Download Dr. Meena Rajeev

Dr. Meena Rajeev
Activity, page 37
CHORUS. Not marching now in fields of Trasimene,
Where Mars did mate the Carthaginians;
Nor sporting in the dalliance of love,
In courts of kings where state is overturn'd;
Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds,
Intends our Muse to vaunt her heavenly verse:
Only this, gentlemen,—we must perform
The form of Faustus' fortunes, good or bad:
To patient judgments we appeal our plaud,
And speak for Faustus in his infancy.
Now is he born, his parents base of stock,
In Germany, within a town call'd Rhodes:
Of riper years, to Wertenberg he went,
Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up.
So soon he profits in divinity,
The fruitful plot of scholarism grac'd,
That shortly he was grac'd with doctor's name,
Excelling all whose sweet delight disputes
In heavenly matters of theology;
Till swoln with cunning, of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
And, melting, heavens conspir'd his overthrow;
For, falling to a devilish exercise,
And glutted now with learning's golden gifts,
He surfeits upon cursed necromancy;
Nothing so sweet as magic is to him,
Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss:
And this the man that in his study sits.
[Exit.]
Reread the speech now, and then write a brief summary of it in no more than four or five
sentences. What main points would you say the Chorus is making here?
1 The Chorus spends several lines telling the audience what the play is not about – war or love or
martial heroism – before he tells us what it is about: ‘Faustus’ fortunes, good or bad’ (l. 8).
2 Then he tells us about Faustus’s childhood, specifically that although he was born to ‘parents base of
stock’ (l. 12), he went on when he was older to study divinity at the University of Wittenberg, where his
intellectual brilliance led swiftly to his being awarded a doctorate.
3 In line 20, the tone of the speech seems to change, as the Chorus speaks of Faustus’s ‘cunning of a
self-conceit’, which your edition of the play explains as ‘intellectual pride engendered by arrogance’.
4 The Chorus goes on to explain that his intellectual pride led Faustus to take up the study of magic, or
‘cursèd necromancy’, despite the fact that it jeopardizes ‘his chiefest bliss’ (l. 27); that is, his chance of
being granted eternal salvation when he dies.
Activity, page 42
FAUSTUS: How am I glutted with conceit of this!
Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,
Resolve me of all ambiguities,
Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
I'll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,
And search all corners of the new-found world
For pleasant fruits and princely delicates;
I'll have them read me strange philosophy,
And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;
I'll have them wall all Germany with brass,
And make swift Rhine circle fair Wittenberg;
I'll have them fill the public schools with silk,
Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad;
I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,
And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,
And reign sole king of all the provinces;
Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war,
Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp's bridge,
I'll make my servile spirits to invent.
Have another look at Faustus’s speech on page 9, lines 80–101, in which he imagines the power
that magic will bring him. What is it he wants to achieve with this power? What kinds of motives
or desires do you think he expresses in these lines?
A. Gold and precious jewels
B. Fruits and delicacies
C. Knowledge
D. Silk clothes for students
E. Military power to overcome the enemies
Activity, page 44
FAUSTUS. Now, Faustus, must
Thou needs be damn'd, and canst thou not be sav'd:
What boots it, then, to think of God or heaven?
Away with such vain fancies, and despair;
Despair in God, and trust in Belzebub:
Now go not backward; no, Faustus, be resolute:
Why waver'st thou? O, something soundeth in mine ears,
"Abjure this magic, turn to God again!"
Ay, and Faustus will turn to God again.
To God? he loves thee not;
The god thou serv'st is thine own appetite,
Wherein is fix'd the love of Belzebub:
To him I'll build an altar and a church,
And offer lukewarm blood of new-born babes.
Now look at this soliloquy (page 33, lines 1–14). How would you describe its mood? Jot down any
points you think are important about the way the language helps to create this mood.
I would say that the mood of this speech is one of self-doubt and inner division. Just as in the first soliloquy,
Faustus is talking to himself, but on this occasion the voice we hear sounds markedly less confident. One
possible reason for this is that the speech is peppered with questions which seem to betray his uncertainty about
his chosen course of action; for example, in line3 he asks himself, ‘What boots it [what use is it] then to think of
God or heaven?’ The question is followed by a series of commands: ‘Away with such vain fancies and despair!
/ Despair in God and trust in Beelzebub. / Now go not backward. No, Faustus, be resolute’ (ll. 4–6). Faustus is
ordering himself not to backtrack, but to no avail, as his next question makes clear: ‘Why waverest thou?’ (l.
7). Suddenly another voice appears, urging repentance:
‘Abjure this magic and turn to God again!’ (l. 8). This voice seems to get the upper hand briefly, but Faustus
silences it with an extreme statement of his commitment to the devil.
Faustus appears to be wrestling with his conscience in this soliloquy. He clearly feels the urge to repent, so why
doesn’t he? It is interesting that although he delivers this speech before he has signed his contract with Lucifer,
he tells himself in the first line that he must ‘needs be damned’; in other words, he sees his own damnation as
unavoidable.
I.
Why should Faustus feel so strongly that he is damned, when at this point in the play there seems
to be every reason to believe that repentance will secure God’s forgiveness?
Some critics, most notably Alan Sinfield (1983) and John Stachniewski (1991), have argued that
Marlowe is exploring the mental and emotional impact of the form of
Protestantism that prevailed in
England during the late sixteenth century, based on the
doctrines of the French-born Protestant reformer
Jean Calvin. Calvinist theology
developed and changed over time, but at this historical juncture it
stressed the sinfulness and depravity of human nature. In contrast to the traditional view of salvation as
something that an individual could earn by living a virtuous Christian life, Calvinism argued that salvation is
entirely God’s gift rather than the result of any human effort. Moreover, according to the doctrine of
predestination, God gives that gift only to a fortunate few whom he has chosen; everyone else faces an eternity
of hellfire.
II.
The effects of Calvinism on the Elizabethan believers:
A. Its effect on believers was often positive; for those persuaded by their own virtuous impulses
that they were chosen by God, it proved an enormous source of comfort and well-being,
perhaps especially for poorer members of society, for whom the conviction of divine favor could
be empowering.
B. But for some, these doctrines provoked a sense of powerlessness and anxious fear about their
spiritual destiny.
Activity, page 49
FAUSTUS'S Last SOLILOQUY
FAUSTUS. Ah, Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.
O, I'll leap up to my God!—Who pulls me down?—
See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah, my Christ!—
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!
Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!—
Where is it now? 'tis gone: and see, where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!
No, no!
Then will I headlong run into the earth:
Earth, gape! O, no, it will not harbour me!
You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus, like a foggy mist.
Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud[s],
That, when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to heaven!
[The clock strikes the half-hour.]
Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon
O God,
If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,
Yet for Christ's sake, whose blood hath ransom'd me,
Impose some end to my incessant pain;
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd!
O, no end is limited to damned souls!
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Unto some brutish beast! all beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven.
[The clock strikes twelve.]
O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell!
[Thunder and lightning.]
O soul, be chang'd into little water-drops,
And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!
Enter DEVILS.
My God, my god, look not so fierce on me!
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!
Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer!
I'll burn my books!—Ah, Mephistophilis!
[Exeunt DEVILS with FAUSTUS.]
Reread Faustus’s last soliloquy (Act 5, Scene 2), thinking as you read about how Marlowe uses
sound effects to heighten the emotional impact of the soliloquy.
The soliloquy represents an attempt to imagine and dramatize what the last hour of life feels like to a
man awaiting certain damnation. Of course, the speech doesn’t really take an hour to deliver, but
Marlowe uses the sound of the clock striking to create the illusion that the last hour of Faustus’s life is
ticking away and so heightens the sense of impending doom. It strikes eleven at the start of the speech,
then half past the hour ninety-six lines later, then midnight only twenty lines after that. Why does the
second half hour pass much more quickly than the first? Is this Marlowe’s way of conveying what the
passage of time feels like to the terrified Faustus: it seems to be speeding up as the dreaded end
approaches? The thunder and lightning that swiftly follow the sound of the clock striking midnight
announce the final entrance of the devils.
Faustus wants time to stop or slow down, but the way one line of verse tumbles into the next,
accelerating rather than slowing down the rhythm, seems to signal the inevitable frustration of that
wish. Faustus himself grasps this: ‘The stars move still; time runs; the clock will strike; / The devil will
come, and Faustus must be damned’ (ll. 76–7).
Time really is the essence of this soliloquy, not only because the clock is ticking for Faustus, but
because, as we have seen, what most horrifies him is the prospect not of suffering but of endless
suffering. After the clock strikes the half hour, Faustus pleads with God to place a limit on his time in
hell – ‘Let Faustus live in hell a thousand
years, / A hundred thousand, and at last be saved’ (ll. 103–04) – only to come back to the awful truth:
‘O, no end is limited to damnèd souls’ (l. 105).
III.
The contrast between Faustus's first and last soliloquies:
One of the most striking aspects of the speech is the way it reverses the dreams of power and glory
that Faustus expressed in his first soliloquy. In that speech he declared his desire to be more than
human, to be a ‘mighty god’, but now, as he faces an eternity in hell, he wishes that he were less than
human: he longs to be transformed into ‘some brutish beast’ whose soul would simply dissolve
into the elements when it dies (ll. 109–12), or that his soul might ‘be changed into little water drops,/
And fall into the ocean, ne’er be found’ (ll. 119–20). In his final soliloquy, Faustus’s self-assertive spirit
collapses into a desire for extinction; his aspiration to divinity into a longing for annihilation as he seeks
desperately to escape from ‘the heavy wrath of God’ (l. 86).
IV.
The Genre: Morality Play or Tragedy?
A. Tragedy as defined by Aristotle (in the Poetics) in the fourth century BCE: Tragedies are
plays that represent a central action or plot that is serious and significant. They involve a
socially prominent main character who is neither evil nor morally perfect, who moves from a
state of happiness to a state of misery because of some frailty or error of judgment: this is the
tragic hero, the remarkable individual whose fall stimulates in the spectator intense feelings of
pity and fear.
B. To what extent does Doctor Faustus conform to this description of a tragic play?
Well, it follows the classic tragic trajectory in so far as it starts out with the protagonist at the
pinnacle of his achievement and ends with his fall into misery, death and (in this case)
damnation. From the beginning the play identifies its protagonist not as ‘everyman’, the
morality play hero who ‘stands for’ all of us, but as the exceptional protagonist of tragic drama.
Moreover, it is certainly possible to argue that Faustus brings about his own demise through
his catastrophically ill-advised decision to embrace black magic. Perhaps most
importantly, we have seen in the course of this chapter that Faustus is consistently presented to
us as an intermediate character, neither wholly good nor wholly bad: both brilliant and
arrogant, learned and foolish, consumed with intellectual curiosity and possessed of insatiable
appetites for worldly pleasure, a conscience-stricken rebel against divine power. We have seen as
well how skillfully Marlowe uses the soliloquy to create a powerful illusion of a complex inner
life: from Faustus’s first proud rejection of the university curriculum and his exuberant
daydreams of unlimited power, to his anguished self questioning and final terrified confrontation
with the divine authority he defied, the play gives us access to the thoughts and feelings of a
dramatic character whose fall, whether or not we feel it is deserved, seems to call for a fuller
emotional response than the Epilogue’s moralizing can provide.
V.
What, if anything, does Doctor Faustus tell us about its notorious author? Having read the
play, do you feel that it supports or invalidates the dominant view of Marlowe as the bad
boy of Elizabethan drama?
On one level, this play does seem to be the work of an author disinclined to take orthodox beliefs
on trust, who bears some resemblance to the restless, irreverent personality described and decried
by the likes of Baines and Beard. However, we have seen, throughout this chapter that this
allegedly rebellious figure produced a play that, if it questions divine justice, also insists on the
egoism and sheer wrong-headedness of its erring protagonist, and powerfully conveys his
feelings of guilt and remorse. Perhaps the play’s ambiguity is a measure of how risky it would
have been for Marlowe to write a more overtly subversive drama; yet one could also argue that
the play’s orthodox sentiments are too deeply felt to be dismissed as camouflage for the author’s
heretical opinions. In the end, all we can say is that Marlowe’s treatment of the Faust legend is
neither simply orthodox nor simply radical. With its stubborn resistance to single, fixed
meanings, Doctor Faustus leaves the character and beliefs of its author in shadow.