DOCTOR FAUSTUS

broadview editions series editor: L.W. Conolly

Library, the University of Sussex Library, and the Bibliotheque de l'Universite Sainte-Anne. I am grateful also to the editors of the Journal of English and Germanic Philology, The Dallwusie Review, University of Toronto Quarterly, Renaissance Quarterly, and Mosaic for permission to draw upon articles of mine on Doctor Faustus and related subjects which appeared in those journals. I owe special thanks to Tony Nuttall (whose presence and ex ample in the early stages of my work were decisive), as well as to Don Beecher, Andreas Buss, Jonathan Dollimore, and James Quinlan; to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which in 1988-89 liberated me from my teaching du ties with a generous research grant and research-time stipend; to the University of Sussex, which during that year gave me a most stimulating environment in which to work; andmost of allto Janice Kulyk Keefer, Ma douce Helene, non, mais bien ma douce haleine: Seulje te choisi, seule aussi tu me plais.

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In more than one sense these lines offers a lesson in the im portance of contextualizing. Faustus misreads the words of St. Paul (Romans 6: 23) and St. John (ljohn 1: 8) because he has lifted them out of their contexts, failing in each case to notice that the words he quotes form only the rst half of an antithetical construction. The second clause of Romans 6: 23 ("but the gifte of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord") and the next verse in the epistle of John ("If we acknowledge our sinnes, he is faithful and just, to forgive our sinnes, & to dense us from all unrighteousnes") conditionally withdraw the condemnations which are all that Faustus sees. Readers who wish to interpret Doctor Faustus as a morality play, and its protagonist as no more than a witless incompetent, need go no further in their restorations of context. However, further consideration may suggest that to dismiss Faustus in this manner is not an adequate response to this passage. A more suitable reac tion than contempt might be the proverbial "There, but for the grace of God, go I." Marlowe scholars have long been aware that Faustus succumbs to the same diabolical logic that was used by Despair in Spenser's Faerie Queene to lead Redcrosse Knight towards suicide, and, some decades previously in a dialogue written by Thomas Becon, by Satan in an attempt to undermine the faith of another Christian Knight. Both knights, unlike Faustus, escape this logic in what for sixteenth-century Protestants was the only possible way, by tran scending it through an appeal to divine grace. Becon's knight, ad mitting his condemnation under the Law, turns to the Gospel, "that is to say, grace, favour, and remission of sins, promised in Christ" (Becon 629); Spenser's is saved by the intervention of Una: In heavenly mercies hast thou not a part? Why shouldst thou then despeire, that chosen art? Where justice growes, there grows eke greater grace.... (I. ix. 53) But while Becon's knight is able to appeal to God's mercy, and while Una is there to remind Redcrosse of this same grace and mercy, the notion of divine mercy is no more than hinted at
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Bodin Bodin, Jean. De la demonomanic des sorciers /.../par I. Bodin Angevin. Paris, 1581. Bouswma Bouwsma, William J. John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. Bowers, "Additions" Bowers, Fredson. "Marlowe's Doctor Faustus: The 1602 Additions." Studies in Bibliography 26 (1973): 1-18. Brann Brann, Noel L. The Abbot Trithemius (1462-1516): The Renaissance of Monastic Humanism. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. Bray Bray, Alan. Homosexuality in Renaissance England. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia UP, 1995. Brown Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. 1967; rpt. London: Faber and Faber, 1975. Bruno 1964 Bruno, Giordano. The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast. Ed. and trans. Arthur D. Imerti. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1964. Bruno 1995 . The Ash Wednesday Supper. Ed. and trans. Edward A. Gosselin and Lawrence A. Lerner. 1977; rpt. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1995. Buridan Buridan, John. Sophisms on Meaning and Truth. Trans. Theodore Kermit Scott. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1966. Burke Burke, Peter. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. 1978; revised ed. Aldershot: Scolar P, 1994. Butler 1948 Butler, E.M. The Myth of the Magus. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1948. Butler 1950 . Ritual Magic. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1950. Butler 1952 . The Fortunes of Faust. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1952. Calvin 1587 Calvin, Jean. The Institution of Christian Religion, written in Latine by M. John Caluinc, and translated into English according to the Authors last edition [...] by Thomas Norton. 1561; rpt. London, 1587.

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