The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus, is an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about the title character Faust, that was first performed sometime between 1588 and Marlowe's death in 1593. Two different versions of the play were published in the Jacobean era, several years later.The powerful effect of early productions of the play is indicated by the legends that quickly accrued around them-that actual devils once appeared on the stage during a performance, "to the great amazement of both the actors and spectators", a sight that was said to have driven some spectators mad.
Doctor Faustus is a classic; its imaginative boldness and vertiginous ironies have fascinated readers and playgoers alike. But the fact that this play exists in two early versions, printed in 1604 and 1616, has posed formidable problems for critics. How much of either version was written by Marlowe, and which is the more authentic? Is the play orthodox or radically interrogative? Michael Keefer’s early work helped to establish the current consensus that the 1604 text was censored and revised; the Keefer edition, praised for its lucid introduction and scholarship, was the first to restore two displaced scenes to their correct place. Most competing editions presume that the 1604 text was printed from authorial manuscript, and that the 1616 text is of little substantive value. But in 2006 Keefer’s fresh analysis of the evidence showed that the 1604 quarto’s Marlovian scenes were printed from a corrupted manuscript, and that the 1616 quarto (though indeed censored and revised) preserves some readings earlier than those of the 1604 text. This edition has been updated and revised. Keefer’s critical introduction reconstructs the ideological contexts that shaped and deformed the play, and the text is accompanied by textual and explanatory notes and excerpts from sources.
Dr. Faustus is a great Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlow originally published in 1600. The story is based on an earlier anonymous classic German legend involving worldly ambition, black magic and surrender to the devil. It remains one of the most famous plays of the English Renaissance. Dr. John Faustus, a brilliant, well-respected German doctor grows dissatisfied with the limits of human knowledge - logic, medicine, law, and religion, and decides that he has learned all that can be learned by conventional means. What is left for him, he thinks, but magic. His friends instruct him in the black arts, and he begins his new career as a magician by summoning up Mephastophilis, a devil. Despite Mephastophilis’s warnings about the horrors of hell, Faustus tells the devil to return to his master, Lucifer, with an offer of Faustus’s soul in exchange for twenty-four years of service from Mephastophilis. On the final night before the expiration of the twenty-four years, Faustus is overcome by fear and remorse. He begs for mercy, but it is too late. At midnight, a host of devils appears and carries his soul off to hell. Marlowe’s dramatic interpretation of the Faust legend is a theatrical masterpiece. With immense poetic skill, and psychological insight that greatly influenced the works of William Shakespeare and other dramatists, Dr. Faustus combines soaring poetry, psychological depth, and grand stage spectacle. Marlowe created powerful scenes that invest the work with tragic dignity, among them the doomed man’s calling upon Christ to save him and his ultimate rejection of salvation for the embrace of Helen of Troy.
Doctor Faustus or, The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustusis an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about the title character Faust. It was written sometime between 1589 and 1592, and may have been performed between 1592 and Marlowe's death in 1593. Two different versions of the play were published in the Jacobean era, several years later. The 1604 quarto, printed by Valentine Simmes for Thomas Law; this is usually called the A text. The title page attributes the play to "Ch. Marl.". A second edition (A2) of first version was printed by George Eld for John Wright in 1609. It is merely a direct reprint of the 1604 text. The text is short for an English Renaissance play, only 1485 lines long. The 1616 quarto, published by John Wright, the enlarged and altered text; usually called the B text. This second text was reprinted in 1619, 1620, 1624, 1631, and as late as 1663. Additions and alterations were made by the minor playwright and actor Samuel Rowley and by William Borne (or Birde), and possibly by Marlowe himself. The 1604 version was once believed to be closer to the play as originally performed in Marlowe's lifetime, simply because it was older. The 1616 version omits 36 lines but adds 676 new lines, making it roughly one third longer than the 1604 version. Among the lines shared by both versions, there are some small but significant changes in wording; for example, "Never too late, if Faustus can repent" in the 1604 text becomes "Never too late, if Faustus will repent" in the 1616 text, a change that offers a very different possibility for Faustus's hope and repentance.
This new edition of Dr. Faustus presents the play in its original spelling with extensive commentary and textual apparatus. Based on the edition of 1604, the book includes an introduction that presents a new theory of the text and its transmission, and appendices that outline differenttheories of the text and provide both the alternative passages from the 1616 edition and extracts from The English Faustbook, which was the play's principal source.
Doctor Faustus is a classic; its imaginative boldness and vertiginous ironies have fascinated readers and playgoers alike. But the fact that this play exists in two early versions, printed in 1604 and 1616, has posed formidable problems for critics. How much of either version was written by Marlowe, and which is the more authentic? Is the play orthodox or radically interrogative? Michael Keefer’s early work helped to establish the current consensus that the 1604 text was censored and revised; the Keefer edition, praised for its lucid introduction and scholarship, was the first to restore two displaced scenes to their correct place. Most competing editions presume that the 1604 text was printed from authorial manuscript, and that the 1616 text is of little substantive value. But in 2006 Keefer’s fresh analysis of the evidence showed that the 1604 quarto’s Marlovian scenes were printed from a corrupted manuscript, and that the 1616 quarto (though indeed censored and revised) preserves some readings earlier than those of the 1604 text. This edition has been updated and revised. Keefer’s critical introduction reconstructs the ideological contexts that shaped and deformed the play, and the text is accompanied by textual and explanatory notes and excerpts from sources.
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Analyzes Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, argues that the original text was subjected to religious censorship, and speculates on the original theme of the play
