In the following excerpt, Empson discusses the demands censors placed on the English translations of the German text and the metaphysical nature of Mephostopheles as well as other spirits.

In the following excerpt, Bartels examines the relation between magic, politics, and Protestantism in Doctor Faustus.

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 for the date, the sources, the staging, and the authorship of the play.

In the following essay, Cole considers the relationship between Doctor Faustus and Marlowe's likely source, the English Faustbook..

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

In the following essay, Campbell characterizes the nature of Faustus's sin as that of despair. She finds parallels in the action of Doctor Faustus with the historical account of a sixteenth-century Italian lawyer named Francesco Spiera, who was charged with heresy and forced to recant his sincerely held religious views.

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 than spiritual attainments.

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 Edward II, wilfully reshapes himself in opposition to authority.

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 Marlowe's time. Hamlin declares that commentators are wrong to focus their analysis of the play on whtether it is "orthodox or heterodox, Christian or Diabolonian, homiletic or iconoclastic … liberal humanist or predestinarian," instead contending that this play explores these positio...

In the following essay, Ryan compares the respective attitudes of the protagonists of Rabelais's comic romance Tiers Livre with Marlowe's Faust toward the possibility of spiritual salvation.

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" in his actions.

In the following essay, Heilman examines the tragic ramifications of Faustus's quest for knowledge.

In the following essay, Stockholder explores the erotic element of Faustus's magic and offers a psychological discussion of imagery pertaining to Faustus's desires for and simultaneous fear of women."

In the following essay, Ornstein suggests that Doctor Faustus is informed by Marlowe's personal vision of a harsh and unforgiving diety, and that the play is "Marlowe's testament of despair."

In the following excerpt, Traister explores the historical and literary associations of magic in Doctor Faustus. She concludes that the imagery of magic undercuts the humanistic message of the play and results in a very pessimistic view of humankind's ability to effectively deal with forbidden knowledge.

In the following essay, Palmer maintains that Marlowe's portrayal of magic in Doctor Faustus heightenis the tragic intensity of the drama.

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.

In the following essay first given as a lecture in 1965, Brooks argues that the middle of Doctor Faustus supports, rather than disrupts, the unity of the drama, and he defends the poetry in Faustus's final soliloquy as an expression of the individuality that "is at once his glory and his damnation."

In the following essay, Giamatti reads Doctor Faustus as an examination of the Renaissance conviction that human beings could "remake or change or transform" themselves, and as an exporation of the question of whether this would tend to be done good or for evil purposes.

In the following excerpt, McAlindon explores Marlowe's reshaping of traditional elements of the Faustus myth

In the following essay, Snyder interprets Doctor Faustus as an inverted hagiography, reversing the traditional seven stages toward sainthood and showing Faustus moving away from sanctity rather than to beatitutude.

In the following excerpt, Ward discusses The History of the Damnable Life and deserved Death of Doctor Johann Faustus as a source for Marlowe's play.

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 tragedy. In the course of his discussion, Pittock counters commentators who have judged Faustus's final speech nonfunction in advancing the drama. because, they believe, Faustus lost his chance of salvation much earlier in the play.

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.

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.

In the following excerpt, Dollimore examines Marlowe's "subversion through transgression" of traditional religious values and behaviors in Doctor Faustus.

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.