2.5 Morality play or tragedy?
Pity and fear are the emotions that, according to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, are aroused by the experience of watching a tragedy. At
the start of this chapter we asked whether Doctor Faustus is a late sixteenth-century morality play, designed to teach its audience about
the spiritual dangers of excessive learning and ambition. When the play was published, first in 1604 and then in 1616, it was called a
‘tragical history’; if we take ‘history’ here to refer not to a particular dramatic genre but more generally to a narrative or story, then the
publisher described the play as a tragic tale. So what is a tragedy? In fact, ‘tragedy’ is a notoriously difficult literary term to define, for it
seems to take various forms in different historical periods. But for the sake of discussion, we can fall back on the broad strokes of Aristotle's
description (in the Poetics) of the tragedies he had seen in Athens in the fourth century BCE: tragedies are plays that represent a central
action or plot that is serious and significant. They involve a socially prominent main character who is neither evil nor morally perfect, who
moves from a state of happiness to a state of misery because of some frailty or error of judgement: this is the tragic hero, the remarkable
individual whose fall stimulates in the spectator intense feelings of pity and fear.
To what extent does Doctor Faustus conform to this description of a tragic play? Well, it follows the classic tragic trajectory in so far as it
starts out with the protagonist at the pinnacle of his achievement and ends with his fall into misery, death and (in this case) damnation.
From the beginning the play identifies its protagonist not as ‘everyman’, the morality play hero who ‘stands for’ all of us, but as the
exceptional protagonist of tragic drama. Moreover, it is certainly possible to argue that Faustus brings about his own demise through his
catastrophically ill-advised decision to embrace black magic. Perhaps most importantly, we have seen in the course of this course that
Faustus is consistently presented to us as an intermediate character, neither wholly good nor wholly bad: both brilliant and arrogant,
learned and foolish, consumed with intellectual curiosity and possessed of insatiable appetites for worldly pleasure, a conscience-stricken
rebel against divine power. We have seen as well how skilfully Marlowe uses the soliloquy to create a powerful illusion of a complex inner
life: from Faustus's first proud rejection of the university curriculum and his exuberant daydreams of unlimited power, to his anguished self-
questioning and final terrified confrontation with the divine authority he defied, the play gives us access to the thoughts and feelings of a
dramatic character whose fall, whether or not we feel it is deserved, seems to call for a fuller emotional response than the Epilogue's
moralising can provide.
https://pt.slideshare.net/NikunjBhatti/doctor-faustus-as-a-morality-play-40138818/4
https://prezi.com/_y_medg543ln/religion-in-doctor-faustus/
Religion in Doctor Faustus
https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Doctor-Faustus/context/
Religious and theological themes
Satire of the Pope and CatholicismGrace and damnationGood and evil
Satire of the Pope and Catholicism
As you will see from the Social / political context section of this guide, Doctor Faustus was written at a time of religious conflict and controversy in
England. Marlowe, through his work as a government agent (see Author section) was well acquainted with the nature of the conflict. The main
anxiety was that, after the reformation of the English Church under Henry VIII, his eldest daughter's brief return to Catholicism, and the consolidation
of Protestantism in the long reign of Elizabeth I, the country would be invaded or otherwise undermined and returned to Catholicism. (See Religious /
philosophical context > Protestant versus Catholic)
In this atmosphere, it is hardly surprising that Doctor Faustus contains a good deal of satire of the Pope and his court as representatives of
the Catholic faith (see Scene 8). The worldly interests in food and drink exhibited by the Pope, his cardinals and bishops carry the weight of the play's
religious satire. Faustus and Mephastophilis play practical jokes on the Pope and his monks, exposing them as non-spiritual and materialistic. The
Pope's inability to deal with the apparent presence of evil spirits at his court is also the target of Marlowe's satire and this is strengthened by the
jokes about the excommunication ritual and the mocking remarks about Purgatory. (See Synopses and commentary > Scene 8 and Characterisation
> The Pope, Emperor, the Duke and Duchess and his court)
Grace and damnation
The play is full of references to grace and damnation. Faustus' practice of black magic and his pact with Mephastophilis, the agent of God's
enemy Satan, condemns him to damnation and eternal punishment in Hell. But throughout the play, almost until its last lines, Faustus is conscious of
the possibility of repentance and salvation, by the intervention of God's grace and mercy. This is the message carried by the Good Angel and the Old
Man (see Characterisation > Good and Evil Angels and the Old Man). Both these characters remind Faustus that God's forgiveness is granted to even the
greatest of sinners, provided that they are truly penitent. It is for this reason that Mephastophilis is always alarmed when Faustus calls on God for
help: he understands the power of God's grace as well as his punishments. And it is the sense that he has cut himself off from God that makes
Faustus' final speech so anguished and poignant. (See Imagery and symbolism > Imagery in the final scene)
Good and evil
The conflict between good and evil and God and the devil lies at the heart of the play, and the battleground is Faustus' soul. The Good and Evil
Angels, representing the two sides of Faustus' character, are constantly fighting for its possession, while the Old Man is a living example of an
individual whose soul belongs firmly to God. Other characters also vie for Faustus' soul: Valdes and Cornelius tempt him towards necromancy and
conjuring the devil, while Wagner and the scholars try to persuade him in the opposite direction. (See Characterisation > Valdes and Cornelius and Three
Scholars) Increasingly, the speeches of the Chorus, especially that which ends the play, emphasise how far Faustus has strayed from the path of
goodness. (See Structure > The role of the chorus).
https://crossref-it.info/textguide/doctor-faustus/14/1710
Plot: conflict and denouement of the play
Wasting his skills
Faustus begins by asking Mephistophilis a series of science-related questions. However, the demon seems to be quite evasive
and finishes with a Latin phrase, Per inoequalem motum respect totes ("through unequal motion with respect to the whole
thing"). This sentence has not the slightest scientific value, thus giving the impression that Mephistophilis is not trustworthy.
Faustus then asks who made the world, a question which Mephistophilis refuses to answer (Mephistophilis knows that God
made the world). When Faustus announces his intention to renounce magic and repent, Mephistophilis storms away. The good
and evil angels return to Faustus: the Good Angel urges him to repent and recant his oath to Lucifer, but the Evil Angel sneers
that Faustus will never repent. This is the largest fault of Faustus throughout the play: he is blind to his own salvation and
remains set on his soul's damnation.
Lucifer, accompanied by Beelzebub and Mephistophilis, appears to Faustus and frightens him into obedience to their pact.
Lucifer then, as an entertainment, brings to Faustus the personification of the seven deadly sins. Faustus fails to see them as
warnings and ignores their implication.
From this point until the end of the play, although he gains great fame for his powers, Dr. Faustus does nothing worthwhile,
having begun his pact with the attitude that he would be able to do anything. Instead, he merely uses his temporary powers for
practical jokes and frivolous demonstrations to the nobility. Finally, with his allotted 24 years mostly expired and realizing that
he has given up his soul for no good reason, Faustus appears to scholars and warns them that he is damned and will not be
long on the Earth. He gives a speech about how he is damned and eventually seems to repent for his deeds.
Damnation
At the end of the play, on the eleventh hour, Mephistophilis comes to collect Faustus' soul and Faustus is dragged off the stage
to Hell by Mephistophilis and other devils even though Dr. Faustus tries to repent and beg for mercy from those devils. In the
later 'B text' of the play, there is a subsequent scene [V.iii] where the three scholars discover his remains strewn about the
stage: they state that Faustus was damned, one scholar declaring that the devils have torn him asunder, but they determine,
because of Faustus' learning, to have him properly buried and mourned. [23] Faustus says himself in the A text 'What are thou,
Faustus, but a man condemned to die'
