Tag: Christopher Marlowe

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The mindset of the audience for whom Marlowe was writing.

Skeletal death spreads its wings over the fallen and damned.
Jan van Eyck, Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych, c. 1430–40.

[In the sixteenth century of the original Faust legend and Marlowe’s play too, Europeans believed in the literal Devil who walked the streets. They feared that there were those among them who dealt with the Devil. Protestants did not believe that God would protect them from the Devil and neither did Protestantism offer much defence because it does not accept that any church has any special powers.]


“The common man of the sixteenth century still believed that the devil and his accomplices could be real physical beings. They believed that one could become a magician with an association of the devil. Wizards and magicians were considered men who had made a pact with Satan and, in return for their pledge of allegiance, were given evil aid in performing superhuman acts. Also, Marlowe was regarded as an atheist. Certainly this would cause Marlowe’s peers to view him as hazardous both intellectually and morally. These facts surely caused the audience of the sixteenth century to view Doctor Faustus in a much more serious light than that of today’s audiences. This was not a play of fantasy or make-believe to a Renaissance audience but one with genuine fears and possibilities.

The sixteenth century saw a shift in Christian ideals that added significance to Marlowe’s play. No longer did people believe that God would always be there to protect them from Satan. The sixteenth century brought about a high level of paranoia that Satan was everywhere and that day to day life was an individual duel with the devil, and the individual was left to fend for himself. This way of thinking is far less comforting than the previous view that God acted as a “guardian angel” working to protect Christians from Satan’s attacks. With this view in mind, it is understandable that two of the major literary characters, Macbeth and Doctor Faustus, are faced with moments alone to contemplate their evil actions: Macbeth after speaking with the witches and Faustus before midnight. It is important to note that the devil does not show up to tempt Faustus; he makes his own decision to call for Satan. He destroys his own life. Throughout his play, Marlowe is depicting the Christian ideal of his time, that the individual is responsible for his own fate.”

Renaissance Attitudes Towards Faustus as a Magician
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Backlund describes and transcribes two folios of fragmented material….

A Golden Storm: Attempting to Recreate the Context of John Dee and Edward Kelley’s Angelic Material.

by Teresa Burns, Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition.

[An essay questioning how Dee and Kelley’s Angelic or Enochian writings evolved into or inspired later occult societies like Mather’s and Crowley’s Golden Dawn. Context with “bad history.” Also, Rudolf II and Golem – the original one, not the milky newt. A fresh look at Edward Kelley’s reputation. 007 and Dee, John Dee. Emphasis ours: The mystery of Christopher Marlowe.]

by Teresa Burns, Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition.

Jan Backlund’s ‘In the Footsteps of Edward Kelley’ on Danish manuscripts “…describes and transcribes two folios of fragmented material, clearly related to Dee and Kelley and physical alchemy, folios which include names also used in Dee’s diary like Digges (Thomas Digges?), Garland (Francis Garland? aka Gulielmus Shakespeare?), and Carpe (John Carpio/Johannis Carpionis de Kaprstein), and a poem of Kelley’s that Ashmole republishes in Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum with an added dedication to “G.S., Gent.” Some of the names in the manuscripts are likely those of couriers, as evidenced by the writing out of their name in code, and that their names appear in manuscripts that seem to have originated in Prague, passed through England, and wound up in Denmark. One even wonders if the “Poole” who appears in these manuscripts is the notorious Cheshire gentleman and brutal “intelligencer” John Poole, who allegedly had “great skill in mixture of metals,” and may be peripherally related to the espionage circle around playwright Christopher Marlowe. Such primary evidence again begs the questions: how does Dee and Kelley’s work in physical alchemy and their status as “intelligencers” inform the angelic workings? Is there enough evidence left anywhere to ever know?”

From <http://www.jwmt.org/v2n19/golden.html>.

A Golden Storm: Attempting to Recreate the Context of John Dee and Edward Kelley’s Angelic Material. By Teresa Burns. Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition.\\No. 19, Vol. 2. Autumnal Equinox 2010.

From Wikipedia:

“Thomas Digges, born about 1546, was the son of Leonard Digges (c. 1515 – c. 1559), the mathematician and surveyor, and Bridget Wilford, the daughter of Thomas Wilford, esquire, of Hartridge in Cranbrook, Kent, by his first wife, Elizabeth Culpeper, the daughter of Walter Culpeper, esquire. Digges had two brothers, James and Daniel, and three sisters, Mary, who married a man with the surname of Barber; Anne, who married William Digges; and Sarah, whose first husband was surnamed Martin, and whose second husband was John Weston.”1

“After the death of his father, Digges grew up under the guardianship of John Dee, a typical Renaissancenatural philosopher. In 1583, Lord Burghley appointed Digges, with John Chamber and Henry Savile, to sit on a commission to consider whether England should adopt the Gregorian calendar, as proposed by Dee.”

Thomas Digges at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Digges.
  1. This John Weston died circa 1564. [↩]
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Come, Mephistopheles, let us dispute again

Doctor Faustus. By Christopher Marlowe

“He that is grounded in astrology,
Enriched with tongues, well seen in minerals,
Hath all the principles magic doth require.
Then doubt not, Faustus, but to be renowned
And more frequented for this mystery
Than henceforth the Delphian oracle.”

….

“I am resolv’d; Faustus shall ne’er repent.—
Come, Mephistophilis, let us dispute again,
And argue of divine astrology.
Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon
Are all celestial bodies but one globe,
As is the substance of this centric earth?

MEPHIST. As are the elements, such are the spheres,
Mutually folded in each other’s orb,
And, Faustus,
All jointly move upon one axletree,
Whose terminine is term’d the world’s wide pole;
Nor are the names of Saturn, Mars, or Jupiter
Feign’d, but are erring stars.

FAUSTUS. But, tell me, have they all one motion, both situ et
tempore?

MEPHIST. All jointly move from east to west in twenty-four hours
upon the poles of the world; but differ in their motion upon
the poles of the zodiac.

FAUSTUS. Tush,
These slender trifles Wagner can decide:
Hath Mephistophilis no greater skill?
Who knows not the double motion of the planets?
The first is finish’d in a natural day;
The second thus; as Saturn in thirty years; Jupiter in twelve;
Mars in four; the Sun, Venus, and Mercury in a year; the Moon in
twenty-eight days. Tush, these are freshmen’s suppositions.
But, tell me, hath every sphere a dominion or intelligentia?

MEPHIST. Ay.

FAUSTUS. How many heavens or spheres are there?

MEPHIST. Nine; the seven planets, the firmament, and the empyreal
heaven.

FAUSTUS. Well, resolve me in this question; why have we not
conjunctions, oppositions, aspects, eclipses, all at one time,
but in some years we have more, in some less?

MEPHIST. Per inoequalem motum respectu totius.

FAUSTUS. Well, I am answered. Tell me who made the world?

MEPHIST. I will not.”

The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, by Christoper Marlowe.

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Although astrology was never taught formally in English universities…

“Although astrology was never taught formally in English universities either, and was also regarded with suspicion by the majority of the clergy, it nevertheless began to enjoy a popular reception there during the later half of the sixteenth century. This sixteenth century renewal in England of interest in astrology, indeed to a level of interest that surpassed that of the middle ages, is attributed mainly to the mathematical revival brought about by the most famous Elizabethan astrologer John Dee (1527-1608), along with the help of Leonard Digges and his son Thomas, both astrologers and mathematicians as well.

Dee and the Digges’s practiced and advocated rigorous mathematical calculations in the study of astronomy as it applied to astrology, and in doing so raised the standard for the English astrological community from that time on.

John Dee was a long-time consultant of Queen Elizabeth I, and was commissioned for everything from the proper time for her coronation in 1559 to drawing an accurate map of the world in I580.”

….

“The revival of astrology in England then, began during the reign of Elizabeth I with Dee and the Digges’s, but was practiced at first mainly among the upper classes, only slowly trickling down to the rest of society. Such was the state of astrology in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century.”

From: Kemp, David (2003) The scientific revolution’s axiomatic rejection of magical thinking : the case of astrology in England (1600-1700). Masters thesis, Concordia University.

Pasted from <http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/2327/>

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Rodrigo Lopez was Queen Elizabeth’s physician during the time of

[Rodrigo Lopez was Queen Elizabeth’s physician during the time of Christopher Marlowe, and is mentioned in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus—but not by Marlowe.]

From Wikipedia on Rodrigo Lopez:

“Rodrigo Lopez (c. 1525 – June 7, 1594) was physician to Queen Elizabeth, and may have been an inspiration for Shakespeare’s Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.”

He was born in Crato, Portugal and raised as a New Christian. He was driven away from Portugal by the Portuguese Inquisition and was known to be a Marrano (a hidden Jew).

He made London his home in 1559 and successfully resumed his practice as a doctor, soon becoming house physician at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He developed a large practice among powerful people, including Robert Dudley and Francis Walsingham. His success was less due to his medical skill and more to his skill at flattery and self-promotion. A 1584 libelous pamphlet attacking Dudley suggested that Lopez distilled poisons for Dudley and other noblemen as well. In 1586, Lopez reached the pinnacle of his profession; he was made physician-in-chief to Queen Elizabeth. Lopez earned the queen’s favour for in 1589 she granted him a monopoly on the importation of aniseed and sumac. His success continued as he neared retirement. He was viewed, at least outwardly, as being a dutiful practicing Protestant.

In October of 1593, Lopez was wealthy and generally respected. At that time, he owned a house in Holborn and had a son enrolled at Winchester College. However, also in October, a complex web of conspiracy against Dom António, Prior of Crato began to come to light. Subsequently, Robert Devereux accused Lopez of conspiring with Spanish emissaries to poison the Queen. He was arrested on January 1, 1594, convicted in February, and subsequently hanged, drawn and quartered on June 7. His trial at London’s Guildhall was referred to by Charles, Prince of Wales in his Guildhall address to the Board of Deputies of British Jews on 5 July 2011.

The Queen herself was uncertain of his guilt and delayed his execution. Lopez maintained his innocence and his true conversion from Judaism to Christianity. According to the 16th century historian William Camden, just before Lopez was hanged, he said to the crowd that he loved his queen as well as he loved Jesus Christ. The crowd laughed at this statement, taking it for a thinly veiled confession.

Some historians and literary critics consider Lopez and his trial to have been an influence on William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. “Many Shakespearean scholars believe Dr. Lopez was the prototype for Shylock,” which is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. There is also a mention of Lopez in the posthumously published text of The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, comparing him to the titular hero: “Doctor Lopus was never such a doctor!” This reference was presumably added after Marlowe’s death in 1593.

Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodrigo_L%C3%B3pez_(physician)>

[If the final point was missed: Marlowe was dead by the time Lopez’s problems began, so clearly he didn’t write it. Like other works of the time Doctor Faustus was written for the stage and could have had several contributors as well as multiple revisions for performances over time. See further:]

From Old English Drama




Old English Drama. Select Plays: Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus; Greene : Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Edited by A. W. Ward. Clarendon Press series. Edition 2. Clarendon Press, 1887.



Download the PDF at http://ia700402.us.archive.org/18/items/oldenglishdramas00warduoft/oldenglishdramas00warduoft.pdf
…Or see it at Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=BLc8AAAAYAAJ