does more or less the same kinds of things and what we see also is in the popular movies such as bedazzled and the devil's advocate. Which also give us the devil as an allegory for the vices of urban life rapid social mobility and through close professional practices decline in personal integrity. All of this for the service of the devil and unquenchable personal ambition. 

In this lesson we had looked at Christopher Marlowe as being one of the most prominent playwrights after renée's of Renaissance England. we have also examined Dr. Faustus in some detail Dr. fauci's is a text that rewards you constantly if you are to read it and I will strongly recommend that you feed it as well as read this lesson which will give you ways of thinking about Dr. Faustus.