Good Boy Goes Bad: The First Discussion on Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus"

ABOUT ALL THIS...

For my first Discussion, I turned to the Introduction in the anthology Christopher Marlowe, The Complete Plays by Penguin that I used to read Doctor Faustus. The Introduction was written primarily by Frank Romany, one of the editors, instead of by collaboration with the other editor, Robert Lindsey. 

The Introduction goes into all of the plays in the anthology, including lengthy "spoilers" for all works. Instead of critiquing Marlowe using one literary school, Romany tends to stick with the parallels between Marlowe's works, without commenting too much on what he thinks of the parallels himself. Romany does delve a bit into the religious climate of Elizabethan England, and Marlowe's own past experiences in life, but there seems to really be no historical "lens" one can look through and suddenly understand all of Marlowe's plays, let alone Doctor Faustus. 

As a refresher, though, I'll start with the very basics of Elizabethan religion; next, I'll go to Marlowe's biography (read: timeline), and finally start the Faustian Discussion with the origin of Marlowe's exposure to the idea of Doctor Faustus. After all that, it's on to the nitty gritty behind-the-scenes Romany exposes about the play itself.

RELIGION, ENGLAND, & PLAYS

Marlowe was born into post-Mary, "GO PROTESTANT OR GO BACK TO SPAIN!" England. Elizabeth was in full swing as queen, and under her watch and under God the country was not headed back to Catholicism any time soon. Religion was a cornerstone of everyday life in the 1500's, and to be an atheist was an offense punishable by death. Apparently, the English people loved their religion and God-- or, at least, they made a good show of loving it every Sunday and whenever someone important was around. 

But where there is light there is also dark, and everyone loves to twist the knife a bit once in a while: For instance, even though religion was the way to God and therefor all things good and moral, there was a questioning side to the movement that playwrights like Marlowe thrived on, though they were forbidden to touch legitimately. 

Romany calls to attention "an obscure, even dark, imaginative energy" in Marlowe's work, then cites religion as its source. At the time, Elizibethan playwrights were forbidden to handle religious or sacred subjects. However, most plays thrived on the feeling of "a sacred power gone dark" (Romany). Faustus is perhaps too obvious of an example of this, what with the whole plot centering on damnation. Later, however, I will bring to light Romany's ideas on how the damnation may not be the central issue of Faustus at all.

BACK IN THE DAY: MARLOWE AT A GLANCE

1564: Baptized February 26th

1579: Goes to King's School Canterbury on Scholarship

1581: Parker Scholar, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

1584: Petitions for BA 

 1586: WRITES Dido, Queen of Carthage

1587: BA Awarded





1587-88: Tamburlaine the Great performed in London
1588?: At work on Ovid translation
1588-89: Earlier possible date for composition of Doctor Faustus

1589: September- Imprisoned in Newgate on suspicion of Murder
 December 3- Set free

1590?: WRITES The Jew of Malta

1591: January 26- Deported from Holland, suspicion counter fitting
May 9- Bound over to keep the peace after brawl with constables
?- WRITES Edward the Second AND The Massacre at Paris

1592-93: Plague closes theaters

WRITES EROTIC POEM Hero and Leander

?: Later possible date for composition of Doctor Faustus

1593: May 18/20- Charged and Imprisoned on charges of possession of heretic papers 

1593: May 30- Murdered by Ingram Frizer

IN SCIENCE, IT'S CALLED "BORROWING." IN LITERATURE, IT'S CALLED "PLAGIARISM."

Romany cautions that "Marlowe's play should not be confused with the later developments of the Faust-legend ('the world-story'): It is a dramatization of the anonymous German Faustbook, which has been called 'at once a cautionary tale and a book of marvels, a jest-book and a theological tract'". 

Apparently many of the play's LEAST popular scenes are critical, famous parts of the Faustbook, which in itself has been labeled a "distinct product of post-Reformation Germany, with its anxieties about magic and religion, knowledge and salvation" (Romany). The play is set in Wittenberg, Luther's own university; other localizations include allusions to Agrippa, also known historically as Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim who explored the practice of learned magic in his book De Occulta Philosophia (1510, published 1533). 

OK, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT...

I'm going to stop here and make a little prediction: This will not be the last instance of a historical Faust behind the literary facade. As I stated in my opening post, Faust, "the world-story," sprung from Germanic lore and folktales. This Faustbook, then, has no more right to be called the definitive version of Faust than any of the other incarnations to date. 

I do not think that I fully agree with Romany when he says that Marlowe's play should not be "confused" with later works centering on Faust. For instance, say we take Marlowe's play out of the "Faust Canon" and set it aside: How do we explain the sudden appearance of Goethe's Faust? 

Try and follow me on this one. First, lets deal with "world-story." A "world-story" would seem to be some sort of tale, known by many cultures but not exclusively owned by one. It's most likely not a Jungian archetype, though in order to strike such a human chord it probably deals with some archetypes by default; in the case of Faust, those archetypes would be the Devil, God, and the concepts of good and evil. A "world-story" most likely pervades the mind in the sense that I described in my first post: "A mystic composition of the trials of Johann Faust, which most people had never "gotten around" to reading." Sort of like playing a game of telephone... it evolves until we all know what we THINK we heard, but instead of being able to go back to the source as in the game the source is most likely dead, and therefor unreachable at this point.

Great, now I think I understand a "world-story." Alright, Mr. Romany, we're good on that one. But if the "world-story" evolves like telephone, you can't just yank something as important as Marlowe's work out of the chain. Romany states that some of the least-liked scenes were ones directly from the Faustbook-- not, then, directly created by Marlowe himself. Yet the popular scenes, the ones most likely to start the game of telephone, were indeed directly created by Marlowe. 

Once more: 

Unpopular scenes not likely to be spread any further or be remembered down the line = Faustbook 

Popular scenes likely to be spread all over the town and remembered down the line = Marlowe 

So... if this logic is correct, and the game of telephone that created the "world-story" springs from well-liked scenes from Marlowe's play, and if Marlowe was responsible for most of these scenes instead of the Faustbook, wouldn't that basically make Marlowe the god-father of the Faust "world-story"? 

Yet Romany has said: "Marlowe's play should not be confused with the later developments of the Faust-legend ('the world-story')". 

You know, this sort of reminds me of when a father says that the mother is confused and denies paternity, and then the judge gets the DNA report. Good news, Romany: No-one's confusing Marlowe's play with the later developments of anything. Bad news: Marlowe's play is the father of the Faust "world-story." 

So, just like you can't make a baby out of one set of DNA alone, Marlowe's play isn't out there evolving by itself-- it had definite help. But like any father, Marlowe's play is intricately and inexorably forever attached to the Faust "world-story"-- as part of the story's nuclear DNA. 

Bottom line: I really don't think we would have the "world-story" without Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. Even if it was meant as a purely dramatic portrayal like Romany says, it became something much more.

See You Next Time...