Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (a sixteenth-century tragic play about a man who sells his soul to the devil for knowledge) is a text that warns readers against the pursuit of knowledge. However, this warning cannot be interpreted as the author saying that all knowledge should be avoided. Such an interpretation would be ludicrous as Marlowe was highly educated and well-versed in classical languages and classical texts. However, it is undeniable that Marlowe gives valid warnings about desiring what he would see as forbidden knowledge. The main problem in Doctor Faustus is not Faustus’ hunger for knowledge in general but that he wants forbidden knowledge in order to be like God. Marlowe presents the pursuit of knowledge as something that should be limited to proper earthly uses while higher knowledge is forbidden and if pursued, results in devastating consequences. In Faustus, only those who are capable of being entrusted with higher knowledge should obtain it.
Portrait of Christopher Marlowe (d. 1593 )
The key to understanding Marlowe’s text is first understanding the historical context in which his text was written. Marlowe lived during the Renaissance when humanism was thriving. The Renaissance was an era of new ideas with a new desire for the pursuit of knowledge as people were “eager to get rid of thought imprisonment from medieval theology, fighting for the liberation of personality and giving full play to the unlimited potential” (Zhao 9). Humanists glorified reason and learning and eagerly sought out new ideas and knowledge (Morgan 49). Yonggang Zhoa remarks that knowledge-hungry Dr. Faustus “is a real description of that era” (9). Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus depicts the society in which he was writing, and his warning at the end of the play, to “only…wonder at unlawful things,” can be thought of as a warning to the whole of his society (Epilogue 6). The Renaissance clearly influenced Marlowe and his text as he wished to warn his audience of the dangers that accompany the procuration of knowledge.
In Doctor Faustus, Faustus’s all-consuming desire for knowledge causes him to place the fleeting value of knowledge over the eternal value of his soul. Faustus is motivated by his own selfish desires. He wants “profit and delight, / [o]f power, of honor, of omnipotence” that he will be his if he can become a “sound magician” (54-55, 63). Even though Faustus is already a scholar “grac’d with doctor’s name,” he becomes “swoll’n with cunning of a self-conceit” and is “glutted now with learning’s golden gifts” (Prologue 17, 20, 24). For Faustus, “[n]othing so sweet as magic is to him, / Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss” (Prologue 26-27). Faustus desires books that will teach him to be a magician, for he believes that a “sound magician is a mighty god” (1.63). Critic G. M. Pincess remarks that “the practice of witchcraft is like the sin in Eden of desiring to become a god, ‘not satisfied with the measure of inward gifts received, as of knowledge, wit, understanding, memory and suchlike, …to search out such things as God would have kept secret’” (254). Rooted in Faustus’s outward desire for forbidden knowledge is an inward hunger to be “a mighty god” (1.63). In the Epilogue of the play, the Chorus presents the moral of the play saying, “the wise” should “only…wonder at unlawful things” and should not “practice more than heavenly power permits” (6, 8). In Dr. Faustus, too much knowledge is presented as harmful and ultimately destructive to a person who is not wise enough be entrusted with it. Those who are truly wise know only to wonder and to not pursue forbidden knowledge, especially if that knowledge only betters a greedy, selfish person.
Faustus’s fall is a tragedy because he fails to use reason and knowledge in a way that will truly benefit others and only uses it for his own egotistic desires. Although Faustus is an educated man, he “rejects the traditional pursuits of scholarship to embrace magic as the proper study for his intellect” (Okerlund 260). Faustus “violates the principles of dialectics to fulfill his passion for knowledge” and abuses intellect which turns him into a “clownish buffoon” (Okerlund 260, 265). Despite his education and knowledge, Faustus is not wise. As Okerlund points out, Faustus, “who has just sold his soul for twenty-four years of knowledge refuses to acknowledge truth when it stands in front of him” (270). This refusal to acknowledge truth is shown when Faustus refuses to believe that hell even exists, calling hell “a fable” and “trifles and mere old wives’ tales,” despite the fact that Mephastophiles tells him “I am an instance to prove the contrary” (1.2:124, 32-33). Moreover, Faustus’s newly acquired knowledge does not benefit him and merely degrades him to a clown who plays pranks on the pope (3.1). The tragedy in Doctor Faustus lies in the fact that Faustus does not use his knowledge and intellect in the way they are meant to be used. Knowledge is meant to better society and oneself. Faustus does neither with his knowledge and as a result, such knowledge should be forbidden to him because he is incapable of properly appreciating it or using it.
Dr. Faustus shows the devastating repercussions for humans who strive to know more than what is good for them. The wise as those who are content with what they already know and feel no need to search out forbidden knowledge. Knowledge in itself is not a bad thing; it only becomes dangerous if people treat it improperly. In Doctor Faustus, higher knowledge should only be obtained by someone if he is wise and capable of using it for the betterment of himself and society. Higher knowledge should be forbidden to those who are foolish and selfish. In Faustus, true wisdom is recognizing when to curb one’s appetite for knowledge and to be a good steward of the knowledge one has.
Marlowe, Christopher. The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. The Broadview Anthology of
British Literature, Concise Edition, Volume A, edited by Joseph Black, et al., 2nd edition, Broadview Press, 2011, pp. 758-786.
Morgan, John. Godly Learning: Puritan Attitudes towards Reason, Learning and Education,
1560-1640. Cambridge University Press, 1986. Google Books, books.google.ca/books/about/Godly_Learning.html?id=vLIaFv1lpb8C.
Okerlund, A.N. “The Intellectual Folly of Dr. Faustus.” Studies in Philology, vol. 74, no. 3,
Summer 1977, pp. 258-278. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=5242938&site=ehost-live.
Pinciss, G.M. “Marlowe’s Cambridge Years and the Writing of Doctor Faustus.” Studies in
English Literature (Rice), vol. 33, no. 2, Spring1993, pp. 249-264. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9308115686&site=ehost-live.
Zhao, Yonggang. “Analysis of ‘Desire’ and ‘Humanism’ in Christopher Marlowe’s Tragedies.”
International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL), vol 3, issue 12, 2015, pp. 6-10. Arcjournals, www.arcjournals.org/pdfs/ijsell/v3-i12/2.pdf.