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Marlowe’s Theater of Night: and Capital

Richard Halpern

in Eclipse of Action: Tragedy and Political Economy

Christopher Marlowe occupies a world in which theater first becomes a fully commercial enterprise. As an independent playwright, Marlowe produces works that cannot be artistically or financially ... More

Christopher Marlowe occupies a world in which theater first becomes a fully commercial enterprise. As an independent playwright, Marlowe produces works that cannot be artistically or financially realized without the stage as means of production, an apparatus over which he exerts no control. I argue that this alienated condition is reflected in Faustus’ contract with Mephastophilis—a contract that grants Faustus powers through an apparatus that he, too, can command but not ultimately manage. Essentially a source of special effects, Mephastophilis embodies the powers of theatrical capital, thereby allowing Marlowe to reflect upon both the futility of the dramatic text without theatrical embodiment, and, conversely, the finally disappointing resources that the theater can provide. The lack inherent to both parties opens up into a more general investigation by the play into a realm of the negative or void that manifests itself on ethical, aesthetic, theological, and ontological levels. Ultimately, the precocious modernity of Doctor Faustus involves envisioning a world at once capitalist and Protestant in which action is impossible without dependence on some enabling apparatus or mechanism from which one is nevertheless alienated and over which one can therefore exert at best a provisional kind of control.Less

Sound Effects: Doctor Faustus

Katherine Steele Brokaw

in Staging Harmony: Music and Religious Change in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Drama

This chapter argues that Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus exposes music, magic, and religion as culturally interdependent and all reliant on the human-produced theatricality of sound to give them ... More

This chapter argues that Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus exposes music, magic, and religion as culturally interdependent and all reliant on the human-produced theatricality of sound to give them the illusion of divine or magical power and authority; this illusion masks their inability to make real truth claims. The chapter begins by discussing the material and epistemic failures of sensual pleasure, natural magic, and necromancy. It then explores the Pope’s excommunication ritual as revelatory of the social and political power of religion’s sound effects. Next, it considers the sound effects of heaven and hell at the end of the play—effects that reveal how eschatology, particularly the concepts of heaven and hell, are reliant on theatrical tricks. The final section describes the play’s one surety, examining how the bell-ringing accompanying Faustus’ final moment pits the surety of death against the uncertainty of claims for divine understanding.Less

Dying Badly: Doctor Faustus and the Parodic Drama of Blasphemy

Maggie Vinter

in Last Acts: The Art of Dying on the Early Modern Stage

This chapter traces how arts of dying migrate from devotional texts into homiletic dramas and finally to the commercial playhouse between 1570 and 1590, around the same time that anti-theatrical ... More

This chapter traces how arts of dying migrate from devotional texts into homiletic dramas and finally to the commercial playhouse between 1570 and 1590, around the same time that anti-theatrical condemnations of the stage as inherently blasphemous come to cultural prominence. Theater constitutes an important site of religious instruction and theological investigation not despite, but rather because of, its blasphemous potential. William Wager’s Enough Is as Good as a Feast, Nathaniel Woodes’s The Conflict of Conscience, and Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus all employ parodies of ars moriendi ideas to represent evil action. Parody arts of dying help dramatize a predestinarian cosmos where distinctions between the elect and the reprobate are fundamental, yet invisible to humans. The bad deaths in these plays function like negative theologies, manifesting and explicating divine will through attempted departures from it. In Doctor Faustus, Marlowe brings the reprobate parodist into focus alongside the divine parodied and makes the magician’s vicious death a site for analyzing human agency. As practices of dying are inverted into theatrical arts of dying badly, Elizabethan dramatists discover occasions to explore the nature of action and the forms of agency available in situations of extreme constraint or privation.Less

The Satisfactions of Hell: Doctor Faustus and the Descensus Tradition

Heather Hirschfeld

in The End of Satisfaction: Drama and Repentance in the Age of Shakespeare

This chapter demonstrates how Doctor Faustus' fascination with hell—Western culture's imagined site of eternal dissatisfaction—was a symptom of its protagonist's inability to qualify or quantify what ... More

This chapter demonstrates how Doctor Faustus' fascination with hell—Western culture's imagined site of eternal dissatisfaction—was a symptom of its protagonist's inability to qualify or quantify what counts as “enough.” It argues that the play's generic and penitential impulses take shape as an underworld journey as much as they do a psychomachia. The “form of Faustus' fortunes” has much in common with the cycle drama, or at least the event of Christ's descent into hell. The chapter examines the economies of satisfaction present in contemporary understandings of hell. It then turns to the theological and literary debates around Christ's descent to hell to show how they flow into Faustus's own salvific concerns, making him the center of a contorted harrowing of hell play.Less

Evil Germany versus Good Germany: Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus

Ehrhard Bahr

in Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism

In the fashion of exile dialectics, Thomas Mann proposed the “identity of the non-identical” and said: “There are not two Germanys, a good one and a bad one, but only one, whose best turned into evil ... More

In the fashion of exile dialectics, Thomas Mann proposed the “identity of the non-identical” and said: “There are not two Germanys, a good one and a bad one, but only one, whose best turned into evil through devilish cunning. Wicked Germany is merely good Germany gone astray, good Germany in misfortune, in guilt, and ruin.” This chapter explores the role of dialectics as a structural element in Mann's novel Doctor Faustus. Mann's collaboration with Theodor W. Adorno reinforced this element not only as the essence of Faust's career as a German composer, but also as the basis for the allegory of Germany and its history. In addition, Adorno's concept of the “identity of the non-identical” enabled Mann to show that the life and works of Adrian Leverkühn not only reflected German history, but also contradicted it. The “identity of the non-identical” also became a structural element for Leverkühn's last composition, which marked his “breakthrough” as an authentic work of modernist art. It functions both as “historiography of its epoch” (Adorno) as well as an expression of human suffering.Less

Additional Reading

Richard Hoffmann

in The Doctor Faustus Dossier: Arnold Schoenberg, Thomas Mann, and Their Contemporaries, 1930-1951

This chapter presents a firsthand account by Arnold Schoenberg's assistant Richard Hoffmann and an analytical essay by Bernhold Schmid. Among the anecdotes that Hoffmann shares is how he was ... More

This chapter presents a firsthand account by Arnold Schoenberg's assistant Richard Hoffmann and an analytical essay by Bernhold Schmid. Among the anecdotes that Hoffmann shares is how he was requested to record those sections of Doctor Faustus which dealt, in some way, with music, and how Schoenberg would smile in appreciation as he played and replayed these excerpts at his leisure. Schmid's essay deals with the long and bitter dispute between Arnold Schoenberg and Thomas Mann. The dispute is structured into two phases: one concerns the private sphere, which ended with a postscript added to Doctor Faustus by Mann, and Schoenberg's letter of thanks; and the other the public sphere, initiated by Schoenberg with a letter to the Saturday Review of Literature, which resulted in the press engaging in the dispute.Less

Letters, Diaries, etc. (1948–1951)

Adrian Daub

E. Randol Schoenberg (ed.)

in The Doctor Faustus Dossier: Arnold Schoenberg, Thomas Mann, and Their Contemporaries, 1930-1951

This section presents the letters, excepts from diaries, and other materials exchanged and/or written after Thomas Mann's delivery of a copy of Doctor Faustus to Arnold Schoenberg in January of 1948.

Introduction: California Haunting: Mann, Schoenberg, Faustus

Adrian Daub

in The Doctor Faustus Dossier: Arnold Schoenberg, Thomas Mann, and Their Contemporaries, 1930-1951

This introductory chapter provides the necessary context for the two protagonists (Arnold Schoenberg and Thomas Mann), as well as the leading supporting figure (Theodor Adorno). It aims to guide ... More

This introductory chapter provides the necessary context for the two protagonists (Arnold Schoenberg and Thomas Mann), as well as the leading supporting figure (Theodor Adorno). It aims to guide readers through the thicket of acquaintances, old grudges and new anxieties, problems of politics and aesthetics that resonate—sometimes faintly, sometimes clearly—between the lines in the essays and exchanges gathered in this volume. These are, after all, one reason scholars, students, and lay readers have returned to the Faustus controversy time and time again. The other is that rarely has a literary controversy spoken so directly to a unique place and time: Faustus could not have been written, and Faustus could not have generated the controversy that it did, outside of the highly peculiar setting of Southern California during the Second World War.Less

A “True Modernist”: Arnold Schoenberg

Ehrhard Bahr

in Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism

This chapter revisits the controversy between Thomas Mann and Arnold Schoenberg regarding the employment of twelve-tone composition in Doctor Faustus. It draws on the conflict to show that Mann had ... More

This chapter revisits the controversy between Thomas Mann and Arnold Schoenberg regarding the employment of twelve-tone composition in Doctor Faustus. It draws on the conflict to show that Mann had the highest respect for the composer and his achievements. Mann's personal dedication to Schoenberg in a copy of Doctor Faustus indicates that he was aware that the composer represented the true modernist; a recognition that his Faust figure never deserved until perhaps his last composition. Schoenberg's choral and instrumental music, composed in Los Angeles, is presented as the most important achievement of exile modernism in its refusal to make compromises with mass culture and its attempts to find content and forms that speak to contemporary audiences. Finally, the chapter compares the corpus of Schoenberg's exile compositions to the works of his fellow exiles: Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, and Franz Werfel.Less

Truly Two: Calvinist Anthropology and the Positive Gothic Double from Christopher Marlowe to John Buchan

Alison Milbank

in God & the Gothic: Religion, Romance, & Reality in the English Literary Tradition

Chapter 7 outlines the nature of Reformation anthropology as Gothic in the sense of being under the power of the usurper, Satan, and in seeing God as wrathful enemy before justification by faith. It ... More

Chapter 7 outlines the nature of Reformation anthropology as Gothic in the sense of being under the power of the usurper, Satan, and in seeing God as wrathful enemy before justification by faith. It examines Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus in relation to the Lutheran Faustbook, and as an example of a character who wishes to escape the ambiguities of election in favour of a settled reprobation. Calvinist double predestination is shown to produce a dualist subjectivity, and this is then explored in a series of Scottish Presbyterian Gothic fictions: James Hogg’s Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde and Markheim, and John Buchan’s historical tale of demon-worshipping Covenanters, Witch Wood. It is argued that the protagonists’ problem is not duality as such but an attempt to circumvent it, and that the Calvinist anthropology is not itself the problem, although it requires ‘Anglican’ mediation.Less

Introduction

Ehrhard Bahr

in Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism

The city of Los Angeles afforded the refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe a haven from persecution, and a place to live and work until the end of World War II. The presence of these German-speaking ... More

The city of Los Angeles afforded the refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe a haven from persecution, and a place to live and work until the end of World War II. The presence of these German-speaking exiles conferred upon the city the moniker “Weimar on the Pacific.” Los Angeles became the battlefield for the wars of German exile modernism in the 1940s, with Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, and Heinrich Mann on the left; Alfred Döblin and Franz Werfel on the right; and Thomas Mann and Arnold Schoenberg in the middle. This book is about this distinguished group of German artists and intellectuals and some of their works. It explores topics ranging from Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment, to Brecht's lyric poetry and his drama Galileo, immigrant modernism versus exile modernism, the political factions among the exiles with respect to the rise of fascism in Germany, the role of dialectics as a structural element in Mann's novel Doctor Faustus, and the controversy between Mann and Schoenberg regarding the employment of twelve-tone composition in Doctor Faustus.Less

Introduction

Richard Hillman

in French Reflections in the Shakespearean Tragic: Three Case Studies

This chapter provides a discussion of the book’s intertextual method and a survey of its contents. The relation between theory and practice is set out, and illustrations are given to show how unduly ... More

This chapter provides a discussion of the book’s intertextual method and a survey of its contents. The relation between theory and practice is set out, and illustrations are given to show how unduly narrow ideas about an early modern dramatist’s use of sources may limit the range of meanings perceived by critics and potentially accessible to contemporary audiences. North’s Plutarch is introduced in relation to its French original, the translation by Jacques Amyot, and, particularly, to that translation’s edition by Simon Goulart. A soliloquy from Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus is approached by way of its recognised English (from German) source and a possible French one. The perennial question of Shakespeare’s knowledge of French is addressed, as is that of his possible access to more obscure, less obviously ‘literary’, French texts and contexts.Less

Letters, Diaries, etc. (1930–1948)

Adrian Daub

E. Randol Schoenberg (ed.)

in The Doctor Faustus Dossier: Arnold Schoenberg, Thomas Mann, and Their Contemporaries, 1930-1951

This section presents the letters, excerpts from diaries, and other materials exchanged and/or written before Thomas Mann's delivery of a copy of Doctor Faustus to Arnold Schoenberg in January of ... More

This section presents the letters, excerpts from diaries, and other materials exchanged and/or written before Thomas Mann's delivery of a copy of Doctor Faustus to Arnold Schoenberg in January of 1948.Less

Final Years: Los Angeles, 1944–1951

Joseph Auner

in A Schoenberg Reader: Documents of a Life

This chapter focuses on Arnold Schoenberg's final years spanning 1944 to 1951, starting with his retirement from teaching at the University of California at Los Angeles to his death. It begins with ... More

This chapter focuses on Arnold Schoenberg's final years spanning 1944 to 1951, starting with his retirement from teaching at the University of California at Los Angeles to his death. It begins with his canon for Richard Rodzinski, the son of Artur Rodzinski, who had conducted several of Schoenberg's works, two of which were Ode to Napoleon and Violin Concerto. It then presents his views on contemporary composers and conducting, his proposal for a Record-of-the-Month Club, his String Trio, Op. 45 (1946), the performance of new music, the Holocaust, art and science, abstract art and politics, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno's philosophy of modern music, twelve-tone composition, the founding of the state of Israel, and prayer and superstition. It also looks at Schoenberg's conflict with Thomas Mann concerning the latter's 1947 novel Doctor Faustus and his appointment as honorary president of the Israel Academy of Music.Less

Afterword: Learning to Imagine What We Know

Wendy Beth Hyman

in Impossible Desire and the Limits of Knowledge in Renaissance Poetry

The afterword, “Learning to Imagine What We Know” attempts to articulate a material poetics, rather than a metaphysics, of the mind in extremis, at the places where life, time, representation, and ... More

The afterword, “Learning to Imagine What We Know” attempts to articulate a material poetics, rather than a metaphysics, of the mind in extremis, at the places where life, time, representation, and knowledge can go no further. Deleuze, in “The Simulacrum and Ancient Philosophy,” contends that “the atom is that which must be thought, and that which can only be thought.” Angus Fletcher, in the chapter “Marlowe Invents the Deadline,” makes a stunningly similar claim: “Time, finally, can only be thought.”Impossible Desire recognizes the elusive hymen, too, as a conceptual morsel that fuses sexual and epistemological conquest. It demarcates, and arouses a desire to transcend, the limit point of human knowledge. But this erotically charged search for knowledge occurs, for the carpe diem poet, in the absence of teleology. He recognizes no promise of full revelation, and only a perpetually receding horizon of further things unknown. Despite this, he uses poetry to create unlikely but capacious domains for the unthinkable, an aspiration identified as an act of world-making. As George Steiner puts it, “deep inside every ‘art-act’ lies the dream of an absolute leap out of nothingness, of the invention of an enunciatory shape so new, so singular to its begetter, that it would, literally, leave the previous world behind.” The conclusion of Impossible Desire locates this ontological leap in carpe diem poetry’s attempt to expand the increments of existence within the interstices of poetry, ultimately the only mortal place wherein one can make “this one short Point of Time/… fill up half the Orb of Round Eternity.”Less

Falling in Love with a Book

Jerrold Levinson

in Aesthetic Pursuits: Essays in Philosophy of Art

This short, somewhat personal, chapter addresses itself to the phenomenon of falling in love with a work of literature, focusing on the case of novels with which one can become enamoured. It ... More

This short, somewhat personal, chapter addresses itself to the phenomenon of falling in love with a work of literature, focusing on the case of novels with which one can become enamoured. It endeavours to limn the most salient features of the phenomenon, highlighting similarities and differences with the rather more familiar phenomenon of falling in love with a person, and venturing some thoughts on what makes a work of literature apt to elicit a positive reaction of this character. Toward the end of the chapter the dangers of an intense absorption of this sort, whether in regard to books or to persons, are briefly acknowledged.Less