United Kingdom Magzines

G.B. Shaw’s 'Freedom'

G.B. Shaw’s Freedom actually belongs to one of the series of radio talks delivered by him in 1935 on the B.B.C. As it was intended for the larger circles in their capacity as listeners, the lecture seems to be free from theoretical jargons. But Shaw can be very much deceptive in what he says. For, behind his homour lies the satire of the contemporary social condition. Not only that, his simple talk was actually a denunciation of the conventional and capitalist view of freedom. Politically Shaw conformed to democratic socialism, a variant of Marxism, according to which the society should try to reach the socialist political condition gradually by the democratic means. The concept of freedom, which Shaw satirises, was the fundamental principle of Enlightenment, and he does so because in a capitalist society, according to the Marxian view, freedom of the individual can never be realised.
Shaw begins the essay with the proposition that a person can be called completely free in such a condition, in which he will be able to “ do what he likes, when he likes, and where he likes, or do nothing at all if he prefers it”. He firmly denies the possibility of the existence of such a person as human beings are all slaves to nature:
“…we must all sleep for one third of our lifetime__ wash and dress and undress__ we must spend a couple of hours eating and drinking__ we must spend nearly as much in getting about from one place to place.”
From this funny yet inexorable condition of human life, Shaw very cleverly moves on to the fact that some of the “natural jobs” can be placed on others’ shoulders:
“What you do to a horse or a bee, you can do to a man or woman or child…sort”.
With this Shaw, however, comes to the immediate social and political condition of the time, in which the concept of freedom __ derived from the grand idealistic project of the Enlightenment, and nationalistic bias produced by the First World War __ was being glorified and used by the upper class as a means to achieving their self-interests. According to Shaw the farce of the democratic system in a capitalist state lies in the fact that “most actual governments…enforce your slavery and call it freedom”. But the citizens of the state continue to be duped by the system instead of rising to protest. Shaw terms this unequal relationship “the unnatural slavery of man to man”.
Shaw points out an important difference between the “natural slavery of man to Nature and the unnatural slavery of man to man”. According to him, the first, though unavoidable, provides pleasure after its fulfilment; for instance, if nature forces us to drink, she makes drinking pleasant. The same is true of eating, drinking, sleeping and other activities. Shaw introduces this difference and cites examples more importantly to explain the evils of the former in more acute terms. He refers to few thinkers like Karl Marx and Thomas Moore, who denounced this slavery and tried to abolish it. At this point his explanation of the capitalist mechanism, that is, the means by which the system tries to dupe people and establish, legitimize and perpetuate itself approaches the ideological theories of Althusser and Gramsci. “Ideology represents”, Althusser tells us, “the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real condition of existence.” He points out that there are found a number of ideologies – namely, religious ideology, ethical ideology, legal ideology, political ideology – all of which operate invisibly in the superstructure. Shaw strikes at the very root when he says, “Naturally the master class, through its parliaments and schools and newspapers, makes the most desperate efforts to prevent us from realizing our slavery.” He explains historically how the British capitalist system has established itself by propagating the so-called glorious events as the Magna Charta, the defeat of the Spanish Armada and Napoleon. Then he explains how “ideological apparatuses”, to quote Althusser, manipulate the common mass to cast votes in favour of the capitalist leaders. What is more alarmingly effective, according to him, is the educational system, which operates in the superstructure and “ends in deluding the master class much more completely”.
Thus Shaw explains the difference between two kinds of slavery and conclusively tells the listeners/readers: “Wipe out from yours dreams of freedom the hope of being able to do as you please all the time.” For, according to him, people have to remain occupied doing the natural slavery for at least twelve hours a day, while their unnatural slavery is controlled and regulated by the legal and administrative system of the country.

Analysis of Sir Philip Sidney’s Loving in Truth (Sonnet No. 1 from Astrophil and Stella)

Unknown 12:12

Sonnet No. 1

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn’d brain.

But words came halting out, wanting Invention’s stay;
Invention, Nature’s child, fled stepdame Study’s blows;
And others’ feet still seem’d but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truand pen, beating myself for spite,
‘Fool’ said my Muse to me, ‘look in thy heart and write’.

(from Astrophil and Stella)

Like other creative persons of the period, Sidney also came under the influence of sonneteering. Thus a series of sonnets addressed to a single lady, expressing and reflecting on the developing relationship between the poet and his love grew up. Though the story does not have to be literal autobiography and questions of ‘sincerity’ are hardly answered, Sidney’s love for Stella, on the artistic level, has been traced to love-affair of the poet’s own life. Stella is said to be Penelope Devereux, who did not or could not reciprocate the love and married Lord Rich. It is, in fact, owing to the predisposition of the mind created by the Romantic tradition of subjective art that we sometimes relate and interpret the works of other writers of other periods before the Romantics to and in terms of their biographical accounts.

It must be remembered that with Loving in Truth the Astrophil and Stella theme-sequence opens. Significantly the opening sonnet presents the dual theme of how to write good poetry and how to win the favour of a beloved. The poet even implies the question whether it is possible to a good poem aiming at winning the beloved. At the very beginning of the sonnet Sidney makes it clear that he writes the sonnet in order to win Stella. Here he employs the simplest means—which any lover does, namely, the pain-pleasure-knowledge-pity-love method:

“… she might take some pleasure of my pain;

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain”.

The word ‘pain’ has, however, a double meaning here; in one sense it refer to the pains of love and in another sense it refers to the hardships of creative writing. This implies that poetry is not just inspirational or impulsive, but a long struggle with words, emotions and feelings. Theoretically Sidney was influenced by both Aristotle and Horace. He believed that good poetry must both teach and delight. That is why he thinks that reading well-written love-poems give his beloved pleasure and knowledge of his sincerity and anguish. This would, in turn, make her pity him and pity would give rise to love.

The poet confesses that once decided upon the means he went on to paint “the blackest face of woe/ Studying inventions fine…” Here we come to an outstanding feature of the imagery of Astrophil an Stella—the device of personification, which was, in fact, a medieval practice and influenced the poets till the 17^th century. Here the poet also refers to the contemporary practice of imitating the words of other poets. But he comes to the realization that imitation without inspiration is futile. That is why he waits for “some fresh showers upon my sun-burn’d brain”. The image is an instance of Sidney’s innovative imagination. By ‘sun’ he refers to Stella or the source of his love, which has dried up his creative faculty. The poet understands that this forces him to halt. When Sidney says, “Invention, Nature’s child”, he follows Aristotle’s idea that art is an imitation of nature. In accordance with that equation, literary imitation, the product of ‘study’ has a secondary place in creative writing. Thus, literary imitation, “others’ feet” cannot provide the solution to the creation of original poetry. Here Sidney’s comparison of creative writing to giving birth to a child is highly significant and it contains metaphor within metaphor.

At last a miracle seems to happen with him:

“Fool’ said my Muse, “look in thy heart and write”.

He comes to a sudden realization that only spontaneous inspiration can help the poet compose good poetry and win the beloved. When he will look into his heart, he will see the image of Stella, which will provide him with the inspiration and material he needs to write poetry. Thus, the last line of the sonnet turns out to be a direct statement of Sidney’s critical creed that great poetry does not result from imitation of other poets, but from the expression of personal experience and passion. Such views on poetic creation are similar to those of the Romantic poets.

Significance of the Title of Congreve's Way of the World:

Unknown 10:04 Congreve

It was perhaps sheer pedantic myopia that, when Jeremy Collier published his essay A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage in 1698, he made Congreve a particular target of his criticism. That Collier had a case is undeniable, but he forgot that a true artist does have as sincere obligation to society as a churchman. Had he waited before publishing his essay till the production of The Way of the World (1770), he could have perhaps understood that truth; for, in the play The Way of the World Congreve seems to understand the “immorality and profaneness” of a society, upon the matrices of which Restoration plays were made. He was seriously thinking of an alternative pattern of behaviour and an alternative set of codes of conduct. The very title of the play, The Way of the World points to the ‘way’ the hero and heroine (and by implication the spectators) should adopt in order to come out of the grip of the fashionable society. The whole story is an illustration of the process, by following which Mirabell and Millament seek a resolution, that is, to gain their own world by using and manipulating the existing social norms, through the winding lanes of that society.
Congreve constructed the plot of the play accordingly with this aim in mind. One can discern a definite pattern in the movement of the play. At the beginning of the play, Mirabell is trying to shape up a situation so that he can win both hands of Millament and her estate from Lady Wishfort. He has married his servant, Waitwell off to Lady Wishfort’s maid, Foible and plans to have Waitwell disguise himself as a noble man, court, and marry Lady Wishfort. Then Mirabell would blackmail her by threatening to disclose that she has married a servant and would offer her to release her if she will let him marry Millament plus the estate. But Mrs. Marwood discovers the plan and tells Lady Wishfort. Mrs. Marwood also tells Fainwall of his wife, Mrs. Fainwall’s former relationship with Mirabell. From all these Fainwall plans to blackmail Lady Wishfort by threatening to reveal all unless she signs over to him not only his wife’s but also Millament’s estate and even the conversation of Lady Wishfort’s own estate after her death.
As the action of the play gets momentum and the plot becomes more and more complicated, Congreve loads the stage by introducing confusing figures like Mr. Wilful Witwood. While it adds to the comedy of the play, it complicates the plot further. However, certain hidden facts of the past are revealed through the conversations of the characters: for instance, Mrs. Marwood’s desire for Mirabell, Mrs. Marwood’s relationship with Fainall, Mirabell’s past affair with Mrs. Fainall etc. Congreve measures these secrets slowly person by person, until the final revelation in Act V, where all pretences are destroyed Mr. Fainall’s and Mirabell’s revelations, and the bringing out from a black box of the deed renders Mr. Fainall powerless.
The complexities and complications are, however, deliberate on Congreve’s part; for he wanted to present his Restoration audience a play that can coincide artistically with the artificialities and complexities in the human affairs of the period. The chief aim of the dramatist is to demonstrate “the way of the world”. Following this way Mirabell and Millament, through their own peculiar balance of wit and generosity of spirit, reduce the bumbling Witwood and Mr. Fainall to the same level of false wit. Thus the pair dramatise the true wit that is carefully and symmetrically defined through their opposition. They are aware of the fact that they are making compromises in their marriage. Mirabell says,
“…I like her with all her faults: nay, I like her for her faults…They are now grown familiar to me as my own frailties…”
And Millament charmingly declares,
“Well, if Mirabell should not make a good husband, I am lost thing—find I love him violently.”
These confidences do not prevent their own chances for honesty in marriage. In the Proviso Scene they arrange an agreement for their marriage. The reason is obvious: that is, marriage is a social contract that would enable them to rise above the cant and hypocrisy that surround them. The triumph of the play is in the emergence of lovers who through a balance of intense affection and cool self-knowledge achieve an equilibrium that frees them from the world’s power. As the title of the play The Way of the World suggests, they have assimilated the rational lucidity of sceptical rake so that they can use the world and reject its demands.

The Norman Conquest

Unknown 09:58

On the second half of the 11th century William, the Duke of Normandy, built up an army with the help of the local warlords and invaded England and defeated the English king Harold II to become the king in the year 1066. This incident, known as the Norman Conquest, was destined to exercise a profound influence on the social, political and religious life of the English people; in fact, this incident changed the course English history and culture. The immediate consequence of the Conquest was the introduction of feudalism, a new kind of aristocracy. Along with this came French as the normal language of the aristocracy, which continued to be used at least for two hundred years. English, however, remained the language of the mass, of the uncultivated. Again, all the important positions in the church were given to the French clergy, who would use Latin as their vernacular and as the language for learning. This provided the much-needed stimulus to the intellectual life of the English people, as it opened their ways to the classical worlds of Greece and Rome.
By the beginning of the 14th century English became universal for all practical purposes, but it was no longer purely a tongue of the Anglo-Saxons; for, the Old English saw the rise of a new English language, Middle English, which was more or less the beginning of Modern English. The most prominent change in the field of literature was that the Old English poetic themes and forms were replaced by the French ones—romance and allegory. The love poetry of the troubadours of Southern France and the war poetry of the trouveres of the Northern France together in combination produced a new kind of poetry called romance. In this Chanson de Roland became the model of the romances. On the other hand, Roman de la Rose became a model for the medieval allegorical love poetry. In consideration of the type of production, the literature following the conquest can roughly be divided in some groups—(i) “the matter of Britain”, dealing with the stories of King Arthur, (ii) “the matter of England”, celebrating the English heroes, (iii) “the matter of France”, connected with the French king Charlemagne the Great, (iv) “the matter of Greece and Rome”, connected with the classical heroes like Alexander.
The period following the Conquest saw the rise of a body of popular tales, a great majority of which is in verse often having a moral. Some of them are short anecdotes, called exemplum, teaching a lesson or illustrating a point. The counterpart of the ‘exempla’ was the ‘fabliau’, a kind of short story made by laymen in the fashion of exemplum and circulated orally. Another type was bestiary, derived from Aeshop’s fables and Physiologus. On the other hand, we find the writing of some chronicles, mainly based on legends and imagination. The striking exception is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, describing the miseries of the English under their ruthless French rulers. Other instances can be made of Layamon’s Brut and Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, The Bruce, Robert Maning’s Story of England etc.
In order to touch the heart of the conquered people and leave them to miracles and legends connected with saints, the French clergy gave birth to a new kind of didactic and religious verse such as Ormulum, Poema Morale, Cursor Mundi, The Prick of Conscience, Synne etc. Along with the religious verses there appeared a new kind of secular poems. This is known as Breton Lay; for instance, Sir Orfeo, Le Freins and Sir Launfal. The Norman Conquest caused the death of the age-old Old English lyrics, and in their place came a new kind of lyric on various subjects; for instance, Sumer is icumen, The Cuckoo’s Song, Alysoun etc. Among the ballads mention may be made of Geste of Robinhood. Regarding prose Acrene Riwle, a twelfth century work written in the southern dialect, deserves mention.
The Middle English literature, largely a production of the Norman Conquest, was mainly a transitional cultural production, which paved the way for such great writer as Chaucer and prepared the cultural ground for the beginning of the Modern Age with the Elizabethan Renaissance.

Humour, Irony and Wit in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

Unknown 09:12 Chaucer

In introducing the pilgrims of The Canterbury Tales in the General Prologue, Chaucer draws upon the traditional themes of “estates satire”. The “estates satires”, common through out the medieval Europe, aimed at giving an analysis of society in terms of hierarchy, social profession and morality. The Prologue differs from the standard patterns of “estates satire” in a number of significant ways, but the model remains none-the-less crucial. The most fundamental difference occurs in Chaucer’s presentation of a naïve and gullible narrator, Chaucer the pilgrim. This projection of a fictional narrator poses some problems of perspective regarding the presence of absolute moral judgement in the poem. But at the same time, it allows Chaucer to remain a member and an observer as well in the pilgrimage so that he can exploit the gaps for irony and humour without pronouncing absolute moral judgements. However, Chaucer is a secular writer whose attitude to life is based on the principle of a broad breasted acceptance. A large part of the narrator’s criteria for judging people then becomes their success in social relationship at a personal level; they are judged on pleasantness of appearance, charm of manner, social accomplishments. But this should not mean at all that Chaucer is callous of the vices and abuses of the times. He is conscious of all these and does pinpoint them in the poem, but in a manner which is subtle and varied.

That Chaucer presents himself as the most unassuming and short witted of the pilgrims—gathers in itself humorous overtones:

“My art is short, yet well understonde”

The pilgrim-narrator deliberately pretends to be impressed by most of the pilgrims to the extent of endorsing their unworthy opinions. As such that he apparently stands by the ideas of the Monk, concerning the monastic rules.

“I seyde his opinion was good

What sholde he studie and make hymselven wood?”

In reality, Chaucer knows the monk to be a wretched rascal. The same kind of degradation from the exacting ideal can also be seen in the Prioress’s portrait; she bears on her breast the inscription amor vincit omnia . (Love conquers all). But in her case, this love turns to be much more fleshly and worldly than spiritual or heavenly. The Manciple and the Pardoner are said to be gentil, but at the same time they are dishonest rascals. The Miller and the Reeve are excellent at their calling, but they are originally bold-faced thieves. About the Friar Chaucer says:

“He knew the taverns well in all toun

And everich hostiler and tappestere

Bet than a lazar or a beggestere”

The ironic signal here is set in the contrast between what the Friar does and what everyone knows his order is expected to do.

Chaucer sets the pilgrims in accordance with their social rank and position. In so doing, he subtly exploits different semantic values of words—like, “worthy”, “gentle”, “fair” – by applying the same words to different pilgrims of the poem. The epithet “worthy” is used as the keyword of the knight’s portrait, where it has a profound and serious significance, indicating not only the social status, but also the ethical qualities appropriate to it. The same word is applied to the Friar’s portrait ironically. The reference to social status seems to be the only criterion in the portrait of the Merchant who “was a worthy man with alle”, but we are informed that “…he was in dette”. In the Franklin’s portrait the word is used as signifying model or ideal—“was nowher such a worthy vavasour”—which proves an irony in respect of the previous comment on him:

“To lyven in delit was evere his wone

For he was Epicurus owne sone”

Again the word “courteisie” in the Knight’s portrait is associated with an absolute ideal, to which one may devote one’s whole life. The Squire’s “courteisie”, on the other hand, is linked with other characteristics, such as his devotion to love and his courtly accomplishment. The “courteisie” in which the Prioress “set ful munchel her lert” should be spiritual courtesy, but ironically it has become embarrassingly worldly.

Sometimes the pilgrim-narrator is quick in passing witty humorous comments regarding the pilgrim’s professional behaviour and their social engagement. For instance, about the Sergeant of Law, he says,

“Nowher so bisy a man as he ther was

And yet he semed bisier than he was.”

In the same way he most delicately satirises the wife of Bath’s practice of marrying and flouting the solemn bond of marriage,

“Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve

Withouten oother compaignye in youthe”.

But he also immediately informs that “Three times she’d journeyed to Jerusalem”. It is obvious that Chaucer’s intention is not solely ironical, but to a great extent humorous, always having sympathy for the fallibility human nature. For this, while he describes the Miller’s animal-like coarseness and dishonesty, he does add that, “A bagpipe he could blow well.”

In fine, the Prologue presents the world in terms of worldly values, which are tragedy concerned with an assessment of facades, made in the light of half-knowledge and on the basis of subjective criteria. Therefore, the ethic we have in this poem is an ethic of the world. The adoption of this ethic does not constitute a definite attitude but a piece of observation and the comic irony ensures that the reader does not identify with this ethic. For this, Mathew Arnold accuses Chaucer’s poetry of the lack of “high seriousness”. This is true, but the “lack” deliberate on Chaucer’s part: he does not want to pronounce absolute moral judgment, rather he lets the conclusions to be formed by the reader or audience himself. And in this lies Chaucer’s modernity and success even down to their age of ours.

Mirabell and Millament in the Way of the World

Unknown 09:09 Congreve

In The Way of the World, his last comedy, Congreve seems to come to realise the importance for providing an ideal pair of man and woman, ideal in the sense that the pair could be taken for models in the life-style of the period. But this was almost impossible task, where the stage was occupied by men and women, sophisticated, immoral, regardless of the larger world around them, and preoccupied with the self-conceited rhetoric as an weapon to justify their immoral activities within a small and restricted area of social operation. Congreve could not avoid this, and for this, he had to pave his way through the society by presenting a plot which, though complicated enough for a resolution, aims at the ideal union between the hero and heroine—Mirabell and Millament. They emerge as the triumphant culmination of the representative characters of the whole period, of course not types, for they are real enough to be human.
Congreve endowed his hero and heroine with all the qualities typical of the society, but towards the end the qualities, if negative, are employed as guards against the venoms of the society. At the beginning of the play, we find Mirabell shaping up a situation so that he can win the hands of Millament and her estate as well from Lady Wishfort who has the rein of power over them. In this Mirabell is perfect Machiavellian: conscious of his surroundings. He is not at all a man from chivalric romance. That he is a past master in the game of love, of course, in the sense of the period, that is, sexual relationship—is evident from his past affairs with Mrs. Fainall, from Mrs. Marwood’s fascination towards him and, one many suspect, from Lady Wishfort’s unconscious longing for him. Moreover, Mirabell has mastered rhetoric to encounter men and women around them.
Consistent with the irresistible charm of Mirabell, Congreve built the character of Millament. She is the perfect model of the accomplished fine lady of high life, who arrives at the height of indifference to everything from the height of satisfaction. To her pleasure is as familiar as the air she draws; elegance worn as a part of her dress; wit the habitual language which she hears and speaks. She has nothing to fear from her own caprices, being the only law to herself. As to the affairs of love, she treats them with at once seriousness and difference. For instance, she exclaims to Mirabell:
“Dear me, what is a lover that it can give? One makes lovers as fast as one pleases, and they live as long as one pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases; and if one pleases one makes more.”
This, however, may be a case for Millament who is “standing at the threshold of maturity from girlhood”, as Norman N. Holland points out. But from her discussion of preconditions before entering into marriage with Mirabell, it is clear that she is intelligent and discrete enough to judge her situation.
In the Proviso Scene we find Mirabell and Millament meeting together to arrange an agreement for their marriage. The scene is a pure comedy with brilliant display of wit by both of them, but, above all, provides instructions which have serious dimensions in the context of the society. On her part, Millament makes it clear that a lover’s (Mirabell’s) appeals and entreaties should not stop with the marriage ceremony. Therefore, she would like to be ‘solicited’ even after marriage. She next puts that “My dear liberty” should be preserved;
“I’ll lye abed in a morning as long as I please…”
Millament then informs that she would not like to be addressed by such names as “wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweet-heart; and the rest of that nauseous can, in which men and their wives are so fulsomely familiar.” Moreover, they will continue to present a decorous appearance in public, and she will have free communication with others. In other words, after marriage they maintain certain distance and reserve between them.
Mirabell’s conditions are quite different: they are frankly sexual in content, directed to his not being cuckolded or to her bedroom manners. “Just as Millament’s are developed femininely” as Norman N. Holland points out, “Mirabell’s are developed in a typically masculine way.” Each of Mirabell’s provisos begin with its item: first, the general principle, “that your Acquaintance be general”, then specific instructions, “no she-friend to screen her affairs”, no fop to take her to the theatre secretly, and an illustration of the forbidden behaviour, “to wheedle you a fop-scrambling to the play in a mask”. Nevertheless, Mirabell denounces the use of tight dresses during pregnancy by women, and he forbids the use of alcoholic drinks. The conditions are stated by both parties in a spirit of fun and gaiety, but the fact remained that both are striving to arrive at some kind of mutual understanding.
While the Proviso Scene ensures the marriage of true minds, the possession of dowry with Millament remains the aim of Mirabell for the rest of the play. At the end of the play Mirabell and Millament through their own peculiar balance of wit and generosity of spirit, reduce the bumbling Witwood and mordant Fainall to the level of false wit. Thus Mirabell and Millament dramatise the true wit that is so carefully and symmetrically defined through opposition. On his part, Mirabell informs that,
“…I like her with all her faults: nay, like her for her faults…They now to grown as familiar to me as my own frailties…”
And Millament declares to Mrs. Fainall,
“Well, if Mirabell should not make a good husband, I am a lost thing—for I find I love him violently.”
These confidences do not prevent their own chances for honesty in marriage. The triumph of the play is in the emergence of lovers who through a balance of intense affection and cool self-knowledge achieve an equilibrium that frees them from the world’s power. As the title of the play The Way of the World suggests, they have assimilated the rational lucidity of sceptical rake so that they can use the world and reject its demands.

Death Scene in Doctor Faustus (Last Scene)

Unknown 09:00 Marlowe

“It was a saying of Zoroaster,” in his Oration Pico Della Mirandola recalls, “that the soul is winged and that when the wings drop off she falls again into the body, and then after his wings have grown again sufficiently, she flies back to heaven.” Towards the end, after his headlong fall into the body, Faustus’s wings seem to grow again. But the body proves too heavy for the wings, with his pride and failure to repent, to lift him up to heaven. He has lived out his twenty four years of “prophit and delight/of power, of honour, of omnipotence” in exchange of his soul to Lucifer. Now, the circle in which he conjures has shrunk into the smallest circle in a series of gradual degradation—from astronomy through cosmography and statecraft to finally his private chamber. Yet he is provided with good counselling of the good Angel and the Old Man. But he is trapped by the metaphor of Lucifer as “sovereign Lord” with Mephistophilis as emissary empowered to punish a traitor. He can only conceive presumption as an offence against the tyranny of pride and it is his own pride that commits him to “proud Lucifer”. The same pride moves his address to Helen with its presumption of immortality and magnificence; it would be admirable were it not a last vain bid to escape from the human condition as the Old Man represents it. At this stage Faustus and the Old Man illustrate the paradoxical truth that St. Augustine speaks of in Confession, and thus dramatizing the spiritual loss in a world of knowledge and speculation:

“The unlearned start up and take heaven by force, and with our learning, and without heart, lo, where we wallow in flesh and blood”.

After the scholars left, the mockery of Mephistophilis administers a last turn of the screw:

“ ’Twas I that thou wert i’the way to heaven

Damned up thy passage; when lookst the book

To view the scriptures, then I turned the leaves

And led thine eye”.

Faustus weeps. Then begins the terrifying speech, recoiling upon our whole experience of the play. It consummates the play in both its aspects of—Morality and Heroic Tragedy, each in its own turn triumphing over the other. In the first lines we are much more moved by the magnificent futility of the human product against the inexorable movement of time as it enacts an inexorable moral law. Faustus earlier boasted that

“All things that move between the quiet poles

Shall be at my command……”

But they are – as they really are – at the command of the process which he would escape: the “ever-moving spheres’ cannot by definitions “stand still”. The cosmic rhythm evoked by the sense of the poetry seems to hold dominion over its movement. The Latin words from Ovid –lente curite noctes equi— in their English setting sound like a last attempt to cast a spell whose vanity is betrayed by the rhythm as the horses seem to quicken pace through the line and confessed in “the stars move still, time runs , the clock will strike”. In the next lines, however, his ordeal is confined to earth:

“Oh, I’ll leap up to my god

Who pulls me down”.

The image affirming the immensity of Christ’s Testament also declares its unreachable remoteness: “See see; where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament”.

As Faustus pleads that “one drop” then “half a drop” would save his soul, he confesses his barren littleness of life in the vastness of the moral universe.

As the vision of blood fades, Faustus meets the unappeased wrath of god and cries for the mountain and hells to fall on him. Burial in earth becomes a privilege refused to the last paroxysms of Faustus’s will. He is again re-enacting the fall of Lucifer, the figure in Isaiah, who is “brought down to hell to the sides of the pit” and “cast out of the grave like an abominable branch”. Faustus thus becomes the fittest witness of apocalyptic vision. No chorus could speak with such moving authority, for Faustus alone has enacted all the futilities of pride. Faustus’s plea for “some end to my incessant pain” sums up that side of Christian tradition which, as Augustine say “against those that include both men and devil from pain eternal.” Faustus moderates his struggle to escape the pain of responsibility as he curses his parents and then checks himself:

“No Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer

That hath deprived thee of the joy of heaven”

And Faustus’s closing words—“My God, my god/ Look not so fierce on me”—reminds of the Psalms:

“My god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me,

Why art thou so far from helping me…?”

The chorus fittingly concludes the play by declaring that,

“Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight….”

In this way, the chorus marks the end of a great personality and makes way, as in Shakespeare’s tragedies, for the normal life to resume its course. But more importantly Faustus’s final speech becomes a kind of confession which with its cathartic nemesis warns about damnation not only in the conventional sense, but also about the fatal consumption awaiting all Renaissance aspiration, about the spiritual loss in a modern world.

Marlowe's Doctor Faustus: A Renaissance Tragedy

Unknown 08:55 Marlowe

By transplanting the Faust-myth into the English Morality framework, Marlow tapped the hidden potentials of both the myth and dramatic form. But Doctor Faustus was to be overdetermined thematically by its surrounding culture. This culture found in the myth of Icarus and Prometheusian archetype of betrayal, that is, human aspirations repeatedly colliding with some implacable and impersonal forces, social, political, natural or divine, and consequently yielding to frustration, common to human psyche. The Renaissance philosophy and art highlighted the perplexing juxtaposition of the angelic human being, a creature of reason under the paternal benevolence of God side by side with a human being as a beast of appetite subject to God’s terrible wrath. In philosophy, on the one side were the spiritual reconstructions, which emerging from Ficino’s neo-Platonism and Pico Della Mirandola’s Oration suggest that human being can exalt themselves by reason and love into something like divinity. On the other side there were the documents of counter-Renaissance, such as Machiavelli’s The Prince which studiously avoids transcendental moral reference in favour of pragmatic political tactics. This disparate Renaissance struggles to reconcile the beautiful aspirations of the mind with the fierce demands of the body corresponds to the battle which Nietzsche much later identified as the essence of tragedy between Apollo, the God of civilization, rationality and daylight and Dionysus, the God of frenzy, passion and midnight. Again in the Hegelian model, the renaissance tragedy like Dr. Faustus or Macbeth shows that tragedy is finally answerable less to an individual than to a culture, and less to opinion than to conflict.

Faustus rejects the traditional structural system of study, in which ‘Divinity’ was regarded, at that time, “the Queen of the sciences” as well as the discipline which gave meaning to all knowledge an experience. Therefore, Faustus’s alternative career is sorcery through which he hopes to gain “a world prophet, and delight/ of power, of honour, of omnipotence.” In this way, Doctor Faustus comes as a parable about the spiritual loss in a modern world, leading not only to damnation in the conventional sense, but to the fatal corruption awaiting all Renaissance aspiration.

The subsequent story after Faustus sells his soul away to Lucifer is an illustration of the orthodox moral, to borrow a rhetorical question from the gospel of St. Mathew:

“What profits it a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul.”

Now by a version of the foolish wish motif familiar from folklore Faustus discovers that purchasing the ability to violate the rules of nature is inevitably a bad bargain. The world he is going to command is a small and flimsy one and so the quest for transcendence generates only more claustrophobia. He cries in helplessness

“Ay, Christ, my saviour

Seek to save distressed Faustus’s soul”

But as he is committed to the twin paradigm of the sins of Adam and Lucifer, he cannot get rid of the fall. Instead, Lucifer performs before him the pageant of seven Deadly sins. The sins are visible on the stage, but more importantly, Faustus, under the influence of evil, performs them within himself on the psychological level.

Baulked in the Act III from the full pursuit of astronomy, in the Act III, Faustus turns to cosmography, a subject regarded at that time as a destructively unserious pursuit; in other words he descends from the heavens to the earth. When we hear from the chorus that

“…learned Faustus

To find the secrets of astronomy

Graven in the book of Jove’s high mountain

Did mount him up to scale Olympius’s top,”

we seem still to be dealing with a genuine search after knowledge. But after that, as the chorus at the beginning of the Act IV informs, the emphasis is no longer on the search for knowledge, but

“…Faustus had with pleasure ta’en the view

Of rarest things, and royal courts of kings,

He stayed his court, and so returned home.”

He even dabbles in the statecraft of Rome, by rescuing the anti-pope, Bruno, and humiliating the pope and his Friars. This step from cosmography to statecraft is similar to that from astronomy to cosmography. At the social level, he undergoes a similar descent—from the court of the Emperor through the Duke Vanholt to the scholars in Wittenberg.

Thus Faustus lives out his twenty-four years doing nothing great things as he has promised at the beginning. When the dream of power is lost, the gift of entertainment remains his sole solace. His fascination to see Helen is of course expressive of the Renaissance passion for beauty in its perfect form. But here more importantly Helen is associated with his failure to enjoy sensual pleasures and with his fear of losing both his spirit and physique as the Last Judgement is ensuing. In the first lines we are much more moved by the magnificent futility of the human protest against the inexorable movement of time as it enacts an inexorable moral law. In the next lines, however, is ordeal is confinement to earth:

“Oh, I’ll leap upto my god, who pulls me down?”

The image affirming the immensity of Christ’s Testament also declares its unreachable remoteness:

“See see where Christ’s blood streams in firmament.”

As Faustus pleads that “one drop “, then “half a drop”, would save his soul, he confesses his barren littleness of life in the vastness of the moral universe and he discovers the fulfilment of human pretensions to power and knowledge in the face of overwhelming cataclysm.

But it is not an attitude peculiar to that of the Renaissance—and this is one reason why the play still feels relevant: it is a perennial disease of the personality, a retreat from self knowledge that should be the end and beginning of all other knowledge, into a spurious kind of learning. In this Faustus may be a remarkably brilliant and errant scholar, but he is also an Everyman who compels Renaissance and modern audience as well to examine the perplexing choices of facing a creature of desire and doubt in a changing world.