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Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was a 16th century playwright, poet, and translator. Considered to be the most famous playwright in the Elizabethan era, Marlowe is believed to have inspired major artists such as Shakespeare. Marlowe was known for his dramatic works that often depicted extreme displays of violence, catering to his audience’s desires. Surrounded by mystery and speculation, Marlowe’s own life was as dramatic and exciting as his plays. Historians are still puzzled by the man, conflicted by rumors that he was a spy, questions about his sexuality, and suspicions regarding his death.
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Reviews for The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
781 ratings33 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And interesting take on the Medieval morality play.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Glad I read this but think that Elizabethan English will continue to be a trouble for me. Maybe I should look for a modern-language version...
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This short but important work seems to pre-figure the more nuanced and complex ethical questions that Shakespeare starts addressing a few years down the line from when this piece was written and performed.The length of the piece makes it easy to analyze, but also leads to a shallowness of meaning. Doctor Faustus, having explored and mastered all the fields of study he knows of, turns to the occult to relieve his boredom. Though constantly advised against it, he summons the demon Mephistopholes and sells his soul to Lucifer in exchange for "four and twenty" years of power.These years are squandered--naturally, perhaps; what is the point of doing anything when you needn't expend any effort doing it? Faustus refuses to repent to God for his sins, and is dragged down to Hell/consumed by demons. End of story. If you don't repent, you're damned, but if you do repent, you're saved. Not quite the multi-layered ethics Hamlet.While the piece might lack in symbolic depth, the language is (in my opinion) very well-crafted, not to mention quotable:Was this the face that launch'd a thousand shipsAnd burnt the topless towers of Ilium?Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.(I remember one of my high school English teachers reflecting that Faustus must certainly have been lonely to summon an apparition of Helen to accompany him. I must admit, though, that I too would like to see just what was so great about this girl!)Overall, one of the 'classic' Elizabethan plays, it lives up to its reputation and is only rated so because it is overshadowed by other formidable works of the time period.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The introductory essay reads almost like a parody of scholarship, and the notes are almost totally useless for appreciating the play. The play itself is great though, particularly the (surprisingly sympathetic) character Mephistophilis. Faustus himself comes across as foolish rather than tragic, and his reaction once his damnation arrives doesn't make him look any better. The demon gets most of the really emotionally affecting lines.I was surprised how much I recognised -- it seems that the play has had just as much influence as any single work of Shakespeare's. Pop quiz: what's the deal with "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it"? Answer: it's Mephistophilis's answer to the question "How comes it then that thou art out of hell?":"Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of GodAnd tasted the eternal joys of heaven,Am not tormented with ten thousand hellsIn being depriv'd of everlasting bliss?"Heavy stuff, to which Faustus proudly replies"What, is great Mephistophilis so passionateFor being deprived of the joys of heaven?Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitudeAnd scorn those joys thou never shalt possess."If you wanted to make Faustus a Tragic Hero, his fatal flaw would be simple: he never listens to sensible advice and warnings.I recommend the play, but the particular edition I've got is not worth searching out. Depending on your flexibility with spelling, it might be worth getting a modern-language edition like this one though.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare's contemporary Christopher Marlowe gives us his version of the Faustian Legend.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The great scenes meeing the devil, Helen, the final damnation) are truly great, but some of the comedy is very feeble.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Doctor Faustus doesn't believe in hell, and so has no fear of conjuring a demon. Faustus wants to sell his soul, which he does, in return for fame, status and knowledge. He quickly begins moving in circles with the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, able to conjure Alexander the Great and Helen of Troy and make himself invisible so he can punch people. His plan is to spend his allotted time being rich, famous and devious, then repent in order to save his soul from Lucifer.For the Elizabethan audience, this play must have been like nothing else. There are devils, the Pope and his Cardinals, Alexander killing his foe Darius, and whores. The theatergoer must have left feeling they had gotten their money's worth. Marlowe was the bad boy of playwrights and this play shows why he had that reputation.The big surprise for me was the amount of Latin spoken, which is a lot. I don't know how much Latin the average person would have understood, especially since illiteracy was the norm, but Marlowe certainly flaunts his fluency in it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Interesting play, rather short. I enjoyed reading the original English translation (from the German) more.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Doctor Faustus won't make you close your head as soon as you close the book, No it will ignite it to question every thought which you encounter in your life with the relation to your major standards in your life wither it is your religion or just thought about life and why we are here
when the story is embodied by a protagonist it will be much closer to you; you will feel the sufferance of the loss and the deviation the shattering that is caused because of confusion, hesitance, indecision and in the end despair.
Maybe some people will think of Faustus as a sinner and that no matter what we do we would not be like him he is damned and he is the one who chose it, so we won't choose it and end up like him, of course! but his humanist side (even if it's sometime more apparent in the play) is within us too. we could encounter a situation when choosing the truth is so much harder than staying on the easy and appealed side, right ?
we may be put in a situation like this, like what happened to Faustus, but I'm not sure if we really could be patient on the verge of choosing the damnation , life is deceiving .. but being fortified by truthful rules will do the trick :)
and in conclusion this is of course a tragic End and tragic play too. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I found this a little dull to start with, due to the way it's written (why does that make me feel bad?). But it picked up when Faustus finally signed the contract. It was actually pretty funny!
Here are just some of Faustus' hijinks...
- Faustus often talks about himself in third person, so I was just imagining him as some sort of crazy doctor
- he doesn't seem to completely realise what he's getting himself into when he signs the contract
- one of the first things he does is ask Mephistophilis for a wife. He is presented with a demon in a dress
- he sees an opportunity to punch the Pope in the face, and takes it. He's going to Hell anyway, so why not?
- he also steals food and wine from the Pope's plate
- he insults a knight by suggesting his wife is committing adultery (makes him wear horns upon his head -> cuckolding) - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Doctor Faustus is a stunning literary jewel by Christopher Marlowe. It is a fascinating and moving religious work. It is hilariously funny at points and brutally serious at others. This story of Victorian jihad (the struggle is lost in this case) couldn’t have been clearer in its message, touching in its story, or crafted better than Marlowe had from his block of marble, the Historia von D. Iohan Fausten, which provided the bones of this spectacular theatrical work.It tells the tale of a Doctor in Wittenburg, Germany. While experimenting in the dark and unholy art of magic, he summons a demon named Mephostophilis. Through the cajoling of the demon and an evil angel, and regardless of God’s offers of forgiveness and callings, the Doctor, John Faustus, sells his soul to Lucifer in exchange for twenty-four years of absolute power given to him by Mephostophilis, who will stay with him until that time and grant whatever Faustus desires. He goes from swindling money from unsuspecting people to even haunting the Pope. And through it all he denies God, trading eternal life in Heaven for a mortal life full of all the knowledge and power that he could ever want. In the end, one hour before his demise and descent into Hell, he is shown of the tortures that await him. And he prays to God for forgiveness, declaring his repentance and begging for mercy. Sadly, Faustus does not receive it, and is torn asunder by demons who proceed to drag his soul away.There wasn’t really anything wrong with the writing at all. It was beautiful and got its point across quite easily. One might even wish for it to be longer! A definite five stars.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5its the first of its kind, so there is no comparison. The only problem in this play is that it has no perfect structure, its a comedy and at the same time its a tragedy, the comical stature dominates entirely in the play leaving the reader completely diminished and disappointed by the unfair tragic ending.If God forgives all,shouldn't the realization be all that needed,why MUST it be ASKED?!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The steps we take to gain knowledge and save our souls... It's a classic for a reason.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I love Shakespeare too, but his verbiage is much harder to follow than Marlowe. This story, what can I say. It's about hubris, forbidden lore, attaining ultimate power and ultimate corruption. It's epic and just as relevant all these years later.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5"Faustus", like all Marlowe's plays, is a fascinating exercise but far from a satisfying one. This seems like a cheap and somewhat naive review to give to one of the most well-known works of the Western canon, but there you go.
After the uneven poems-cum-plays of "Dido" and "Tamburlaine", Marlowe achieved comedic success with "The Jew of Malta", even though it too runs on far too long. "Faustus", which followed, certainly doesn't have THAT problem, and it continues Marlowe's streak of dominating, fascinating leading men. Faustus is one of those roles which is a delight for an actor, as he quite literally sees all of human history, and what lies beyond, but the play is a challenging work. First of all, Marlowe was a pioneer, working in a medium that was far from fully-formed. "Faustus" is a significant step away from his early plays, which are glorified poems at times, and it's only in Faustus' (justified) opening and closing monologues that we get something too lengthy for the stage.
The story itself - the learned man giving up his future life for present glory - would be replayed again and again in both Western and Eastern dramas, and it's not hard to see why. Faustus' most beautiful moments include, of course, his "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?" speech, and his final realisations that he is truly damned. The rest of the play is never quite certain what it wants to be. The comic interludes are (pardon the pun) damn funny, even if they sometimes feel like they wandered in from another play. The Representational elements in Faustus' good and evil angels are - understandably - removed from some modern productions. The play, intriguingly, chooses to portray very little of Faustus' 24-year orgy, instead showing us only the beginning and ending of his deal with Lucifer. It's an enjoyable production, but an uneven one. While Marlowe had managed to tame his language for the stage, he created something lacking in subtlety and still a long way from the bravura productions that Shakespeare was about to start writing for the London stage.
This review - in retrospect - is less than coherent, and I apologise. I don't want to seem like a complete dolt for so blithely dismissing "Faustus". It is a fascinating play done well, and has at its core a character whose desires and fate will probably remain relevant and terrifying as long as we live. As in all of Marlowe's work, moments of pure beauty rise to the surface and the comedy was archetypal for what was to follow with other authors. Yet to me, it still feels slight. It has neither "The Jew of Malta"'s dramatic unity nor "Edward II"'s sheer breadth of character. Instead, it is Marlowe's most crowd-pleasing mature play. A pioneer for its time, and still of merit to the Western canon (whatever you believe that to be) but - sad to say - since eclipsed. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It's one of those plays you need to read through and reread to get the whole idea of what's going on. My first opinion of it was that it didn't make sense and was poorly put together, but once I read it again and allowed myself to get sucked in and think "ok lets say this is possible" I felt like I had a better understanding and can actually say I kinda like the play now. The characters are similar for a reason, and I know this, but it bothers me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This edition comes with an almost oppressive number of notes and commentaries and background pieces and questions to think about. A good read, but I imagine a stage production would be disturbing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This short play is based on a classic German legend about Faust, a scholar who makes a deal with the devil where he proposes to sell give his soul in exchange for unlimited knowledge and pleasure. In Marlowe's interpretation, Doctor Faustus asks the Devil for twenty-four years of life during which time the demon Mephistopheles will do his bidding, in exchange for his soul which will spend eternity in the fires of hell, and he signs his pact with Lucifer in his own blood to finalize the deal. Throughout the play, we see Doctor Faustus being pulled between his craving for unlimited power and his yearning for salvation, with the Good Angel urging him to repent and the Bad Angel encouraging him to fulfill his promise. Faustus chooses to keep to the path of sin for the privileges that power affords him, such as the ability to perform magic, and is taken to hell by Mephistopheles when his time on earth is expired. Of course, there is much more that can be said about this play, but I am not a scholar and have found that Wikipedia gives a very interesting—and thorough—analysis of it. I did have a little bit of trouble understanding some of the old English and numerous Latin quotes and expression, although these were translated in my annotated version. I was expecting a very serious and dark approach to this story, but was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was in fact treated with quite a lot of humour. I initially became interested in the legend of Faust when I was reading [The Master and Margarita], which is why I got this book, forgetting all along that Bulgakov had based himself on Goethe's [Faust], written much later, but am glad I did read the Elizabethan classic interpretation first which will give me something to compare Goethe's version to when I get to it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A tragic tale, yet not so tragic, if you think about it. Faustus isn't exactly a character you can really cheer for, given his devilish tricks and arrogance.I enjoyed reading Doctor Faustus, despite being assigned to read it for English class. It was an interesting story, and I would read it again.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dr. Faustus is the classic tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil in return for power and prestige. This is the story that so many similar stories over the years have taken their cues from.This is one of those plays that gets mentioned in pop culture so much that Faust is just an accepted part of the cultural zeitgeist. There was even a short lived television show in which two agents for Good tracked down humans who had made deals with the devil called "Faustians."I feel like everyone should either read or see this play performed at least once in their lives.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5READ IN ENGLISH
It is one of the stories you've read parts of in class or maybe just heard about (it is after all not as well known as Shakespeare; but I personally like this one better).
Dr. Faustus is tempted to sell his soul to the devil in order to make his wishes (ultimate wisdom for example) come true.
The story shows similarities to a well known 16th century Dutch play called 'Marieken van Nieumeghen'; in which Marieken also makes a deal with Mephisto in exchange for wisdom.
It's a short read, just sit down an hour or two and read this book. It's available for free on forgottenbooks.com. I liked the Latin in it as well, but when you can't translate it, it's not a problem to understand the story. Personally I liked the notes which came with the story (as it is a play) and some seemed rather extraordinary but were fun to read and imagine Enjoy the story! - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A must read, it's a classic
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Even if you haven't read this play, you're probably familiar with the tale of Dr. Faustus. The fact that this tale has proven so enduring over the centuries is due in good part to the power of this text. Reading this play, it's hard to believe that it was written back in the 1500s. Marlowe is every bit as good as his contemporary, William Shakespeare.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Perhaps it's because this play only survives in two very different source texts, I couldn't help feeling that it didn't work nearly as smoothly as I had hoped. Mostly enjoyed it, except for the occasional cobbled-togetherness. The story itself is a classic.Could have done with a more erudite edition, too: the annotations etc in this edition are about high school level.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I expected Marlowe's writing to be closer to Shakespeare, but instead he reminded me more of Dante or Chaucer.A well written play with religious, philosophical, and allegoric implications. Doctor Faustus is overly attracted to power and wealth, and thus begins to practice necromancy. This leads to him securing a pact with the devil, Lucifer, and selling his soul in return for riches and fame.I loved how this work of theater combined comedy with tragedy, though I would say that I felt more moved by the ironic sadness of the story than the laughable scenes.A very good work of literature.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5fun, witty, and all that marlowe has to offer.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This play reveals the story of a common man who allows his greed for knowledge to overwhelm his common sense and objectivity and lead him down a cursed path from which he cannot recover. It is also a commentary on the plight of the Renaissance man as he attempted to find and define himself without God. Intriguing to look at, and quite revealing to the mindset of both the author and the time.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Faustian deal of selling your soul to the devil is so pervasive in our culture now, most people would probably be familiar with the story without having read it - either Marlowe's version or any other. Partly morality play (although more engrossing than most) and partly commentary on pre-destination versus free will, Doctor Faustus is about a young scholar who manages to conjure up a devil and live a short and sweet life of luxury before his eternal damnation. Faustus is never a particularly sympathetic character - he is horrifically short-sighted and solipsistic, right up to his final hour before damnation. But it is entertaining, and would be a fun play to stage. Plus it's interesting to see the origins of what I had thought of as a timeless cultural legend
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Based on the Faustbuch, an anonymous cautionary tale about the German magician who sold his soul to the devil, this Elizabethan update on the old medieval morality play is enlivened by short comic sketches layered between the miraculous conjuring tricks—complete with fireworks for special effects—and tragedy as Faustus, torn between Good and Evil Angels struggles with thoughts of repentance only to sign a compact with the devil in his own blood in exchange for the spirit of the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Troy, to be his lover. The language is marvelous. Here’s three verses, from Scene 13, of what Ben Johnson characterized as “Marlowe’s mighty line.”Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elizabethan dramatist Christopher Marlowe wrote the first English-language version of the classic German tale of a man who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for knowledge and worldly pleasures. There are different, varying texts; I read the 1604 edition as provided by Project Gutenberg, which "is believed by most scholars to be closer to the play as originally performed in Marlowe's lifetime" (according to Wikipedia). I was pleasantly surprised at how readable and easy to follow this play was. Faustus is not a sympathetic character (one sign of his narcissism is that he always refers to himself in the third person) but it is hard not to feel sorry for him when the end of his twenty-four years of earthly pleasure come to an end, and the Devil takes is due.My 2008 Kobo e-reader (which came with the text pre-loaded) did not allow me to easily access the footnotes at the end of the text, which was just as well. The footnotes tend to be a distraction, and most of them compared varying editions of the play, which may be useful for scholars, but not for general readers.
Book preview
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus - Christopher Marlowe
FOOTNOTES:
THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS
By Christopher Marlowe
From The Quarto of 1604
Edited by The Rev. Alexander Dyce
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
THE POPE.
CARDINAL OF LORRAIN.
THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY.
DUKE OF VANHOLT.
FAUSTUS.
VALDES, ] friends to FAUSTUS.
CORNELIUS, ]
WAGNER, servant to FAUSTUS.
Clown.
ROBIN.
RALPH.
Vintner.
Horse-courser.
A Knight.
An Old Man.
Scholars, Friars, and Attendants.
DUCHESS OF VANHOLT
LUCIFER.
BELZEBUB.
MEPHISTOPHILIS.
Good Angel.
Evil Angel.
The Seven Deadly Sins.
Devils.
Spirits in the shapes of ALEXANDER THE GREAT, of his Paramour
and of HELEN.
Chorus.
THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS
FROM THE QUARTO OF 1604.
Enter CHORUS.
CHORUS. Not marching now in fields of Thrasymene,
Where Mars did mate1 the Carthaginians;
Nor sporting in the dalliance of love,
In courts of kings where state is overturn'd;
Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds,
Intends our Muse to vaunt2 her3 heavenly verse:
Only this, gentlemen,—we must perform
The form of Faustus' fortunes, good or bad:
To patient judgments we appeal our plaud,
And speak for Faustus in his infancy.
Now is he born, his parents base of stock,
In Germany, within a town call'd Rhodes:
Of riper years, to Wertenberg he went,
Whereas4 his kinsmen chiefly brought him up.
So soon he profits in divinity,
The fruitful plot of scholarism grac'd,
That shortly he was grac'd with doctor's name,
Excelling all whose sweet delight disputes
In heavenly matters of theology;
Till swoln with cunning,5 of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
And, melting, heavens conspir'd his overthrow;
For, falling to a devilish exercise,
And glutted now6 with learning's golden gifts,
He surfeits upon cursed necromancy;
Nothing so sweet as magic is to him,
Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss:
And this the man that in his study sits.
[Exit.]
FAUSTUS discovered in his study.7
FAUSTUS. Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin
To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess:
Having commenc'd, be a divine in shew,
Yet level at the end of every art,
And live and die in Aristotle's works.
Sweet Analytics, 'tis thou8 hast ravish'd me!
Bene disserere est finis logices.
Is, to dispute well, logic's chiefest end?
Affords this art no greater miracle?
Then read no more; thou hast attain'd that9 end:
A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit:
Bid Economy10 farewell, and11 Galen come,
Seeing, Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus:
Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold,
And be eterniz'd for some wondrous cure:
Summum bonum medicinae sanitas,
The end of physic is our body's health.
Why, Faustus, hast thou not attain'd that end?
Is not thy common talk found aphorisms?
Are not thy bills hung up as monuments,
Whereby whole cities have escap'd the plague,
And thousand desperate maladies been eas'd?
Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man.
Couldst12 thou make men13 to live eternally,
Or, being dead, raise them to life again,
Then this profession were to be esteem'd.
Physic, farewell! Where is Justinian?
[Reads.]
Si una eademque res legatur14 duobus, alter rem,
alter valorem rei, &c.
A pretty case of paltry legacies!
[Reads.]
Exhoereditare filium non potest pater, nisi, &c.15
Such is the subject of the institute,
And universal body of the law:16 This17 study fits a mercenary drudge,
Who aims at nothing but external trash;
Too servile18 and illiberal for me.
When all is done, divinity is best:
Jerome's Bible, Faustus; view it well.
[Reads.]
Stipendium peccati mors est.
Ha!
Stipendium, &c.
The reward of sin is death: that's hard.
[Reads.]
Si peccasse negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis veritas;
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
there's no truth in us. Why, then, belike we must sin, and so
consequently die:
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.
What doctrine call you this, Che sera, sera,19 What will be, shall be? Divinity, adieu!
These metaphysics of magicians,
And necromantic books are heavenly;
Lines, circles, scenes,20 letters, and characters;
Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.
O, what a world of profit and delight,
Of power, of honour, of omnipotence,
Is promis'd to the studious artizan!
All things that move between the quiet poles
Shall be at my command: emperors and kings
Are but obeyed in their several provinces,
Nor can they raise the wind, or rend the clouds;
But his dominion that exceeds in this,
Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man;
A sound magician is a mighty god:
Here, Faustus, tire21 thy brains to gain a deity.
Enter WAGNER.22
Wagner, commend me to my dearest friends,
The German Valdes and Cornelius;
Request them earnestly to visit me.
WAGNER. I will, sir.
[Exit.]
FAUSTUS. Their conference will be a greater help to me
Than all my labours, plod I ne'er so fast.
Enter GOOD ANGEL and EVIL ANGEL.
GOOD ANGEL. O, Faustus, lay that damned book aside,
And gaze not on it, lest it tempt thy soul,
And heap God's heavy wrath upon thy head!
Read, read the Scriptures:—that is blasphemy.
EVIL ANGEL. Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art
Wherein all Nature's treasure23 is contain'd:
Be thou on earth as Jove24 is in the sky,
Lord and commander of these elements.25 [Exeunt Angels.]
FAUSTUS. How am I glutted with conceit of this!
Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,
Resolve26 me of all ambiguities,
Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
I'll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,
And search all corners of the