Essay on Motivations for Faustuss Rebellion - 1485 Words

In the Faust legend, a man by the name of Faust or Faustus sells his soul to the devil for twenty-four years of ultimate worldly power. Although the tale of this German scholar/ magician called Johann Faust or Faustus has been re-told many times over, no version has become more prominent and controversial in English literature and history than that of Christopher Marlowes play first published eleven years after his death in 1604. Marlowes reworking is possibly the first dramatization of the medieval myth of a man who sold his soul to the Devil, and who became identified with a necromancer of the sixteenth century. Written in a time of religious uncertainty and social upheaval, the tale of Doctor Faustus explores the elements involved†¦show more content†¦Marlowe used many conventions of the medieval morality play, a popular form which uses a variety of allegory and narrates the gradual education of its hero into an understanding of the difference between essentially right and wrong. He modified this traditional form for Doctor Faustus and fitted it to the legend where conventionally the hero invariably comes to the conclusion of the play a wiser and better man, but due to the satanic nature of Faustuss rebellion he inevitably falls to his doom and is dragged screaming to Hell. But what were his motivations for such a seditious rebellion with inevitably disastrous consequences? Was he just bored and wanted more of a challenge so cast aside any previous knowledge of religious consequences when intellectual and supernatural supremacy is used for bad and not for good? The Chorus provide us with a clear synopsis of a few but compact lines which allow the reader/ audience to form a detailed picture of this growing character; `So soon he profits in divinity, The fruitful plot of scholarism graced, That shortly he was graced with doctors name, Excelling all, whose sweet delight disputes In heavenly matters of theology; As well as providing a useful summation of Faustuss academic record we are introduced to a