Faustus Flashcards
(7 cards)
How is Faustus presented throughout the play?
Faustus is the titular character and tragic hero of the play. He is an allegorical every-man who embodies the act of over-reaching and greed. Marlowe uses Faustus as a vessel for his warning against these negative aspects of the Renaissance and growing humanist population.
“Till, swollen with cunning, of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,”
Chorus, Prologue
AO1: Plosives, Allusion, Rhyming Couplet, Foreshadowing
AO2: Faustus’ selfish motives of finding endless knowledge and power after being tempted by necromancy leads to his tragic end, much like how Icarus flew too close to the sun and died
AO3: Aristotle’s aspects of a tragic hero (hamartia, peripeteia, anagnorisis, catharsis)
“O Faustus, lay that damned book aside,
And gaze not on it, lest it tempt thy soul,
And heap God’s heavy wrath upon thy head.”
Good Angel, Scene 1
AO1: Religious imagery, Allegory, Archaic pronouns
AO2: The good and bad angel serve to either sway Faustus into repenting or further down the spiral of necromancy.
AO2: The good angel respects and cares for Faustus, contrasting the means of the evil angel.
AO3: Morality Play
“Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art Wherein all Nature’s treasury is contained:
Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,”
Evil Angel, Scene 1
AO1: Religious imagery, contrast, semantic feild of fame and fortune
AO2: The evil angel persuades Faustus to carry on chasing fame, fortune and unlimited power through the means of the dark arts.
AO3: Fame and reputation in the Renaissance through the invention of the printing press in 1440 (the ideals of reputation and fame in the Renaissance period were promoted by humanist thinkers and scholars as admirable feats to achieve, hence making them attainable goals for the average citizen such as those who are “base of stock”)
“Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,
[…] I’ll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,
And search all corners of the new-found world
For pleasant fruits and princely delicates.”
Faustus, Scene 1
AO1: Syndetic list
AO2: Faustus’ aspirations for his use of magic align with the exploration in 1600s England
AO3: Golden age of exploration during the Renaissance
“Say, he surrenders up to him his soul
So he will spare him four and twenty years,
[…] To give me whatsoever I ask,
To tell me whatsoever I demand,
To slay mine enemies, and aid my friends,”
Faustus, Scene 3
AO1: Anaphora
AO2: Faustus uses his first meeting with Mephistopheles to lay down the foundations of what he wants with this power, but only asks for a limited amount of time which displays a lack of logical thinking for a man said to be a polymath
AO3: Aristotle’s elements of a tragic hero (hamartia, anagnorisis, catharsis)
“Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss [he kisses her.]”
Faustus, Scene 12
AO1: Epithet, celestial language, lack of rhetoric
AO2: Helen’s lack of lines shows how she is just an object for Faustus to garner what he perceives to be mortal love
AO2: Transference of his homoerotic tendencies onto Helen of Troy (only other time he uses epithet of sweet is Mephistopheles)
AO5: Greg - Believes this is what damns him: the act of demoniality
