Joseph Sturcken

Faustus’s Final Fate

Finally, I examine the last scenes of the two Faustus texts. Here the two texts veer in greatly different directions (though one could note that the entire finale, from the Old Man’s speech to Faustus’s death [and the B-Text’s aftermath] differ immensely). For the purpose of my examination, I begin one line after Act 5, Scene 2, Line 85 of the B-Text; the corresponding A-Text line is Act 5, Scene 2, Line 61. From this point, the texts diverge.⁴⁷ The A-Text immediately introduces a clock striking eleven (as listed in the stage directions), and begins Faustus’s final monologue. Conversely, the B-Text includes several passages which solidify the differences between the two texts.⁴⁸

Rather than immediately introducing the clock striking eleven, the B-Text offers Mephistopheles’s mocking speech that he was directly responsible for Faustus’s damnation, gleefully admitting that he“/Dammed up [Faustus’s] passages” (B 5.2.94) and that he “turned the leaves/And led [Faustus’s] eye” (B 5.2.94-95) when the doctor attempted to view the Scriptures and repent. After this speech, “[t]he Good and Bad Angels orchestrate a pageant of heavenly throne and hell mouth that shows Faustus his infernal destiny in hideously graphic form” (Marcus 51). As I discussed in The Nature of Hell, this variation serves two immediate purposes: it refutes the central theme of hell that Mephistopheles presented to Faustus and reveals Mephistopheles to be a far more sinister character than previously suggested, thereby offering the viewer/reader more to interpret. After the pageant, the B-Text returns to the same moment of the A-Text: Faustus has but one hour left to live, and begins his final soliloquy. The texts diverge again after Faustus’s final words (“I’ll burn my books! Ah [B-Text: O], Mephistopheles!” [A 5.2.115, B 5.2.185]). The A-Text immediately presents the epilogue, whereas the B-Text offers an additional scene set the morning after Faustus’s demise. In the scene, the scholars return to Faustus’s room, discover his “limbs/[a]ll torn asunder by the hand of death” (B 5.3.7), and vow to gather up the doctor’s remnants so that a proper funeral may be held.

These variations provide a hearty garbling of the different religious topics discussed throughout the two texts.⁴⁹ The A-Text maintains its affirmation of hell as an abstract concept of psychological torture, and deprives the audience of a dramatic conclusion: no limbs are discovered, and for all we know from reading the play today Faustus may have simply vanished body and soul. The A-Text simply ends with the Epilogue, a section which can be viewed in either text as another interpretation of “[t]he form of Faustus’ [fate]” (A and B Prologue.7-8), provided by the Chorus. The B-Text uses all of Act 5 to steadily revert back to a more traditional view of hell, with Mephistopheles’s admission of deceit and the pageant as a perfect refutation of the psychological aspect of hell. Instead, the B-Text’s hell reveals itself as a place of (traditional) torture and incineration, the demon admits to being evil, the scholars discover a mangled corpse, and the arrangements of a funeral are discussed as a sort of final attempt to save the doctor’s soul: more visually stunning, perhaps, but arguably what an Elizabethan audience would expect of a blasphemer’s demise. Any feelings of there being an anticlimax are deliberate, and the viewer/reader is left to interpret why.

If the B-Text seems to present a more optimistic (or at least more traditional) conclusion, this is a result of the play’s traditional “lens.” If predestination plays no role (or at least an incredibly diminished one) in the scene, God appears more merciful and the denizens of hell appear more malicious: Faustus’s demise is either his failure to repent when faced with the powers of hell, or the result of demons inevitably triumphing over his non-existent free will. The implications change if a psychological lens is applied: predestination signifies God’s will, and the failure of volition is due to an intrinsic inability to take advantage of God’s mercy. Interestingly, the psychological lens means that the denizens of hell need not be cunning or malicious: they are guaranteed Faustus’s soul in the end, as per God’s will. (This suggests that Mephistopheles’s increased cunning and malice in the B-Text stems from a greater emphasis on a physical lens.)

Thus, I suggest that the A-Text generally favors a psychological view of the divine and the afterlife, whereas the B-Text generally favors a physical one. (Note that the two are still deeply muddled; there is more than enough information available to counter my statement.) As Robert Ornstein notes of the A-Text, “Marlowe chose . . . to make Lucifer merely a spectator to the final agony of his victim, who shrinks more from the wrath of God than from the terror of hell.”⁵⁰ Conversely, the B-Text does not operate under a system of existentialism and psychology. Because of this, “mercy is infinite” (B 5.2.40) if Faustus is not a reprobate, and the hell beings must keep Faustus too distraught to repent until midnight. The devils must continuously “dam up” Faustus’s path to heaven until the contract is fulfilled; notice the emphasis placed on the physical book which begins Faustus’s undoing, as well as the portrayal of Faustus’s possible predestination as a physical path to a set location on which the demons must construct (for lack of a better phrase) a road block.

One sees how Marlowe uses two texts as inquisitive vehicles to express widely different views on humanity and the afterlife. The two texts provide innumerable interpretations.

Conclusion

The two versions of Doctor Faustus offer much when viewed as their own independent works, regardless of who was responsible for creating or altering the current texts. What could easily be dismissed as slight variations in diction or clerical errors review the A-Text’s often psychological nature and the B-Text’s heavily physical nature. Of course, as Leah Marcus notes, “the degree of Faustus’s responsibility for his fate is [not] altogether clear in either A or B, or that either text delivers an unequivocal doctrinal message” (51). As I have stated, it is my belief that this “muddling” of religious ideologies was deliberate, not only to avoid censorship but avoid a blatant message. An inquisitive vehicle cannot achieve its purpose of reinterpretation if it leaves the audience no room to apply its own beliefs and convictions. While I may have made the existence of a psychological/existential lens and a physical lens painfully obvious, this is due in part to my Marlovian standard of conceptual daring: any theory, including my own, can be challenged when viewed through a different paradigm.

Interestingly, the A-Text’s psychological lens offers a portrayal of God which would be rejected as “too monstrous” by today’s standards. But this is merely a message implied through Marlowe’s inquisitive vehicle: if predestination exists and the afterlife in grounded in the psychological, then God does not need to justify the eternal damnation of certain people. It is a part of divine will. Likewise, those seeking salvation must utilize the divine; volition alone is insufficient for salvation. The B-Text’s God, a divine being whose “mercy is infinite” (B 5.2.40) is not directly responsible for the fates of reprobates. Instead, it is Lucifer’s force of devils (as represented by Mephistopheles) who seek out reprobates and take advantage of their souls’ weakness through bribery, threats, and outright deception. Likewise, God’s dominion may be accessed with only minimal involvement with the divine. The B-Text also introduces a vision of hell which is (as noted by many critics) anticlimactic, especially in comparison to the A-Text’s abstract realm of eternal existential torture. One could argue that the A-Text suggests the monstrous nature of divinity, whereas the B-Text suggests the disappointingly insubstantial state of religion. Yet the rejection of these conclusions causes no harm to my thesis: the conclusions are but two possible interpretations which arise from Marlowe’s inquisitive vehicles.

Going Further: Inquisitive Vehicles Beyond Faustus and Marlowe

It is absurd to think that Christopher Marlowe is the only author to foster discussion and reinterpretation of topics through written works. Any work explicitly designed with a message, or rather, a clear attempt at raising inquiry and discussion over a topic, is an inquisitive vehicle. Some authors in particular make great use of the rhetorical devices at their disposal to foster interpretation and/or reinterpretation.

Before I begin examining other authors’ works through my inquisitive vehicle paradigm, I would like to view a few more plays by Christopher Marlowe in this manner. Tamburlaine Parts I and II are ideal for examination as inquisitive vehicles. Like the two Faustus texts, the Tamburlaine plays focus on humanity and the afterlife; they also have the similar benefit of existing as two (strongly related, yet separate) texts which discuss conflicting curiosities and possibilities. The eponymous Tamburlaine of Part I begins as a “base-born” shepherd, but rises to become a mighty emperor. In his quest for power, he declares himself “the scourge and wrath of God.”⁵¹ Quite literally, the Scythian shepherd means that he is God’s wrath incarnate. However, Tamburlaine is not punished in any way for his fiercely blasphemous statement. In fact, he seems to be rewarded. By the end of the play, he possesses a sprawling empire, a massive standing army, several devoted generals of considerable skill, and the woman he desires. Could Marlowe be suggesting that Tamburlaine is rewarded for carrying out God’s (startlingly gruesome) will? It is not until Part II, when Tamburlaine must fight to both expand his empire and defend what he already possesses that the fates turn against him. By the end of Part II, he has lost his beloved wife, murdered one of his sons, and died of a mysterious illness. (The play heavily implies that the illness is a sort of plague cast upon him by God for burning a Koran and challenging Mohammad.) Unfortunately, this analysis of the two texts of Tamburlaine is beyond the scope of my thesis.

Final Thoughts

The inquisitive vehicle paradigm can be applied to many works. Doctor Faustus was an ideal subject for its application, as its author perfectly exemplifies the writer who goes out of his/her way to promote inquiry and discussion through the story. However, the paradigm is not limited to Christopher Marlowe, Elizabethan drama, or even works which exist in two unique recognized forms. A finished text and one of its “bad quartos” could be compared (some critics might argue that my thesis proves this), or a work could be examined by itself for its inquisitive value. I hope this method of examination is employed for the reinterpretation of texts, so that new information (or at least curiosity) might be fostered. The “inquisitive vehicle paradigm” is invaluable as it acts as both a catalyst to seek greater insight and wisdom (especially on human nature and humanity in general) and a method to obtain and spread insight and wisdom.

Notes

1. I must confess how attractive I find this theory. Unfortunately, it cannot be adequately defended (especially not within the confines of my thesis). Thus, I present it as a critical fiction to redirect one’s attention regarding the two texts, rather than a “true possibility.” I will go on to clarify exactly what my critical fiction entails, since (as I will explain) there is a natural tendency to overemphasis an Elizabethan dramatist’s role in his plays.

2. Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus and Other Plays. ed. Bevington, David and Eric Rasmussen. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1995. Print. Page xxvii.

3. Ibid. Page xxviii.

4. I am tempted to go even further and suggest that he would want his text altered after his death, so that the skeptical questions remained current and relevant; unfortunately, I lack sufficient evidence to support this extension to my theory.

5. I suspect that “political theology” is a more accurate term than “political religion”; however, I prefer to borrow the latter term from David Riggs. Within the confines of my thesis, “political religion” and “political theology” are synonymous.

6. This is perhaps the greatest risk of my thesis, as I might seem to stress that Marlowe does not play both the role of author and narrator, then immediately contradict this principle. (Different descriptions of the author and the character are virtually interchangeably [i.e., both are noted for their “overreaching,” “blasphemies,” and so on].) However, such is not my thesis. A close relationship is to be expected of this author and his protagonists for two reasons. First, it is a “critical commonplace” that Marlowe was known to retread certain themes (such as social advancement and political religion, both of which I will examine in chapter two) throughout his brief career as a playwright. Indeed, social mobility, power in various forms, overreaching, and/or forbidden knowledge can be found in some form in all of his plays. Second, Marlowe goes to great lengths to create similarities between the author and the protagonist John Faustus. Whether this was projection or the playwright slyly identifying himself as a world-renown conjuror laureate is not my concern; I will refrain from such risky psychoanalysis. However, it is my firm belief that Christopher Marlowe was in some way acting on behalf of skeptics at large when he first created Doctor Faustus. By placing various skeptical theories within his play, he drew attention to such thinking via a highly public and popular medium. Thus, the views expressed in either versions of Faustus are not the author’s alone, but a collection of beliefs, opinions, and curiosities common to skepticism.

7. Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. ed. Kastan, David. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. Print. Henceforth, all references to this source will be cited in-text, as “A” for the A-Text and “B” for the B-Text, with the appropriate information.

8. At times, it may seem that I am confusing the term “authenticity” with “authorship.” For the purposes of my argument, the terms represent the same idea. While “authorship” refers to who wrote a specific text, it fits neatly within “authenticity.” “Authenticity” refers to the text’s current state: the more degradations, alterations, and outside writers (i.e., writers that made additions without the author’s direct consent) a work contains, the less authentic it is. Likewise, the work has “low authorship” because less of it can be traced back to the original author. Thus, one sees that authorship and authenticity are proportionate.

9.Ornstein, Robert. “Marlowe and God: The Tragic Theology of Dr. Faustus.” PMLA. 83.5. 1968: 1378-1485. Print. Page 1378 illustrates a crushing example of this problem, as Ornstein argues that “[t]he artistic jumble and anticlimax [at the play’s end] is a consequence . . . not of textual corruption but of the fundamental incapacities and limitations of Marlowe’s imagination.” This would suggest great authenticity, whereas the view of this “artistic jumble and anticlimax” as a sign of corruption would suggest a less authentic text. Either interpretation is reasonable (I will not even bother to begin debating the interpretation itself just yet), but neither theory can effectively disprove or override the other. Likewise, either theory could be properly supported or attacked to make the other appear more or less likely.

010. I would argue that a discussion of what is or is not Marlovian is more appropriate for examining potential instances in which other playwrights plagiarized Marlowe’s words or writing style. For example, David Riggs notes in The World of Christopher Marlowe how “Marlowe’s mighty line” (207) was (as one would expect of a successful playwright) imitated with varying levels of failure. Once such instance is Robert Greene’s Alphonsus King of Aragon. Riggs notes how “Greene’s plot is a thinly disguised rewrite of Tamburlaine, with corresponding roles for all the major characters” (222). Consider one of Alphonsus’s bombastic declarations: “I clap up fortune with a cage of gold,/ To make her turn her wheel as I think best” (222). The similarity between one of Tamburlaine’s early declarations in Act I, Scene II, lines 174-175 (“I hold the fates bound fast in iron chains/and with my hand turn Fortune’s wheel about”) is unmistakable and beyond the possibility of coincidence. Because the discussion and examination of Marlowe’s works and style as they exist outside of his texts play no role in my thesis, I will avoid the use or discussion of “Marlovian” without proper context.

11. This theory further suffers if Bevington and Rasmussen are correct in their assertion that the A-Text was in fact a collaboration between Marlowe and another playwright. This would imply that Doctor Faustus never was a “pure” example of Marlowe’s work. Such is already true, given the “conversation” between text and performance that alters both, but a second author would all but negate the purpose of viewing either text through a Marlovian paradigm.

212. Marcus, Leah. “Textual Instability and Ideological Difference: The Case of Doctor Faustus.” Unediting the Renaissance: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Milton. New York: Routeledge, 1996. Print. Page 42. Henceforth, all references to this source will be cited in-text as “Marcus” and the appropriate page number.

313.Greg, W.W. Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus: 1604∼1616. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950. Print. Page 29. Henceforth, all references to this source’s version of Doctor Faustus will be cited in-text as “W.A” for the A-Text and “W.B” for the B-Text with the appropriate information, and all references to Greg’s original writing in this work will be cited in-text as “Greg” and the appropriate page number.

414. Amusingly, Bevington and Rasmussen might make similar accusations against the B-Text.

515. Warren, Michael. Doctor Faustus: A Norton Critical Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. Print. Page 143. Henceforth, all references to this source will be cited in-text as “Warren” and the appropriate page number.

616. It is with some trepidation that I attempt to describe W.W. Greg’s Marlovian standard. I will try to avoid making any grand or absolute claims (as doing so would be pure conjecture), but I feel it is safe to say that Greg’s Marlovian standard involves virtuosic pentameter, complex sets, and (perhaps a consequence of favoring the B-Text, which I will discuss later) an emphasis on the more traditional Anglican religious customs. Is it possible that Greg based his Marlovian standard on the Tamburlaine plays? The idea is attractive, albeit unsupportable.

717. Perhaps this is an improper analogy, as W.W. Greg places a strong emphasis on form over content in his analysis. (He often dismisses variations in diction as errors, rather than deliberate attempts to change a text’s themes.) Such is customary for a critical tradition which values unity and completion. One must remember, however, that Greg made the conscientious decision to construct his Marlovian standard as such.

818. I am quite surprised by Greg’s oversimplification here. As I came across the line in question in the two texts, I immediately assumed that the A-Text referred to midnight, the hour at which Lucifer will claim his soul (as in, “the [hour of my damnation] will come, and [Lucifer] will fetch me”), and that the B-Text referred to the literal day (as in, quite literally, “this is the [day that Lucifer will claim my soul], and he will fetch me”).

919. The assumption is that by kissing Helen of Troy, Faustus has committed the grave sin of demonality (relations with a demon).

020. Here, I am assuming that there would be no difficulties in deciding which scenes unique to one version of the text should be included or left out. This issue in itself might be enough to greatly diminish a conflated text’s attempt at authenticity.

121. I will go into greater detail on Marlowe’s understanding and use of rhetoric in my second chapter.

22. Indeed, social advancement (or at least social status) play a role in all of Marlowe’s plays. Both Faustus texts and Tamburlaine Parts I and II feature a “base-born” protagonist and his social advancement. Tamburlaine’s advancement leads him into continuous conflict with kings and emperors, whereas Faustus performs for monarchs and mocks the papacy. The Jew of Malta’s Barabas begins with immeasurable wealth, but is stripped of all he has near the beginning of the play (arguably making him “base” rather than “base-born”) and is driven by revenge and reacquiring his former status. The Massacre at Paris features a poor scholar. Edward II features the king’s affair with a “base-born” commoner. Royalty (arguably the highest social class possible) and commoners figure prominently in Dido Queen of Carthage as well.

323. In the interest of exposing one of my deepest biases, I will offer a brief critical fiction on how the Marlowe Effect may have been achieved. Leah Marcus discusses how the play was probably altered to “situat[e] the magician as the seductive antagonist of the style of belief that a given audience predominantly favored, particularly during a period when issues of doctrine and ceremony were highly inflammatory and at the center of public debate, the theatrical company would be insuring the highest possible pitch of “ravishment” and horror in terms of audience response” (54). Stemming from this theory, I personally do not doubt that there never was a single original, but several plays (or at least an original with multiple alternate scenes) which the actors combined in different ways to achievement and maintain the Marlowe Effect.

424. By leaving my Marlovian standard unshackled by any particular form or style of writing, I hope to avoid the usual pitfalls of standard-based analyses by including brief discussion of theories which conflict with my primary standard. (I realize already that my standard may “favor” the A-Text, so I will proceed accordingly to “balance” this bias.)

525. Riggs, David. The World of Christopher Marlowe. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2004. Print. Page 333. Henceforth, to be cited in-text as “Riggs” and the appropriate page number.

626. Amusingly, one could argue that a staunch believer in one religion could qualify as an atheist according to the doctrine and dogma of another. This is but one incongruity which Christopher Marlowe may have noticed and may have referenced in his writing. I am tempted to cite Mephistopheles’s taking the shape of a Franciscan friar as an example of this, but the evidence is insufficient.