Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus

1a.) Sample quiz on Faustus (NOT for the online classes!; )

• What woman does Faustus summon up for the scholars at the end of the play? • What physical transformation does Faustus play on Benvolio/The Knight? • What allegorical collection does Lucifer parade in front of Faustus? • Name one example of “physical” humor in the play?

2.) How Dr. Faustus is similar to medieval morality plays? How is it different?

What’s Going On In…
Early Modern England & The Renaissance World (1500 AD +)

Pre-1500s Post-1500s
Stable, ordered society/3 estates More chaotic, fluid social hierarchy

Rural existence (commons, peasantry) Urban life (enclosures lead to crime, Overpopulation, and urban ills)

God-centered teleology (Church as center) Man-centered (Copernicus 1543, Kepler 1609, Galileo 1610)

Roman Catholic Europe Martin Luther 1517 Catholic vs. Protestant Europe (1534 Act of Supremacy) Henry VIII breaks from Roman Catholic Church; (Show clip 5 from Luther?)

Land-based economy & power Money-based economy & power

Religiously-centered learning Growth of secularly-centered learning

Social stasis Social mobility

Royal Patriarchy Questioning of Gender Roles under Elizabeth

The English Empire & The New World during the Renaissance

1603. Reign of Queen Elizabeth

1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada (highpoint of the English Renaissance?)

1603 Ascension of James I (Stuart royal family of Scotland)

Subjugation of Scotland and Ireland

Founding of Jamestown, Va and the birth of the British Empire

16th-18th C. The “New World” and the popularity of travel literature, as embodied in the “Fantasy Island” of The Tempest

Drama, Satire & The Business of Writing

Renaissance History clip from Robert Parker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpqBxjdaD0c

• Drama and poetry are the dominant forms of literary expression in the English Renaissance.

• Drama moves from medieval morality plays to more introspective evaluations of human behavior. Renaissance plays and Protestantism itself tended to focus on the problems of individuals, and slowly drama becomes secular.

• Theater lends itself to political flexibility and the mutability of the theater; Theater as the Renaissance equivalent of today’s Hollywood. Big name actors and crowds (Edward Alleyn as Faustus, Burbage as Hamlet)

• Drama as Elizabethan royal pageantry; Elizabeth’s reign is the Golden Age of Drama in England due to E’s interest in acting, pageantry and courtiers; theater as political show

• Theater as newly-accepted social and commercial outlet—one of many popular entertainments of the era (with gambling, whoring, bear-baiting, drinking, etc..)

• Patronage and political and religious censorship were a constant threat for writers during this period.

• Most, if not all, “writers” still served aristocrats as tutors, clerks, or in some other professional capacity a’la Chaucer. It was the “new wave” of professional writers like Marlowe (& The University Wits) and self-made men like Shakespeare that were changing the nature and outlook of theater.

• The Royal regulation of printing

• The Puritan attack upon theater Vs. • The advent of Gutenberg’s printing press (c.1440A.D.) and the rise of journalism and news.

Show clips 15 & 16 from In Search of Shakespeare

Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus (c. 1589; revised text c. 1604/1616)

• Marlowe as an early contemporary of Shakespeare; son of a shoemaker, Cambridge grad and possible spy for Elizabeth. Marlowe is murdered in a bar fight in 1593.