Name: Doctor Faustus
ISBN: 9780451531612

Christopher Marlowe

Sylvan Barnet

Doctor Faustus

elizabeth

I first read it 7-ish years ago in a European Lit class, and it's stuck with me. Faustus is unapologetically petty as hell and on the forefront of progressivism. I love him, and I love Christopher Marlowe.

The play kind of burlesques as a standard morality play, allowing Marlowe to take advantage of increasing skepticism of institutions (including Christianity) and emerging curiosity about self-realization that emerged during the English Renaissance. 

Faustus’s first lines establish him as representative of secularism (he kisses institutions goodbye because they're just not enough to satisfy him anymore). He then pursues forbidden knowledge, transcending beyond his Renaissance Man status. Then, his final lines allow him to die as a sort of martyr for secularism; despite the threat of Hell, he will not repent (though he does attempt bargaining), telling himself to be resolute and not to waver. 

Anyway, this play slaps.

Doctor Faustus

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