The First Classic

NOTES

The most difficult part of Marlowe's Faust was finding an in-print version to borrow from the local library. My go-to branch, West Aurora, didn't have a copy and I don't usually trust Sugar Grove to have much to offer. But this time Sugar Grove came through, and I found a copy of Christopher Marlowe, The Complete Plays in the adult non-fiction section. 

BASIC STATS

TITLE: The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus

AUTHOR: Christopher Marlowe

DATE OF ORIGINAL PUBLICATION: 1588 or 1592

GENRE: Play

MLA CITATION OF WORK READ: Marlowe, Christopher. The Complete Plays. Penguin, 2004. pg 343-395. Print.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: N/A

Original Cover Art, Marlowe's Doctor Faust

SUMMARY

The play opens with a grecian-style chorus that sets the tone of Faust's pre-bargain mood. Then, it moves to Faust in his study at school. Faust has grown weary of his greatness. He shuns philosophy, science and law, as well as religion. He has a servant boy named Wagner. Faust tells Wagner to get two of Faust's contemporaries, Valdes and Cornelius, and when the two come to the study Faust tells them that if they will mentor him in the arts of magic, he will turn to magic and forsake all other knowledge. Valdes and Cornelius are giddy with joy, since apparently they have been waiting a long time for Faust to join their club. There's some talk of summonings, and how the three men will rule the world. Valdes and Cornelius leave the study, and are never mentioned again.

Faust outdoes himself with a magic circle, which he uses to summon the demon Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles appears, and Faust orders him to go and change into the form of a franciscan friar, because his current shape is displeasing. Mephistopheles does, and Faust becomes ecstatic that a demon would be so servile. When Mephistopheles is settled in his "Friar Form," he and Faust get down to business. Turns out that all Faust had to do in order to summon a demon was denounce the trinity and call upon Satan, so he's wasted a lot of chalk and effort on the fancy circle. Faust shrugs this off, and demands that Mephistopheles serve him since the demon responded to Faust's summons, and in exchange for serving Faust proposes that after "four and twenty years" Mephistopheles can take his body and soul to hell. Mephistopheles denies Faust, claiming that not only will Faust regret this act but that he is bound to only serve Satan. If Faust wants Mephistopheles, he must ask Satan's permission first. Faust agrees, and sends Mephistopheles to strike the bargain with Satan.

Everything goes according to plan, and at midnight Mephistopheles becomes Faust's servant in exchange for a contract, written by Faust in Faust's own blood. The contract boils down to 24 years of absolute power and Mephistopheles at Faust's beck and call, in exchange for Faust's soul. Satan is pleased, Mephistopheles is apparently ok with everything, and Faust is damned. 

Always the knowledge seeker, Faust demands three books from Mephistopheles: one on summons and conjurings, one on planetary alignments and the heavens, and the third on everything scientific in the world. Faust is very pleased with these: So pleased, he never uses them. Instead his servant, Wagner, steals the first book as a sub-plot involving him (Wagner), a poor boy named Robin who acts as comic relief, and a hostler called Rafe. The three provide mostly insipid and vulgar scenes until Mephistopheles has enough and in Scene 9 turns two of the three into animals: Rafe, a dog and Robin, an ape.

Over the twenty four years of his time with Mephistopheles, Faust has intermittent moral meltdowns. He goes so far as to attempt redemption, and Satan and Beelzebub appear to him and threaten to flay him alive if he ever speaks of God again. The demons then summon the Seven Sins from Hell, and have each of them parade in front of Faust and give a little introduction of themselves. The spectacle is so great that Faust pledges to desecrate churches and worship the devil to please Satan. 

Satan is pleased, and leaves with Beelzebub. Faust and Mephistopheles tour the world, and Faust becomes renowned for his powers. His first act after seeing the world is to go to Rome. Faust has Mephistopheles turn him invisible, and Faust proceeds to crash the Pope's feast of Peter, which works out spectacularly as he and Mephistopheles flee before they can be exorcized. He then visits the Emperor of Germany and grants his wish of seeing Alexander the Great, after which Faust visits the Duke and Duchess of Vanholt, the both of which he seduces over a plate of grapes. 

Feeling his mortality upon him, Faust returns to the school where he is greeted by all. At the bidding of his friends, Faust calls up the spirit of Helen of Troy. His friends are satisfied with gazing upon her beauty, but Faust decides to take the apparition to bed. 

Finally, the day of reckoning is at hand. Faust is overwrought with guilt and wants to beg forgiveness, but is too afraid of the Devil to do so. Three of his friends find him in his state of anguish, and though he pushes them out the door to save them they promise to pray for his soul anyway. Faust thanks them, and in the midst of a pretty decent soliloquy is dragged to Hell. A grecian-style Chorus proclaims Faust's demise as a warning, and the play closes.

IMPRESSIONS

For a tale encompassing twenty-four years, it felt very short. There were only four or five major events, and on the surface none of them are really notable. Except for the Pope incident, anyway. The lengthy scenes with Faust and other not-stupid-sub-plot characters are written in free verse, which makes for a fairly logical flow of ideas. In contrast, the prose verse of the subplot seems overly simple and jarring: there is nothing subtle about the "humor" or "wit," if you want to call it that. 

There are a few beautiful soliloquies, mostly by Faust, and a few intellectual moments where the Emperor of Germany reveals his inner insecurities that his own house will never reach the imperial glory of Alexander the Great and even a dated conversation between Mephistopheles and Faust about the movement of the planets, in which Faust cites the "orbit of the sun" as "a day." To Marlowe's credit, that is truly the only dated section of the play as far as something jarring: Sure, the whole play is "dated" and done in period, but the mind tends to accept the setting as historical fact. When you throw in a scientific notion that has been disproved, however, it grates the brain more than the fact Faust is performing magic with a demon. 

Mephistopheles makes another assertion that is close to disproved science, but is still in the realm of philosophy so it doesn't really jar the brain as much: Basically, that Hell is everywhere. According to Mephistopheles, demons are always in hell, and hell is always where demons are. When Faust calls him out on that statement, Mephistopheles cites the philosophic principle that hell is the absence of heaven by saying, "Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God / And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, / Am not tormented with ten thousand hells / In being deprived of everlasting bliss?" (Scene 3, lines 79-82).

All in all, Marlowe manages to touch some of the deeper subjects of life inherent in religion, knowledge, and even mortality in a relatively short time. Overall I enjoyed most of the play, the notable exception being the comedic relief. As a tragedy, however, I didn't really sympathize with Faust or feel any trepidation when he is dragged off to hell. It was almost too much of a parable-esque story for emotional attachment, and if I had to name the one weakness in the play as a whole I would say character development, character development, character development. 

CHARACTER STATS

NAME: Faust                                                                                                   
FUNCTION: Protagonist; makes deal with Devil for  24 years of Mephistopheles' service. Embodies main moral lesson of damnation in pursuit of power.
PERSONAL IMPRESSION: Too stiff of an embodiment: not realistic enough to really empathize with. Main reason play fails as a true "tragedy."

NAME: Mephistopheles                 

FUNCTION: Demon servant of Faust; first allegiance to Devil. Tries to warn Faust even as he tempts him.       

PERSONAL IMPRESSION:  Decent development as a character, shows dimensionality through his reactions to his orders, and answers to Faust's questions.