Doctor Faustus | Suggested Reading

Doctor Faustus What Do I Read Next?

Perhaps the most natural play to read next would be Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, published in two parts in 1808 and 1828. If Marlowe's play epitomizes Renaissance ideals Goethe's represents (he unique values of the Romantic period. While both plays tell broadly similar stories, they have very different endings which warrant comparison.

In general, any works by Nathanial Hawthorne would make compelling follow-up reading to Doctor Faustus, but several short stories seem particularly appropriate. In "Young Goodman Brown," a newly wed walks off into the forest to discuss selling his soul to the devil. Though he decides against consummating the deal, he fears his wife has and spends the rest of his life unhappily aware of the corruption that seems to surround him.

Two other Hawthorne short stories raise the theme of forbidden knowledge, suggesting that the blind sacrifice of everything of value for science resembles a...
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