Doctor Faustus Summary
Christopher Marlowe

The English dramatist Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was the first English playwright to reveal the full potential of dramatic blank verse and the first to exploit the tragic implications of Renaissa... Read more

In the following essay, Laroque suggests the Jewish usurer in the English Faust book as a secondary source for Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. An interesting prose version of Shylock's �... Read more

In the following essay, Heilman examines the tragic ramifications of Faustus's quest for knowledge. One of the most attentive of the guests at the Conference of Science, Philosophy, and Religio... Read more

In the following excerpt, Greenblatt explores the act of strenuous, aggressive self-fashioning on the part of protagoniss in Marlowe's plays. He contends that Faustus, like Tamburlaine and Edwa... Read more

In the following excerpt, Birringer examines Doctor Faustus in terms of the protagonist's struggle against the limits of language, of theology, and of his personality. The theatrical presentati... Read more

In the essay below, Pittock argues that Faust is not doomed to damnation until a point during the course of his final soliloquy, underscoring the extraordinarily momentous nature of this scene in the ... Read more

In the excerpt below, Forsyth examines the depiction of Helen in Doctor Faustus as an ambiguous, destabilizing character, comparing this presentation with her appearance in several classical texts. H... Read more

In the following essay, Manlove explores some contrasts between Marlovian dramatic characters Tamburlaine and Faustus, focusing on the pursuit that each undertakes of materialistic and earthly rather ... Read more

In the following excerpt from the introduction to their edition of Doctor Faustus, Bevington and Rasmussen survey the controversies surrounding the A- and B-texts, as well as assessing the evidence fo... Read more

In the following excerpt, McAlindon explores Marlowe's reshaping of traditional elements of the Faustus myth Of the six surviving plays written by Marlowe, Doctor Faustus is by far the most fam... Read more

In the following essay, Hamlin disputes the modern critical tendency to interpret Doctor Faustus as either supportive or subversive with regard to the societal and especially religious orthodoxy of Ma... Read more

In the following essay, Hunter analyzess the reluctance of Romantic critics to treat Doctor Faustus as a theatrical work and argues for the dramatic unity of the play. The original and substantive tex... Read more

In the following excerpt, Sanders suggests that Faustus represents more than an aspiring Renaissance humanist; he argues that Marlowe meant his audience to "detect a serious moral weakness�... Read more

In the following essay, Hattaway examines the Christian iconography in Doctor Faustus and concludes that the drama moves "inevitably towards orthodoxy rather than iconoclasm." Oh men mo... Read more

In the Faust legend, a man by the name of Faust or Faustus sells his soul to the devil for twenty-four years of ultimate worldly power. Although the tale of this German scholar/ magician called Johan... Read more

Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus is a play that questions both renaissance and medieval ideas. The character of Doctor Faustus is introduced as a renaissance man with degrees in various subjects ... Read more

Marlowe's dramatic activity comprises six brief years, from 1587 to 1593. Yet those six years produced six splendid plays. As the writer of genuine tragedy, all his works illustrated his individuali... Read more

In 1564 Christopher Marlow was born in Canterbury. His father was a shoemaker, and it was only through scholarships that Marlow was able to attain his education. He attended Corpus Christi College, Ca... Read more

Dr. Faustus by Marlowe is a story about a man that will give his soul to the devil to have power. Faustus was a Renaissance man, and everything he already had just wasn't enough, he was always searchi... Read more