CHAPTER -1

MARLOWE’S FAUSTUS: A RENAISSANCE REBEL

Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, which is arguably his best play, is

based on the German legend of a magician who bartered his soul to the

powers of darkness for knowledge and power. As John Jump tells us,

“During the first millennium of the Christian era, a number of stories

developed concerning men who were supposed to have acquired

supernatural gifts or powers by making agreements with the Devil.”1 In

the latter half of the sixteenth century, the name and story of Dr

Faustus had - in Germany and its vicinity - become typical of the

figure and career of the strolling magician who, after selling his soul to

the devil and thus acquiring the supernatural powers of which he gave

evidence in the practice of his arts, had to pay the penalty of his

bargain in a violent and terrible death. This legend took literary form

when Johan Spies published a book on it at Frankfort-on-the-Main in

1587.2 This edition, of which a single copy exists in the Imperial

18
Library in Vienna,3 is the editio princeps of the famous Faustus legend

on which Marlowe founded his drama. Very soon, this work was

translated into English under the title The History of the Damnable Life

and Deserved Death of Dr John Faustus by P.F. Gent which appears to

be the immediate source of Marlowe’s play.

The essential plot of the play is simple enough. Faustus, tired of

his own limitations and inadequacies of human knowledge, turns to

black magic. He prefers the metaphysics of magicians and necromantic

books to the knowledge he has already acquired from the recognized

disciplines of orthodox academic curriculum - namely, logic, medical

science, jurisprudence, and divinity - the crowning achievement of

medieval scholasticism. In Act I scene 1 of the play,4 Faustus, after

reviewing his achievements in all fields of intellectual endeavour,

decides that black magic alone will promise him the world of profit,

delight, power, honour, and omnipotence. It would be worthwhile to

see what he himself says:

0 what a world of profit and delight,

Of power, of honour, of omnipotence,
Is promis'd to the studious artisan!
All things that move between the quiet poles
Shall be at my command. Emperors and kings

19
 Are but obey'd 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 demi-god.

(1.1. 52-61)

Then we find him summoning Valdes and Cornelius, who,

Faustus believes, will help him conjure up the spirits. Ultimately, he

£

makes a contract with Mephostophilis - “a servant to great Lucifer”;

according to this contract, Mephostophilis is to be Faustus’s slave for

twenty-four years, during which period of time Faustus would enjoy a

life of “ail voluptuousness”;6 but, at the end of this period, the situation

will be reversed, and Faustus would be damned for ever. By virtue of

this contract, for twenty-four years Faustus possesses magical powers

which he uses for everything - from summoning up the apparition of

Helen of Troy from the shadows of the nether world to playing

practical jokes on the knight and the Horse-courser. Then, on the last

night of the twenty-fourth year, he writhes in agony and remains terror-

struck until Mephostophilis, Lucifer and other agents of darkness come

and carry him off to hell. It would be interesting to note how Faustus

reacts when the devils come to whisk him away to hell:

20
 My God, my God! Look not so fierce on me.
Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile.
Ugly hell, gape not! Come not, Lucifer!
I'll burn my books. Ah, Mephostophilis!

(V.2.190-193)

It would be further interesting to note that - even before the final hour

comes for Faustus - he starts dreading his damnation, and prays to God

to grant him salvation:

OGod,
If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,
Yet for Christ's sake whose blood hath ransom'd me,
Impose some end to my incessant pain:
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd.
0, no end is limited to damned souls.

(V.2. 168-174)

One may recall here that Faustus has earlier paid scant respect to God:

And Faustus vows never to look to heaven,

Never to name God or to pray to him,
To burn his scriptures, slay his ministers,
And make my spirits pull his churches down.

(II.2. 98-101)

Judged from this angle. Doctor Faustus comes close to the spirit

of a Morality play. Indeed, there seems to be little doubt that this play
21
resembles a medieval Morality play in that its theme is Faustus’s

sacrifice of his soul to the devil - represented by Mephostophilis - for

the sake of unlimited power, glory and enjoyment in this world. We

can perhaps give the ‘morality’ interpretation of this play thus: Faustus

has a desire for forbidden knowledge because he believes that it will

give him power, glory and enjoyment. Therefore, in order to gain more

knowledge than a man is entitled to, he forms a league with

Mephostophilis, which, in turn, brings about his damnation. Faustus

gradually learns that supernatural powers are reserved for God and that

the man who attempts to handle or deal in magical powers must face

eternal damnation. When we examine the play from this standpoint,

Faustus deserves his punishment, and the ending is an act of justice -

when the man who has transgressed against the natural laws of the

universe is justifiably punished. The Chorus, at the end of the play, re­

emphasizes this position when it admonishes the audience to learn

from Faustus’s damnation and not to attempt to go beyond the

restrictions imposed on man:

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,

And burned is Apollo's laurel bough.
That sometime grew within this learned man.
Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall,

22
 Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits,
To practise more than heavenly power permits.

(The Epilogue)

In fact, the morality framework of this play can be easily

understood if we recall what the Chorus says right in the opening

passage of the play. It announces that this play will not be concerned

with war, love, or proud deeds; instead, it will present the good and

bad fortunes of Dr John Faustus, who is bom of base stock in Germany

and who goes to the University of Wittenberg, The Chorus continues to

inform us that Faustus so excels in matters of theology that he

eventually becomes swollen with pride, which leads to his downfall:

Till swol'n with cunning, 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 now 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:

CPrologue, II 20-27)

So the morality structure is very much at work in Doctor Faustus,

since one of its supposed objectives is to show the disastrous results of

destmctive ambition.7 Particularly important in this respect is the

23
reference to the Icarus image in the above lines. Icarus, as we all know,

was a figure in classical mythology who - because of his inordinate

pride - had soared too high in the sky with the help of the wings that

were made by his father, Daedalus. The wings were attached with wax,

and when Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax melted and he fell

down into the sea. In the sixteenth century, Icarus was a familiar image

of destructive ambition.8 This Icarus image re-inforces the argument

that Doctor Faustus may indeed be interpreted as a Morality play. And

when we remember that in this play we find Good Angel and Bad

Angel, the Old Man (who refers to the blood of Christ in Act V scene 1

of the play), and - above all - the Seven Deadly Sins, the ‘morality’

interpretation of the play seems none too improbable. In fact, the

morality framework in this play is so strong that Leo Kirschbaum says

that “there is no more obvious Christian document in all Elizabethan

drama than Doctor Faustus”.9 Nicholas Brooke also says that “the first

point to be faced about Dr Faustus is that it is in construction a

Morality play”.10

We, however, propose to examine this play from a different point

of view. Nicholas Brooke has suggested, “... Marlowe chose

24
deliberately to use the Morality form, and to use it perversely, to invert

or at least to satirize its normal intention.”11 As he goes on to say:

... when Marlowe was writing Faustus: old morality plays were still

performed, and some of them may not have been very old; but much as
the leading playwrights owed it to the Morality tradition, they did not
write simple Morality plays such as Faustus purports to be. The
comedies of Lyly and Greene, the tragedies of Kyd, and Marlowe’s
other plays, have moved a long way from puppet-manipulations of
abstractions, and even Gorboduc thirty years earlier had called its
Good and Bad Angels by the names of political advisers.... For
Marlowe to write such a play at such a time therefore suggests satire: it
is the least likely way for him to have chosen to express a volte-face
from near-atheism of opinion, and violent anti-Christian satire in
i -y
Tamburlaim and The Jew ofMalta to orthodox Christian belief.

We may perhaps argue that in the Faustus legend Marlowe found

suitable material for the picture of a man who defies the prescriptions

of contemporary social and religious authorities and who embodies the

Renaissance zest for knowledge surmounting old and traditional

barriers. After all, as David A. Male has pointed out, “Marlowe was

writing at a time when there was fierce antagonism towards Roman

Catholicism following the break with Rome brought about by Henry

VIII and the persecution of Protestants during the reign of Mary

25
 I^
Tudor.” In fact, we should never be in any kind of doubt about the

traditional barriers in the way of knowledge at least in the sixteenth

century. For, as Peter Barry tells us, “As far as higher education was

concerned ... you could say that right up to the 1820’s, the

organization of higher education [in England] had not changed since

the middle ages.”14 In those days, higher education was a Church of

England monopoly. This is how Peter Barry describes the scene of

higher education in those days in England:

There were only two universities, Oxford and Cambridge. These were
divided into small individual colleges which were run like monastic
institutions. Only men could attend them, of course, and students had
to be Anglican communicants and attend the college chapel. The
teachers were ordained ministers, who had to be unmarried, so that
they could live in the college. The subjects available were the classics
(ancient Greek and Latin literature), divinity (which was taken by
those seeking ordination) and Mathematics. Anyone who was Catholic,
Jewish, or Methodist, or atheist was barred from entry, and hence, in
effect, barred from the professions and the Civil Service ... Many
attempts were made to reform the situation, expand higher education,
and introduce practical subjects into the curriculum, but they all came
up against entrenched conservative forces.15

26
Even during the Renaissance, which is considered to be the period of

the Revival of Learning, and indeed right up to the 1820’s - as pointed

out by Peter Barry - the seats of higher learning in England did not

remove the barriers in the way of practical and useful learning. Put in

this context, Marlowe’s play assumes a very different significance; in

Marlowe’s Faustus, we may well discern a typical Renaissance rebel

who - for the sake of knowledge - decides to defy the traditional

barriers imposed by the religious authorities.

There are also some other points we need to ponder over. The

middle ages in Europe was a period when people believed in the

powers of magic and witchcraft.16 The love of knowledge - a passion

of all passions the least explicable to common people - was assigned

as a motive for supposed compacts with the power of darkness. The

history of sciences in medieval Europe contains hardly a page without

the blot upon it of this long and ineradicable popular misconception.

And, what was more surprising, the organized and representative seats

of learning in Europe - like the famous colleges and universities - did

not do anything at all for the progress of scientific studies; on the

contrary, people associated with those institutions displayed a

27
headstrong unwillingness to leam things in new ways. Roger Bacon, an

English scholar of the medieval times, who was expelled from the

University of Oxford and who was imprisoned for fourteen years for

his scientific thoughts, writes;

Because men do not know the uses of philosophy, they despise many
magnificent and beautiful sciences; and they say in derision, and not
for information, “What’s the worth of this science or that?” ... When
philosophers are told in these days that they ought to study optics, or
geometry, or the languages, they ask with a smile, “What is the use of
these things?” insinuating their uselessness. They refuse to hear a word
said in defence of their utility; they neglect and condemn the sciences
of which they are ignorant.17

This apathy on the part of the scholars was a sure ally of the suspicious

ignorance of the common people, who confounded the search after

hidden knowledge with a desire to know the forbidden things, and to

whom the experimental sciences in particular seemed indistinguishable

from the devil’s magic - the Black Art. The general people could not

understand the mighty powers of nature and the power of sciences,

which used nature as instrument.

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 In the medieval Europe, two branches of the study of sciences, the

votaries of which were to a large extent groping in the dark, specially

attracted the inquiring minds, and also excited the suspicions of the

ignorant people. One was ‘astrology’, and the other ‘alchemy’. The

word ‘astrology’, in the terminology of the middle ages, included what

we now call ‘astronomy’, but it also occupied itself with speculations

on the supposed influences of the stars and planets on the destinies of

the people of the earth, as well as with their actual and supposed

influences on the earth itself. The study of ‘alchemy’, or what we now

know as ‘chemistry’, had two parts. The speculative part tried to find

out the rules of the production of all things out of the natural elements,

while the practical part sought to rival or outdo nature by artificially

producing the natural things, especially the precious metals. The

isolation in which these studies had to be carried out, the loneliness of

the observatory and/or the laboratory, added a peculiar element of

mystery to the popular conception of these sciences. All these studies

and their appliances were regarded as magic and the appliances of

magic.18 Hence the popular medieval misconception that scientists or

scholars who sought to pursue knowledge were collaborators of the

devil. Therefore Faustus, who pursued knowledge surmounting all

29

ft-
odds, came to be known as a magician, a supposed collaborator of the

devil. Magic therefore was very much “an observer’s concept”.19

It may be argued that the Faustus legend provided Marlowe with a

handy theme to picture a Renaissance rebel. In this regard, some brief

reflections on the Renaissance ideas may not be out of place. The two

chief ingredients of the Renaissance spirit were individualism and

worldliness, and these two characteristics manifested themselves in

various forms. One of the principal forms which the individualism of

the Renaissance took was the rejection of authority - the determination

to take one’s own decision - right or wrong. Thus the central position

of the Reformation - which was, as a movement, complementary to the

Renaissance - was that a man could deal directly with his God without

going through the channels of the Church (which unmistakably

indicates that like Faustus, Luther too was a typical Renaissance rebel).

Renaissance individualism would not like to see a man simply as a

social unit. If a man is only a unit in the social mass, then there is a

strong obligation to be as much like the other units as possible; but if a

man is an individual - an end in himself - then there is a value in his

30
uniqueness, in his differences. Here, one may recall what Francis

Bacon says in one of his essays:

A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him

seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.20

If these lines are any indication, we may surely say that - during the

Elizabethan days in England - the individual’s freedom to make his

own choice was respected and honoured. Moreover, it is perhaps

because of this that the English literature of the Elizabethan period is

so full of individual heroes - as opposed to the heroes of the medieval

period who act like idealized social units, such as Everyman and Sir
'j i

Gawaine. Worldliness, on the other hand, during the Renaissance,

took the form of a hunger for all the experiences that life had to offer.

The man who is merely an athlete misses all the intellectual or

aesthetic pleasures of life; similarly, the mere intellectual or aesthete

does not know the pleasures of skilful and strenuous physical efforts.

The ascetic never knows the joys of the flesh; and, for the sensualist,

the joys of the exultation of spirit are unknown. The Renaissance spirit

always wanted to see a complete man, with all his potentials

developed. An accomplished courtier of the Renaissance was supposed

31
to be able to read Latin and Greek, to organize the siege of a city, and

also to write an elegant poem to a young lady. And thus we find -

during the Renaissance in Europe - figures like Leonardo da Vinci,

who was a painter, a sculptor, an engineer, and an inventor, Sir Walter

Raleigh, who was an explorer, a courtier, a poet, and a historian, and

Thomas Campion, who was a physician, a poet, and a composer. The

all-round ability of a man, and his craving for all the experiences of

this world, were valued most by the Renaissance spirit. Worldliness

therefore became a necessary quality for a man. It may be relevant here

to mention that way back in 1195 Pope Innocent III had written a book,

De Contemptu Mundi, expressing his contempt for this world; but, in

1580, Montaigne, in his book On the Education of Children observed,

“This great world [ought to be] the book my young gentlemen should

study with the most attention.” It is interesting to see how the attitude

had completely been reversed during the Renaissance. It must be

observed therefore that during the Renaissance the human mind was at

the crossroads between medieval piety and adventurous aspirations.

Jump also says, “Perhaps these three - an impulse towards

emancipation, a spirit of inquiry, and an assertion of individualism -

are the leading characteristics of the [Renaissance] movement.”23

32
 It is a plain fact for everybody to see that the character of Faustus

shows the typical Renaissance features. His individualism is manifest

in his rejection of authority, which we come across when he decides to

ignore the existing religious inhibitions and enters into an agreement

with Mephostophilis. In addition, his worldliness can be seen in his

hunger for all the experiences that life has to offer. This hunger is

evident throughout the play, and we may refer to only one instance

here:

Lines, circles, signs, letters and characters:

Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.

(1.1. 50-51)

So in the character of Faustus, we find a true Renaissance figure.

Faustus, in Marlowe’s play, is therefore not only an ordinary rebel, he

is actually a Renaissance rebel.

This argument is sufficiently supported by the textual evidence as

well. Jump says in this context:

33
 While waiting for his friends Valdes and Cornelius, who are to instruct
him in ‘concealed arts’ ... he [Faustus] swiftly reviews some of the
widely varied uses to which he intends to put the skill he seeks. These
testify to his ardent curiosity, his desire for luxury and wealth, and his
nationalism, as well as to the longing for power which he has already
voiced. Such qualities mark him unmistakably as a man of the
Renaissance; and a whole series of allusions maintains throughout the
scene our sense of the extended horizons of that age of discovery.24

Elsewhere too there is evidence that Faustus is a man of the

Renaissance. We all know that sensuality is a typical Renaissance

feature, and this faculty is found in the character of Marlowe’s Faustus.

For instance, our attention may be drawn to that portion of the text

where Faustus demands “the fairest maid in Germany”25 as his wife;

although Mephostophilis seems to have been able to dissuade him - for

“Marriage is but a ceremonial toy”26 - Faustus still manages to retain his

sensuality, which is evident in his impassioned apostrophe to Helen:

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

(V.l. 99-100)

In addition, when - immediately after the expression of his exultation -

Faustus passionately urges Helen to give him a kiss,27 we unmistakably

34
understand that sensuality is an unfailing feature in Faustus’s character.

What is most significant is that his sensuality has been coupled with

his desire to celebrate the beauty of a woman in the most glowing

terms. It may be argued that Mephostophilis too realizes Faustus’s

extreme sensuality. It is significant to note that - in order to dissuade

Faustus from marriage - Mephostophilis says:

I'll cut thee out the fairest courtesans

And bring them every morning to thy bed:
She whom thine eye shall like, thy heart shall have,
Were she as chaste as was Penelope,
As wise as Saba, or as beautiful
As was bright Lucifer before his fall.

(II.l. 154-159)28

There is no gainsaying the fact that Faustus’s perception of life

has been enriched by “a love of beauty in nature and in art”. 29 As

Faustus himself says, he has passed his time by looking at, by listening

to, and by feeling the glory of some of the finest things of art and

nature. In this connection, mention may be made of this passage where

he says:

Have I not made blind Homer sing to me

Of Alexander's love and Oenon's death?
And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes

35
 With ravishing sound of his melodious harp,
Made music with my Mephostophilis?

(II.2. 26-30)

Again, there are other indications in the text, which go to prove that

Faustus has spent his time as a typical Renaissance man, enjoying the

beauty of the world. Our attention may, in this respect, be drawn to the

opening lines of Act III scene 1, where Faustus says:

Having now, my good Mephostophilis,

Pass'd with delight the stately town of Trier,
Environ'd round with airy mountain tops,
With walls of flint, and deep-entrenched lakes,
Not to be won by any conquering prince;
From Paris next, coasting the realm of France,
We saw the river Main fall into Rhine,
Whose banks are set with groves of fruitful vines;
Then up to Naples, rich Campania,
With buildings fair and gorgeous to the eye,
Whose streets straight forth and paved with finest brick,
Quarters the town in four equivalents.
There saw we learned Maro's golden tomb,
The way he cut, an English mile in length,
Thorough a rock of stone in one night's space.
From thence to Venice, Padua and the rest,
In midst of which a sumptuous temple stands,
That threats the stars with her aspiring top,
Whose frame is pav'd with sundry colour'd stones,
And roof'd aloft with curious work in gold.
Thus hitherto hath Faustus spent his time.

(111.1.1-21)

36
 Astronomy, as we all know, was a study that was very popular

with the Renaissance scholars. In Marlowe’s play too we see Faustus

eagerly studying this science. And here too he shows his passion for

knowledge. In Act II scene 1, when he talks to Mephostophilis as to

how he may utilize his new-found power that he has acquired in

exchange for his soul, he says, would I have a book wherein I might

behold all spells and incantations, that I might raise up spirits when I

please”;30 however, immediately thereafter, he demands a book “where

I might see all characters and planets of the heavens, that I might know

their motions and dispositions”.31 This clearly proves that Faustus is not

that kind of a man who would devote his time and his new-found

power doing the evil acts only, but he is also prepared to do things that

would push back the horizons of human knowledge. This suggests that

he is a man with the Renaissance mood of aspiration, which is why he

has violated the existing religious codes. Here, we may discern a

remarkable difference between the Faustus of Marlowe’s source and

the Faustus he created. In P.F. Gent’s The History of the Damnable

Life and Deserved Death of Dr John Faustus, Faustus’s motives for

seeking contact with the devils are hardly explored beyond the terms of
T9
the agreement, and the entire work is a sort of a moral warning., In

37
Marlowe’s Faustus, however, we find “human potentialities, which

critics have so often associated with the Renaissance mood of

aspiration.” If we remember this, it would be easier to understand

why it has been observed that, in the character of Marlowe’s Faustus,

we find traces of a Renaissance individual.

With a strong passion for knowledge, Marlowe’s Faustus is

prepared to pay every price for it. This becomes more than evident

when he, having learnt from Mephostophilis that a deal with the devil

will throw a world of hidden knowledge to him, says:

Then there's enough for a thousand souls.

Here, Mephistophilis, receive this scroll,
A deed of gift of body and of soul:34

It is here that we come across what is probably the most significant

feature in Faustus’s character: his ability to stand up against the

authorities in order to pursue the course of knowledge. And it is here

that he may be compared with such Renaissance explorers as Vasco da

Gama or Sir Thomas Drake. Like them, Faustus too seems prepared to

explore a new world although there may be dangers involved in this

effort. For the sake of knowledge, he rebels against contemporary

38
religious prescriptions, as he sells his soul to the devil. It is thus that he

emerges as a true Renaissance rebel. In his rejection of authority,

Faustus comes meaningfully close to yet another Renaissance rebel -

Martin Luther. Indeed, the diptych of Faustus and Luther comprises

two very different portraits of Renaissance individualism. Each in his

own way, these two men had challenged the ideas of the conservative

society then prevalent in Europe, and each had to face the

consequences. Their similarity becomes all the more interesting when

we keep in mind the fact that the legendary Faustus, on whom Johann

Spies’ book was supposedly based, was bom sometime around 1480 in

a village near Heidelberg in Germany and died in the late 1530’s.35

This means that he was a contemporary of Luther. What should,

however, be more interesting to us is that both the legendary Faustus

and Luther had lived their lives in response to the same society. This

surely vindicates our position as we propose to include both Faustus

and Luther in our study of the rebels.

There is, however, no denying that although Faustus starts as a

rebel, he ends up as a pathetic flop. In spite of some of his best

qualities, he betrays a lack of consistency. That is why he fails, and

39
that is the reason for his fall as well. In the play, there is ample

evidence to suggest that Faustus uses his new-found knowledge for his

personal glory and power, throwing to the winds the lofty principles of

a rebel hero. For example, he uses his knowledge for performing

miracles like entertaining the Duchess with grapes out of season and

for making Helen his paramour. The latter act, particularly, is nothing

short of demoniality - the sin for which, according to W.W. Greg,

Faustus’s salvation becomes virtually impossible. Leo Kirschbaum

comments in this context:

For the sake of bodily pleasure, Faustus has given up the last
possibility of redemption and embraced Hell. We do not even have to
recognize that Helen is a saccuba, the devil in female guise, to know
what Marlowe wants us to know.37

Speaking about Faustus’s damnation. Jump observes:

Faustus, then, abjuring God in the hope of becoming something more

than a man, succeeds in fact in separating himself from God, isolating
himself in large measures from his fellows, and consigning himself to
the hell so powerfully suggested by Mephostophilis in scenes iii and v.
Repentance remains possible; he represses yet another spontaneous
impulse towards it as late as in scene xv. But it is unlikely to develop

40
 in one so lacking in humility and so greedy for the satisfactions,
incomplete though they tend to be, which his sin brings him.38

Leo Kirschbaum, who believes that “Faustus is wholly egocentric...

[and] relishes his inflated sense of his own abilities”,39 reveals the

acuity of his critical perception when he says:

He gave up higher values for lower. And the burden of the Good and
Bad Angels who come on is that for small pleasures the voluptuary has
given up great pleasures, for small pleasures he must now endure all
the horrible sensory tortures of Hell.... Such is the ironic outcome.40

Faustus’s fortune may also remind us of what Leonardo da Vinci

wrote:

Creatures shall be seen upon the earth ... by reason of their boundless
pride they shall wish to rise towards heaven, but the excessive weight
of their limbs shall hold them down.41

This, however, makes us confront a difficult question. This

question is: how should we look at the world-order presented in Doctor

Faustus? Because, on the one hand, we see the fallibility of man; on

41
the other, however, the moral law demands that man should be

infallible. How should we look at this paradox? An answer is given by

no less a critic than Una Ellis-Fermor, who speaks of the Satanism

involved in Marlowe’s drama:

Marlowe, whose tragedy appears at its height and in characteristic

form in Faustus, takes up a unique position as a tragic thinker, because
of the implacable paradox on which his reading of the universe rests;
man’s innate fallibility on the one hand, and, on the other, the
infallibility demanded by inflexible law. To this paradox there is only
one conclusion: “Why then belike we must sin and so consequently
die.” The precision and finality of this deduction indicate a vision
terrifying alike in its assumptions and in its omissions. For implicit in
Marlowe’s premise is the predestination of man to destruction by some
determinate power capable of purpose and intention, and, as such
purpose can only be sadistic, the world order it implies must derive
from a Satanism more nearly absolute than that of Euripides.42

Speaking of Faustus’s Satanism, we may also refer to what Helen

Gardner has said about him;

In the tragic world of Faustus ... we find presented to us in human

terms this incapacity for change to a better state.... the final sin of
Faustus is despair. However much he may call in his fear on God or
Christ, it is the power of Lucifer and the bond with Lucifer which he
really believes in. It is to Lucifer he prays: ‘O, spare me, Lucifer!’ and

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 “Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!’ ... At the beginning
Faustus wished to rise above his humanity; at the close he would sink

below it, be transformed into a beast or into ‘little water drops’. At the
beginning he attempts usurpation upon God; at the close he is an
usurper upon the Devil.43

Faustus then has some major failures. While summing up

therefore we may say that Faustus rebels against the religious codes as

he feels that they act as a constraint in the human endeavour to gain

knowledge, although he subsequently degenerates. However, a

Wittenberg scholar, he displays two major features in his character;

first, rejection of authority, and, second, worldliness. These features

need to be remembered by us, for they will prove relevant to our

proposed appraisal of the characteristics of the rebel heroes in English

drama.

43
 NOTES

1 John Jump (ed) Doctor Faustus, p 13.

: A.W. Ward (ed) Old English Drama: Select Plays, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1892, p Iv.
Jump says that this was a work of an anonymous Protestant, see John Jump (ed) Doctor
Faustus, p 14.
' See A.W. Ward (ed) op cit, p Ivi.
4 I go by the OUP edition of the text, edited by Kitty Datta, Calcutta, 1986. Unless
otherwise mentioned, all the subsequent references to this play are to this edition.
5 Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, 1.3. 42.
6 Ibid, 1.3. 94.
7 It may be relevant, in this respect, to look at what a commentator has said on this issue:
”We can recognise some of the characteristics of the morality play in Doctor Faustus. The
virtuous figures of the Good Angel and the Old Man offer good advice whilst the Vice
figures of the Bad Angel and Mephostophilis seek to deceive. The play covers a long span
of Faustus’s life in which we see him reject good advice and espouse the cause of the
Devil. The conclusion of the play demonstrates damnation in horrifying spectacular detail.
Lily Campbell, in an essay, ‘Dr Faustus: A Case of Conscience’, has pointed out the
existence of a play by Nathaniel Woodes written in 1581 called The Conflict of
Conscience, which turns the real life story of an Italian lawyer, Francesco Spera, into a
morality play with an outcome very similar to Doctor Faustus.”
See Doctor Faustus, Macmillan Master Guides Series, ed David A. Male, Macmillan,
London, 1985, p 30. The essay of Lily Campbell was first published in the Publications of
the Modem Language Association ofAmerica [PMLA], vol LXVII, 1952, pp 219-239.
8 Kitty Datta (ed) Doctor Faustus, p 68n.
9 Leo Kirschbaum, op cit, p 80.
10 Nicholas Brooke, “The Moral Tragedy of Dr Faustus”, Judith ONeill (ed) op cit, p 95.
" Ibid, p 99.
12 Ibid, pp 99-100.
13 David A. Male (ed) op cit, p 27.
14 Peter Barry, Beginning Theory, Manchester University Press, 1995, p 12.
15 Ibid, p 12.
16 This can be easily proved by referring to a number of literary texts of the middle ages,
including, of course, Sir Gawaine and the Greene Knight.
17 Opus Tertium, c, vi. This passage is translated by Brewer, in his Introduction to Fr
Rogeri Bacon Opera Inedita, i.xxi.xxii. See A.W. Ward (ed) op cit, p xix.
18 Ibid, p xx.
19 See Collins Dictionary of Sociology, eds David Jury and Julie Jury, Harper Collins,
Glasgow, 1991, where the term magic is described as “an observers concept”.

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20 The closing sentence in Bacons essay, Of Nature in Men. See Sukanta Chaudhuri (ed)
Bacons Essays: A Selection, OUP, Delhi, 1977, p 7.
21 In English literature, strong individual characters emerge for the first time in the
Elizabethan period. It should also be remembered that Novalis’s dictum - character is
destiny - is used to describe Shakespeare’s tragedies - which indicates the fallibility of
Shakespeare’s heroes, contributing to their entanglement in the folds of “dire Necessity”
(to borrow the phrase from Milton’s Samson Agonistes).
22 The Readers Companion to World Literature, eds Homstein and others, Mentor Book,
New American Library, New York, 1973, p 446.
~ John Jump (ed) Doctor Faustus, p 41.
24 Ibid, pp 44-45.
25 Doctor Faustus, II. 1. 141-142.
26Ibid, ILL 152.
27“Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss”, Ibid, V.l. 101.
28 John Jump says:
“... after the signature of the bond, Faustus asks for a wife. Marriage is a sacrament,
however; so Mephostophilis cannot give him one.” See John Jump (ed) Doctor Faustus, p
47.
29 W.W. Greg, “The Damnation of Faustus”, Marlowe, A Collection of Critical Essays:
Twentieth Century Views Series, ed Clifford Leech, Prentice Hall of India Pvt Ltd, New
Delhi, 1979, p 103.
30 Doctor Faustus, II. 1. 167-169.
51 Ibid, II. 1. 171-173.
32 John Jump says:
“In the main, the author of the German Faust-Book and his English translator both aim at
edifying their readers. Like other homilists, they are not above exploiting the sensational
and the farcical possibilities of the tale they tell. But they have little sympathy with the
aspirations which lead Faustus to conclude his compact, and they use his decline and fall
simply to point a serious moral warning to their readers.” John Jump (ed) Doctor Faustus,
p 41.
33 Kitty Datta (ed) op cit, p 21.
34 Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, ed A.W. Ward, A.W. Ward (ed) op cit. Scene V, II 88-90.
Mephostophilis is here Mephistophilis.
35 Kitty Datta (ed) op cit, p 5.
36 “... with Faustus’ union with Helen the nice balance between possible salvation and
imminent damnation is upset”, see W.W. Greg, op cit, p 106.
37 Leo Kirschbaum, op cit, p 91.
38 John Jump (ed) Doctor Faustus, p 51.
39 Leo Kirschbaum, op cit, p 83.
40 76/4 pp 91-92.
41 “Of Man”, The Age of Adventure: The Renaissance Philosophers, selected by Giorgio
De Santillana, Mentor Book, The New American Library, 1964, p 87.
42 Una Ellis-Fermor, “The Equilibrium of Tragedy”, Clifford Leech (ed) op cit, p 109.
43 Helen Gardner, “Milton’s Satan and the Theme of Damnation in Elizabethan Tragedy”,
A Reading o/Paradise Lost, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1965, pp 101,103-104.

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