Doctor Faustus
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- c. 1592
- Era
- Renaissance
- Form
- Tragedy
- Language
- English
- Length
- Short · 100 ppunder 120 pages
- Difficulty
- Demanding3 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendDoctor Faustus, A- and B-TextsManchester University Press, 1993The Revels Plays edition by Bevington and Rasmussen prints both surviving versions side by side, which is what the argument about the play turns on.
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A scholar at Wittenberg who has exhausted logic, medicine, law and divinity turns to magic, conjures the devil Mephistopheles and signs away his soul in his own blood for twenty-four years of knowledge and power. What he does with them is mostly trivial: he plays tricks on the Pope, fetches grapes for a duchess, is shown a pageant of the seven deadly sins, and calls up the shade of Helen of Troy. Throughout, a good and an evil angel argue over him and he is repeatedly told that he could still repent. In the last scene the hour strikes and the devils come for him. The play survives in two quite different texts.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Doctor Faustus are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
