This is the first play I
have reviewed here. It had to happen eventually, and I suppose I could not have
chosen a better start than with Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, a tale of poor life choices and what not to do when
offered a deal by the devil.
The historical ‘Johann Faust’ is a creature of popular
legend, a figure of Early-Modern Germany who consorted in trickery, alchemy,
and darker arts than that. Such a reputation he gained (assuming, of course,
that he was ever a single figure to start with, and not just a concoction of
different personalities and folk tales given life under the name ‘Faust’), that
written stories of him began to circulate in the later 16th century,
which almost certainly inspired Christopher Marlowe in his writing of the Doctor Faustus play. The other most
famous work based on the legendary Faustus is Goethe’s Faust, which was written in the late 18th/early 19th
century, but that shall not be considered here.
The story of Marlowe’s work can basically be summed up with
the maxim “Pride Comes Before the Fall”, as the play opens with a certain
reckless scholar by the name of Faustus decides to summon himself a demon,
bargaining away his soul in exchange for twenty-four years of unbridled power
on Earth, in which the demon Mephostophilis will carry out his every whim.
Going out with his newfound abilities, and fully aware of the price he will
have to pay, what does Faustus actually do? He meddles in European politics, plays
tricks on people, becomes a petty snake-oil salesman, and tries to impress his
scholarly friends by offering them glimpses of Helen of Troy. Two extended
sequences involve his tampering between the Pope of the Catholic Church and the
emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, although in the latter of these scenes it
mostly involves the emperor’s three cronies trying to do away with the mad
Doctor. Eventually, after both pissing off and amazing most of Germany, Doctor
Faustus’ twenty-four years run out and Mephostophilis returns to claim his
dues.
Right then, first thing to note is that this thing is a
play. That means, if you’re reading this thing as opposed to watching it
staged, then you get dialogue and pretty much that. The novel as we know it is
a fairly recent innovation, and the stuff that goes into bulking out a modern
story – the descriptions, the moments of silence, the flourish of writing – all
tends to go into making a story much thicker than it could actually be. When
all of that is stripped out, and only dialogue remains then a story can
actually be quite short. A play which runs for a couple of hours takes up
barely a hundred pages in actual text, so reading one is potentially less
arduous than taking up a novel. That said, the leaner reading material might
not be to everybody’s taste – it’s certainly not to mine. Oh, I enjoyed Doctor Faustus, but I find novels often
more enjoyable to deal with. One tactic for plays, however, is to read them out
loud, as they are rightfully meant to be. Better yet, force somebody else to
join in reading it with you and therefore take advantage of a play’s dialogical
nature. They are written to be performed out-loud after all, unlike novels,*
and so giving a play this sort of treatment might be the best way to appreciate
it.
Of interesting characters we have a grand host of them,
from a pope and an emperor, to Faustus’ dogsbody Wagner (no, not Richard Wagner
the 19th century composer). There are a couple of chaps called Robin
and Dick, who are supposedly in the story to provide comic relief – though I
found them a bit annoying myself – as well as a whole host of other characters
who serve mostly to give Faustus somebody to play cruel tricks on. The central
characters however are Faustus himself, whose tendency to slip into Latin
during his opening soliloquy can be frustrating, and his demonic buddy
Mephostophilis. This demon is a most interesting chap, giving Faustus all due
warning of the price that will have to be paid for his servitude, yet Faustus
ignores this advice and goes ahead with the whole thing anyway. While
Mephostophilis is the main demonic character, one whose main function is to
carry out Faustus’ command and cause havoc when he orders it, we also get
Lucifer the Devil himself make a couple of appearances along with a couple of
other demons, and all seven of the Deadly Sins!
Last thing to mention, something that I’m really finding an
interesting overarching point in my life at the moment, is the painful yet
delightful concept of ‘editions’. There are only two copies of the text of Doctor Faustus that have survived to the
modern era, and though both are from approximately the same time, there are
significant differences between the two. These two versions of the play, known helpfully
as ‘A’ Text and ‘B’ Text, are both very clearly the same play but bear
considerable differences in terms of language and length. B Text is
considerably longer than its counterpart, with many additional lines and a
number of alterations and omissions from A Text, while A Text is leaner and
bears language which could be construed as of a more blasphemous nature.
Scholars have debated over the relationship of these two texts for many many
decades, and so I will avoid joining in on something I know very little about.
All I can say is that no matter which one you personally consider to be more
authoritative or closer to Christopher Marlowe’s hypothetical original text,
there are two different texts out there and this will affect your choice of
readings. The edition I made use of used the longer B Text as a basis, amending
it with readings from A Text when the editor felt that was appropriate. If you
want to avoid reading the same play twice and playing ‘spot the difference’ between
the two texts, then this is probably the best approach.
So there you go. Doctor
Faustus is an entertaining and memorable little gem of 16th
century playwriting, and is well worth a read. Otherwise it is a good and nice
little way into the modern legend of Doctor Faust, a fascinating character who
may possibly have caused a bit of havoc, and whose selling of his own soul to
the Devil counts as one of the stupidest life-choices ever made.
* Although there is
something to be said for reading novels out loud. Had I enough breath in my
body, I would certainly like to try this with all books. A funny thing to
consider that several centuries ago, it was a highly unusual ability for people
to be able to read in their heads, while nowadays just about everybody can do
this. Isn’t the world a funny old place?
The
Tragicall Bibliographie
of the Life and Death of One Man’s
Reading Affliction
Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. Edited by Sylvan Barnet.
New American Library: New York. (1969 [Originally premiered c.1592])
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