Seeking Salvation, Exploring Evil and Salvaging Doctor Faustus

Virender Pal
Assistant Professor of English, University College, Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra. Email: p2vicky@gmail.com

Volume VII, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

Abstract
Doctor Faustus is probably the best known play of Christopher Marlowe. The play has been used in the classrooms around the world to discuss the main features of Renaissance and Doctor Faustus as a representative of Renaissance era. He has been shown as a man who sells his soul to Devil for gaining knowledge. Other interpretations of the play have been coloured by biography of Christopher Marlowe who was believed to be an atheist in his life time. The author’s biography has overpowered the interpretations so much that Doctor Faustus
has been treated as representation of the author himself. This has removed the focus from Doctor Faustus the character and the play. The current paper is an attempt to read Doctor Faustus objectively.

Keywords: Faustus, evil, atheist, Catholic, biography