Born in Canterbury in 1564, the same year as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe was an
actor, poet, and playwright during the reign of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603).
Marlowe attended Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University and received degrees in 1584 and
1587. Traditionally, the education that he received would have prepared him to become a clergyman,
but Marlowe chose not to join the ministry. For a time, Cambridge even wanted to withhold his
degree, apparently suspecting him of having converted to Catholicism, a forbidden faith in late-
sixteenth-century England, where Protestantism was the state-supported religion. Queen Elizabeth’s
Privy Council intervened on his behalf, saying that Marlowe had “done her majesty good service” in
“matters touching the benefit of the country.” This odd sequence of events has led some to theorize
that Marlowe worked as a spy for the crown, possibly by infiltrating Catholic communities in France.
After leaving Cambridge, Marlowe moved to London, where he became a playwright and led a
turbulent, scandal-plagued life. He produced seven plays, all of which were immensely popular.
Among the most well known of his plays are Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, and Doctor Faustus.
In his writing, he pioneered the use of blank verse—nonrhyming lines of iambic pentameter—which
many of his contemporaries, including William Shakespeare, later adopted. In 1593, however,
Marlowe’s career was cut short. After being accused of heresy (maintaining beliefs contrary to those
of an approved religion), he was arrested and put on a sort of probation. On May 30, 1593, shortly
after being released, Marlowe became involved in a tavern brawl and was killed when one of the
combatants stabbed him in the head. After his death, rumors were spread accusing him of treason,
atheism, and homosexuality, and some people speculated that the tavern brawl might have been the
work of government agents. Little evidence to support these allegations has come to light, however.
Doctor Faustus was probably written in 1592, although the exact date of its composition is uncertain,
since it was not published until a decade later. The idea of an individual selling his or her soul to the
devil for knowledge is an old motif in Christian folklore, one that had become attached to the
historical persona of Johannes Faustus, a disreputable astrologer who lived in Germany sometime in
the early 1500s. The immediate source of Marlowe’s play seems to be the anonymous German work
Historia von D. Iohan Fausten of 1587, which was translated into English in 1592, and from which
Marlowe lifted the bulk of the plot for his drama. Although there had been literary representations of
Faust prior to Marlowe’s play,Doctor Faustus is the first famous version of the story. Later versions
include the long and famous poem Faust by the nineteenth-century Romantic writer Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, as well as operas by Charles Gounod and Arrigo Boito and a symphony by
Hector Berlioz.
PLOT
Doctor Faustus, a well-respected German scholar, grows dissatisfied with the limits of traditional
forms of knowledge—logic, medicine, law, and religion—and decides that he wants to learn to
practice magic. His friends Valdes and Cornelius instruct him in the black arts, and he begins his new
career as a magician by summoning up Mephastophilis, a devil. Despite Mephastophilis’s warnings
about the horrors of hell, Faustus tells the devil to return to his master, Lucifer, with an offer of
Faustus’s soul in exchange for twenty-four years of service from Mephastophilis. Meanwhile,
Wagner, Faustus’s servant, has picked up some magical ability and uses it to press a clown named
Robin into his service.
Mephastophilis returns to Faustus with word that Lucifer has accepted Faustus’s offer. Faustus
experiences some misgivings and wonders if he should repent and save his soul; in the end, though,
he agrees to the deal, signing it with his blood. As soon as he does so, the words “Homo fuge,” Latin
for “O man, fly,” appear branded on his arm. Faustus again has second thoughts, but Mephastophilis
bestows rich gifts on him and gives him a book of spells to learn. Later, Mephastophilis answers all of
his questions about the nature of the world, refusing to answer only when Faustus asks him who
made the universe. This refusal prompts yet another bout of misgivings in Faustus, but
Mephastophilis and Lucifer bring in personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins to prance about in
front of Faustus, and he is impressed enough to quiet his doubts.
Armed with his new powers and attended by Mephastophilis, Faustus begins to travel. He goes to
the pope’s court in Rome, makes himself invisible, and plays a series of tricks. He disrupts the
pope’s banquet by stealing food and boxing the pope’s ears. Following this incident, he travels
through the courts of Europe, with his fame spreading as he goes. Eventually, he is invited to the
court of the German emperor, Charles V (the enemy of the pope), who asks Faustus to allow him to
see Alexander the Great, the famed fourth-century B.C. Macedonian king and conqueror. Faustus
conjures up an image of Alexander, and Charles is suitably impressed. A knight scoffs at Faustus’s
