This week's class: September 9, 2010

In this week's class we examined Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. We began with a discussion of the nature of Faustus's relationship with Mephastophilis wherein we noted several passages from the text. Faustus we could tell was not an evil person by any means (at least in the context of Marlowe's rendition of him). Indeed, he mentions in act two, scene three the various miraculous acts that he could perform for humanity as legitimizing his damnation:

My heart's so hardened I cannot repent.
Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven,
But fearful echoes thunder in mine ears:
"Faustus, thou art damned!" Then swords and knives,
Are laid before me to dispatch myself;
And long ere this I should have slain myself,
Had not sweet pleasure conquered deep despair.
Have not I made blind Homer sing to me
Of Alexander's love and Oenon's death?
And hath not he that built the walls of Thebes
With ravishing sound of his melodious harp
Made music with my Mephastophilis?
Why should I die then, or basely despair?
I am resolved: Faustus shall ne'er repent.
Come, Mephastophilis, let us dispute again
And argue of divine astrology. (II.iii 31)

To this end, we discussed how, exactly, Faustus fell into his unique predicament considering his (albeit vague) sense of humanity. Why does Faustus, an educated (by sixteenth century standards) and observant "scientist" (also by sixteenth century standards) never repent?

To answer this question we then segued into my presentation of William M. Hamlin's article "Casting Doubt in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus" wherein Faustus is described as a "skeptical" man in line with the sense of "Pyrrhonian Skepticism", a popular stance on the philosophy of skepticism during the early modern era of Western European intellectual circles. Hamlin points out that both ancient and modern notions of skepticism can be utilized rhetorically to argue either for or against Catholic dogma, Marlowe leaning more toward a critique of the former sense in Doctor Faustus. As a significant point of satire in Doctor Faustus, Hamlin proceeds to describe Marlowe’s play as exemplifying a turning point in western philosophy in that its themes recognize the relationship desire has with skepticism. Faustus is never satisfied: while his rejection of Heaven and disdain for the inability of Catholic dogma guides him to the fruit of his labors, Faustus’s concentration on worldly abilities eventually brings him to the epiphany that he lives in misery and awaits damnation regardless. Insofar as his capacity to doubt what is true or false remains constant throughout the play, the perpetual tug of war that exists for skeptics between conflicting philosophical inquiries continually reoccurs (as symbolized, according to Hamlin, by the Good and Evil Angles). Earth, or that which is below Heaven, is hence metaphorically equivalent to Hell. Faustus’s disbelief in dogma only favors the Devil’s damned power. Thus Marlowe ironically uses Catholic dogmatism to uncover a bias in his philosophical contemporaries’ tendencies toward favoring dogma as an argumentative neutral zone in accordance with early modern interpretations of ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism (Hamlin specifically cites Michel de Montaigne’s stance). Faustus was condemned to Hell ultimately because he was quick to reject his faith in pursuit of the tangible and logical, and vice versa. Instead of maintaining objectivism on the matter of God and Heaven’s physical manifestation (and by extension the relevance of both to him), Faustus fails to suspend judgment whenever he is threatened or tempted by Satan.

Though Hamlin makes a compelling argument of this matter, his essay is nevertheless lacking in its analysis of Doctor Faustus as a quintessential sociopolitical satire. Hamlin concentrates more on analyzing Marlowe’s play as a philosophical critique of the broad misinterpretations of classical skepticism that were more or less rampant in early modern theological studies. While he implies that Marlowe’s narrative rhetoric did make implications about the fallacy of Roman authority in theological matters, Hamlin ultimately downplays the role Marlowe played in the radical rethinking of the Catholic Church and its blatant corruption that was the Protestant Reformation of the seventeenth century.