"An impressive opening, a marvellous ending, an indifferent middle". Does this twentieth century comment represent to you a fair summary of Dr. Faustus? Support your views by detailed illustrations of the text.

Authors Avatar

Elena Solaro 13M

“An impressive opening, a marvellous ending, an indifferent middle”. Does this twentieth century comment represent to you a fair summary of Dr. Faustus? Support your views by detailed illustrations of the text.

        The narrative patterns of Dr. Faustus can be said to take on a loose, three-part structure, in which the first part involves the serious business of Faustus conjuring the devil, the middle involves trivial entertainment and the final section, in which the play reaches an intense poetic conclusion. It is arguable that compared to the high drama and passion evident at the beginning and end, the middle of the play has little to offer. However, despite the fact that in Faustus, Marlowe intended to portray the tragic downfall of a great man, he also included the apparently frivolous middle scenes for a specific purpose.

        The play opens with Faustus alone in his study, contemplating the direction in which he should take his future studies. This first speech is energetic and his words are those of a young man. As Faustus continues to reveal his dissatisfaction with the limits of human knowledge, rejecting each of the various scholarly disciplines available to him, the audience begin to become suspicious of his intentions. When Faustus proclaims that “a greater subject fitteth [his] wit”, and that the next step in his education must be necromancy, our worst fears are confirmed. It is important to note that whilst the modern audience may be only slightly shocked by this revelation, to Marlowe’s contemporaries it would have been horrifying in the extreme. In Elizabethan times, religion permeated all aspects of life, and the majority of people were devout Christians; such and explicit display of blasphemy would have been unheard of! The dramatic tension increases as the scene progresses, and Faustus’ arrogant proposal to “try [his] brains to gain a deity” confirms our opinion of him as a dangerous over-reacher.

        The entrance of the good and evil angels signals an opportunity for theatrical spectacle, which again helps maintain the tension of this impressive, dramatic opening scene. Faustus is seemingly unaware of these two characters (which perhaps suggests that they are rather states of mind than physical beings) but continues to rhapsodise on the varied ways he will use his power. Marlowe uses poetic language, and Faustus speech is more like a love song than a soliloquy: “I’ll have them ransack the ocean for orient pearl and search all corners of the new found world for pleasant fruits and princely delicacies”. At this point, we are disturbed by Faustus’ behaviour; it is as though he is making extravagant promises to a beloved rather than seeking these things for himself.  Faustus is eager to confer with his fellow scholars Valdes and Cornelius, who can be seen to represent the traditional tempters from earlier morality plays. Valdes astonishes the audience even further by promising that their satanic powers will “canonise” them. This implied holiness could not be further from the truth of their intentions.

Join now!

        The first scene ends with Faustus feverishly impatient to conjure that very night. His last four words are dramatic and fearsome in the recklessness: “this night I’ll conjure, therefore I die”. The contemporary audience, who would have believed in the immortal soul, would have been aware of the terrifying fact that if he were to die in the process of conjuring, he would spend an eternity in hell. Soon after, we meet Faustus again. The scene is pitch black and he has prepared a circle in which to conjure, and some kind of sacrifice. Marlowe uses atmospheric language such as ...

This is a preview of the whole essay