"Look again at Faustus' opening soliloquy, from 'Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin' to 'Here tire, my brains to get a deity'. What aspects of Faustus, revealed here, are important to our understanding of him later in the play?

"Look again at Faustus' opening soliloquy, from 'Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin' to 'Here tire, my brains to get a deity', paying special attention to what he says and how he says it. What aspects of Faustus, revealed here, are important to our understanding of him later in the play?" .From the opening soliloquy, the reader is given a great insight into how Faustus' mind works, how he uses logic and his intellect to draw up conclusions, and it is possible for one to forecast future events and occurrences involving Faustus on the basis of this initial passage. The opening two lines of his soliloquy indicate that he is often quick at making decisions. (However, later on, usually under the influence of other characters or sources, he rethinks whether his decision was the correct one to make). An example of his rush to decision is seen in the opening where Faustus initially states that he is about to "begin to sound the depth of that thou wilt profess". I believe that using the word 'wilt' may suggest that he has finalised his decision, and he is certain that he is going to take this path. However, this is not the case. Later on in the text, he may make a statement as if it has been finalised, yet go on to reconsider his actions. In the soliloquy, he initially claims that he will follow this path, then goes on to consider if it was the right choice, trying to seek

  • Word count: 2478
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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"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.

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

  • Word count: 2058
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Doctor Faustus: What do we learn about Faustus? What are our responses to his ambition? What is your response to key issued linked to pride?

Doctor Faustus: What do we learn about Faustus? What are our responses to his ambition? What is your response to key issued linked to pride? We first learn that Faustus is an academic and well educated individual from the first few lines, having studied at 'Wittenberg' we are prone to believe he is a highly educated man; furthermore, we begin to understand same of his qualities, such as, being a 'quick learner', a master of theology, yet after a change in register, we begin to identify the fact that his awareness of being an intelligent person, turns into cockiness and self-pride. 'His waxen wings did mount above his reach' This allows us to pick up on the idea that his desire for knowledge and power is beyond the scope of man; in other words, Dr Faustus feels that he has to make decisions about his future, having mastered a brilliant career. Philosophy, medicine, law and theology doesn't satisfy hum any longer and this is where we begin to embark on Faustus' attractions to the secrets of magic; having mastered all other aspects of knowledge, he want to master craft. Faustus' journey to creating magic reveals a lot about his character in just the first few pages. Faustus originally intends to increase his intellect and power to help others and impact on his chances of finding a mate to start a family, yet we begin to identify him ad being somewhat a demonic character,

  • Word count: 584
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Aysha Bismillah 11R

Aysha Bismillah 11R Drama GCSE- Evaluation of live performance The play was about a man called Dr Faustus who sold his soul to the devil for 24 years s he could live in luxury and get whatever he wanted with people waiting on him. When these 24 years come to an end Faustus regrets giving his soul to the devil and turns to God who forgives him. It was set in Whittenburg University in the 1500's. The theatre we watched the play in was small and intimate. This affected the performance because the audience were closer to the stage and this made the audience concentrate more. Faustus was a greedy character. He wanted luxury and power. The actor who played Faustus was loud and showed his emotions/feelings. His body language and facial expressions showed his confusion throughout the play. He talked to himself to tell the audience what was going through his mind. Mephostophilis was a stern character who had his way of making people change their mind. Lucifer was a mean character who looked evil and controlled people. She could also make people do what she wanted them to do. The good and bad angels were competitive and tried to keep Faustus on their side. The set was ideal for the play. It was a traverse stage with people on both sides so everyone could see what was going on. The lights were very low so the room was dark. This created an eerie effect and increased audience

  • Word count: 787
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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What does the play tell us about 16th century attitudes to ambition, pride and defiance to God?

What does the play tell us about 16th century attitudes to ambition, pride and defiance to God? Doctor Faustus was written in the Renaissance period where there was a shift from Christian ideals. People wanted to achieve their potential. At that time society was God-fearing, they believed that God gives the world purpose and the church at the time was extremely powerful. There were church laws and atheists were hung. The 16th century brought about a high level of paranoia that Satan was everywhere and God was no longer a guardian angel saving us from evil but that we had to defend ourselves from him. However with new discoveries, people began to look beyond religion and God, towards science and magic. Marlowe was quite ahead of the people of his time and was an atheist. He uses Faustus to represent the new ambitious intellects that wanted to test their abilities and turn away from religious theories. With the strict laws of the time, Marlowe wouldn't have been able to express his ideas openly and so he depicts the Christian idea of the time that the individual is responsible for his own fate, and in this story Faustus' own attitude represents the changing attitudes of the people of his time. There were many advances in this period and they came about because of the ambitions of the people to gain a deeper knowledge in all the different studies but Faustus' damnation is almost

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Can Faustus truly be regarded as a tragic hero

Faustus, a tragic hero? In order to do this, Marlowe has drawn on the conventions of classical Greek tragedy, many of which dictate the nature of the hero or heroine. In ancient times, a hero achieved heroic status not because of saintliness or wickedness, but because of the acts he performed in life. The hero should have a socially elevated status and suffer a reversal of fortune in which he experiences great suffering. This is all certainly true of Faustus, who is highly regarded as both a lecturer at the University of Wittenberg, and an accomplished scholar. During his life, he performs extraordinary feats, which were unlike anything experienced by lesser mortals. Even by modern standards, the notion of necromancy is disturbing; for a contemporary Elizabethan audience, for whom religion permeated all aspects of life, it would have been inconceivably horrific. Once Faustus is "glutted with learning's golden gifts and surfeited upon cursed necromancy" he uses his powers to embark upon amazing adventures (for example learning the secrets of astronomy upon the summit of mount Olympus) which, again, are befitting of the tragic hero. Faustus reversal of fortune is also typically tragic. During the final scene of the play, in which we witness Faustus' final hour before being taken off to hell, he is, like all heroes of classical tragedy, completely isolated. There is a poignant

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  • Level: AS and A Level
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The tragical history of 'Doctor Faustus', which followed in the wake of 'Tamburlaine', is acclaimed by all as Marlowe's best play in which the leaven of fertile poetry and fearless imagination works wonders.

Introduction: The tragical history of 'Doctor Faustus', which followed in the wake of 'Tamburlaine', is acclaimed by all as Marlowe's best play in which the leaven of fertile poetry and fearless imagination works wonders. The idea of a passionate struggle to reach beyond the grasp of ordinary mortals as its theme Marlowe takes this old story of the medieval magician who sells his soul to the Devil for twenty four years of pleasure and the gift of all knowledge and gives it a significance as in to that of such world old myths as Eve's eating the apple and Prometheus' defiance of Gods. Hence, making the Faustus legend a symbol of humanity's splendid struggle to reach the stars, as well as a tragedy of infinite aspiration ending in agony and remorse. Inspite of the critics and scholars being one in their opinion to recognize Christopher Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus' as one of the masterpieces of British drama there cannot be any denying the fact that the most glaring weakness of 'Doctor Faustus' lies in the lack of a well knit or an organic plot. Aristotle's definition of Tragedy : According to Aristotle 'Tragedy' in the real sense is an imitation of an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude; The beginning, called by modern critics the incentive moment, must start the cause-and-effect chain but not be dependent on anything outside the compass of the play

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Reread the opening soliloquy of Dr Faustus. In what way does this establish Faustus' character and at the same time take you back into the Renaissance world?

Reread the opening soliloquy of Dr Faustus. In what way does this establish Faustus' character and at the same time take you back into the Renaissance world? The opening soliloquy of Marlow's , Dr Faustus' reveals many different characteristics and values of the epilogist. At the same time as establishing Faustus' character, the soliloquy takes one back to the Renaissance world by presenting Faustus as a 'man of his times' since his character is greatly influenced by changes in attitudes and society which were encountered in the Renaissance era. One of Faustus' key characteristics, which is very apparent throughout the opening soliloquy, is that he is engaged in a personal power struggle and is not content with his current status. One acknowledges this problem when Faustus asserts demands such as, ' Be a physician, Faustus, heap up gold, And be eternised for some wondrous cure'. In instructing himself to find a wondrous cure in the medical world, Faustus is implying that he wants to be famous and improve his financial situation. This desire to become rich and famous compliments the newly-adopted attitude towards individuals after the Restoration. As the Restoration stripped the Church of its religious authority, prominence was given to individual's own quest for religious understanding and both mankind and his life on earth were therefore given greater value.

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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The final passage, Faustus is again trying to repent in some kind of way. There is a sense of irony in this passage as

Find these passages in the play and cite their significance to the play as a whole These four different passages from the play show a great significance to the play as a whole. Now I will go on to explain what the significance of these passages are to the rest of the play. The first passage, 'I see an angel hovers o'er thy head and with a vial full of precious grace, offers to pour the same into they soul: then call for mercy, and avoid despair'. The old man, in scene twelve lines forty-four to forty seven, says this quote. The significance that this passage has to the play as a whole is that this relates this play to the traditional morality play. In morality plays, the normal procession is that in some point of the play, the well respected being who has been tempted away from his responsibilities is confronted by a respectable person to leave the tempters, and go back to his normal responsibilities. I feel that this is exactly what this quote is telling Faustus to do. Obviously the who play does differ from a normal morality play, but this play still has a lot of morality features. Also the old man is trying to persuade Faustus that what he is doing is not right, and so he should look up to God and repent. I feel that the old man links with the Good Angel in this play. I feel that the play suggests this as, the old man is trying to convince Faustus that what he is doing

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Remind yourself of Scene 12 (pages 59-63)

Christopher Marlowe's 'Dr Faustus' Remind yourself of Scene 12 (pages 59-63). What is the importance of this scene in the context of the whole play? At the beginning of Scene 12, Marlowe introduces a number of scholars and Faustus conferring about the 'beautifullest' lady in the world. After deciding this is Helen of Troy, the scholars ask Faustus to conjure the 'peerless dame of Greece'. Faustus does not need much persuasion from the scholars to conjure Helen of Troy and once she appears, although she does not speak, her presence 'passeth over the stage'. The scholars, amazed at the 'pride of Nature's works', exit with Helen as an old man enters on stage. In line 24 of the scholar's speech, we see much irony when-after practising necromancy-the scholar states he is happy and 'blest'. Marlowe introduces the Old Man to represent Christian faith. He does not need a name for he is only representational. The Old Man uses much persuasive language during his speech to Faustus and states Faustus' blood must 'wash away thy guilt'. The influential language used throughout lines 26-37 hence persuades Faustus to believe he is 'damned' and must die. As Mephastophilis hands him the dagger, the Old Man states he must not commit suicide-for it was a sin during the Elizabethan period to take your own life. He continues that Faustus must 'call for mercy' and as the 'Old Man' leaves, Faustus

  • Word count: 879
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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