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Summaries and Short Reviews

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Shvoong Home>Books>Plays>Doctor Faustus Summary

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Doctor Faustus

Book Review by: Nawara    

Original Author: Christopher Marlowe
     It is the story of a middle-aged Renaissance scholar who is bored with all the learning that he
has acquired - having in mind that the Renaissance scholar was supposed to be up-to-date with all the branches of knowledge.     So, we meet him and we go with him in the process of choosing magic as an omnipotent power that - as he thinks - will give him what he wants. To achieve this goal, he conjures up a devil and he makes a pact with him and with the kingdom of hell. Signing the pact with his own blood, he starts having second thoughts about his choice. Nevertheless, he goes on with the pact provided that he will get a 24 years extra to live and having the devil to serve him.     The play goes on with Faustus not getting any magical powers but falling more and more into despair and feeling the need to go back to God and renounce magic but the devil who is always beside him, whose name is Mephistophilis, some how is always able to find a way to distract Faustus from repenting and the play ends after the passing of the 24 years by Faustsus being punished by the devils and being torn into pieces.      The play has a lot of political touches that insinuate to the way Queen Elizabeth ruled at that time and it is also considered as a critique of Calvinism and Predestination and how the residual in the Medieval man were at odds with the Renaissance aspiration and ambition.
Published: June 12, 2007
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