Abstract illustration of Doctor Faustus' struggle with the good angel versus the bad angel

Doctor Faustus

by Christopher Marlowe

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  • Bevington, David M., From Mankind to Marlowe. Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962, 310 p. (Traces similarities and differences between Marlowe's tragedies and English morality plays such as Everyman and Mankind.)
  • Bluestone, Max, "Libido Speculandi: Doctrine and Dramaturgy in Contemporary Interpretations of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus," Selected Papers from English Institute: Reinterpretations of Elizabethan Drama, edited by Norman Rabkin, New York: Columbia University Press, 1969, pp. 33-88. (Surveys modern interpretations of Doctor Faustus and concludes that ambiguities in the play have created a critical tradition that "tends toward antithesis and dispute.")
  • Boas, Frederick S., Christopher Marlowe: A Biographical and Critical Study, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940, 336 p. (Analyzes Marlowe's life and his major works.)
  • Boccia, Michael, "Faustus Unbound: A Reconsideration of the Fate of Faustus in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus," The USF Language Quarterly XXV, Nos. 1-2 (Fall-Winter, 1986): 8-12. (Suggests that the character of Faustus is not irrevocably damned.)
  • Bradbrook, M. C., "Christopher Marlowe," in Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935, pp. 137-164. (Describes the dramatic conventions Marlowe drew upon in writing Doctor Faustus.)
  • Brockbank, J. P., Marlowe: Dr. Faustus, London: Arnold, 1962, 62 p. (Traces the philosophical and theological traditions associated with the Faust legend and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.)
  • Brown, Beatrice Daw, "Marlowe, Faustus, and Simon Magus," Publication of the Modern Language Association LIV (1939): 82-121. (Proposes that Marlowe used legendary material from the life of Simon Magus in composing Doctor Faustus.)
  • Brown, John Russell, "Marlowe and the Actors," Tulane Drama Review 8, No. 4 (Summer 1964): 155-73. (Discusses technical approaches to producing and performing Marlowe's plays.)
  • Cole, Douglas, "The Impact of Goethe's Faust on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Criticism of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus," in Faust Through the Centuries: Retrospect and Analysis, edited by Peter Boerner and Sidney Johnson, Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1989, pp. 185-196. (Compares critical responses to Goethe's Faust and Doctor Faustus.)
  • Cole, Douglas, Suffering and Evil in the Plays of Christopher Marlowe, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962, 274 p. (Offers an interpretation of Doctor Faustus as "thoroughly Christian in conception and import.")
  • Danson, Lawrence, "Christopher Marlowe: The Questioner," English Literary Renaissance 12, No. 1 (Winter 1982): 3-29. (Examines the use of various kinds of questions and interrogations as a dramatic technique in Marlowe's plays.)
  • Ellis-Fermor, U. M., Christopher Marlowe, 1927. Reprint. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1967, 172 p. (A general study of Marlowe's major works that offers a seminal comparison of Doctor Faustus with Tamburlaine.)
  • Empson, William, Faustus and the Censor: The English Faust-book and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, London: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1987, 226 p. (Speculates about the effects of censorship on Doctor Faustus.)
  • Farmham, Willard, Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Doctor Faustus, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969, 120 p.
  • Frye, Roland M., "Marlowe's Doctor Faustus: The Repudiation of Humanity," South Atlantic Quarterly LV, No. 3 (July, 1956): 322-28. (Considers Doctor Faustus a didactic and essentially moral play.)
  • Hardin, Richard F., "Marlowe and the Fruits of Scholarism," Philological Quarterly LXII (1984): 387-400. (Examines evidence in his writings of Marlowe's skepticism about both Christian theology and secular knowledge.)
  • Heller, Otto, Faust and Faustus: A Study of Goethe's Relation to Marlowe, St. Louis: Washington University Press, 1931, 177 p. (Compares Faust with Doctor Faustus and concludes that Goethe relied heavily on Marlowe's play as a source.)
  • Honderich, Pauline, "John Calvin and Doctor Faustus," Modern Language Review 68 (1969): 391-406. (Interprets the final scenes of Doctor Faustus in relation to Calvinist theology.)
  • Jump, John D., editor, Doctor Faustus: Christopher Marlowe, London: Methuen and Co., 1962. (Standard, widely cited edition of the play that includes an informative general introduction.)
  • Kaula, David, "Time and Timelessness in Everyman and Dr. Faustus," Critical Essays XXII (1960): 9-14. (Contrasts the dramatic treatment of the passage of time in medieval morality plays and in Doctor Faustus.)
  • Keefer, Michael H., "Verbal Magic and the Problem of the A and B Texts of Doctor Faustus," Journal of English and Germanic Philology LXXXII (1983): 324-46. (Contends that the A-text of Doctor Faustus is marked by carefully crafted language while the B-text is fraught with crude stage tricks.)
  • Kirschbaum, Leo, "Marlowe's Faustus: a Reconsideration," RES XIX (1943): 225-41. (Argues that Marlowe supports religious values in Doctor Faustus.)
  • Knights, L.C., "The Strange Case of Christopher Marlowe," in Further Explorations, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1965, pp. 75-98. (Provides a comprehensive overview of Marlowe's life and dramas.)
  • Kocher, Paul H., "The Witchcraft Basis in Marlowe's Faustus," Modern Philology XXXVIII, No. 1 (August 1940): 9-36. (Demonstrates that Marlowe drew heavily from European witchcraft traditions and folklore.)
  • Kocher, Paul H., Christopher Marlowe: A Study of His Thought, Learning, and Character, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1946. (Analyzes Marlowe's world view, with particular emphasis on the playwright's attitudes toward religion.)
  • Kott, Jan, "The Two Hells of Doctor Faustus: A Polytheatrical Vision," in The Bottom Translation: Marlowe and Shakespeare and the Carnival Tradition, translated by Daniela Miedzyrzecka and Lillian Vallee, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1987, pp. 1-27. (Describes Doctor Faustus as a work that includes a variety of voices and styles.)
  • Kuriyama, Constance, Hammer or Anvil: Psychological Patterns in Christopher Marlowe's Plays, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1980, 240 p. (Finds in Doctor Faustus manifestations of psychological trauma from Marlowe's childhood.)
  • Langston, Beach, "Marlowe's Faustus and the Ars moriendi Tradition," in A Tribute to George Coffin Tavlor: Studies and Essays, edited by Arnold Williams, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1952, pp. 148-67. (Identifies Marlowe's allusions to the Christian tradition of preparing for death.)
  • Leech, Clifford, "Faustus: A Morality Play?" in Christopher Marlowe: Poet for the Stage, edited by Anne Lancashire, New York: AMS Press, 1986, pp. 154-80. (Argues that Doctor Faustus represents the culmination of the English morality play.)
  • Mahood, M. M., Poetry and Humanism, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950, 335 p. (Examines Marlowe's relationship to Renaissance humanism.)
  • Marcus, Leah, "Textual Indeterminacy and Ideological Difference: the Case of Doctor Faustus," Renaissance Drama n.s. XX (1989): 1-29. (Finds differences in ideological and political viewpoints between the A-text and the B-text of Doctor Faustus.)
  • McAlindon, T., "Classical Mythology and Christian Tradition in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus," PMLA LXXXI, No. 3 (June 1966): 214-23. (Describes how classical mythology in Doctor Faustus represents the evil alternative to Christianity.)
  • McAlindon, T., "The Ironic Vision: Diction and Theme in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus," The Review of English Studies n.s. XXXII, No. 126 (May 1981): 129-41. (Focuses on how Marlowe uses poetic diction to contribute to the irony in Doctor Faustus.)
  • Morgan, Gerald, "Harlequin Faustus: Marlowe's Comedy of Hell," The Humanities Association Bulletin XVIII, No. I (Spring 1967): 22-34. (Views Doctor Faustus as a comic satire on classical and medieval myths.)
  • Nichol, Charles, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995, 413 p. (Exhaustively researched and engrossing account of Marlowe's life, focusing on his experiences as a spy for Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council.)
  • Ornstein, Robert, "The Comic Synthesis in Doctor Faustus," ELH 22 (1955): 165-72. (Interprets the comic portions of the play as united with the serious and tragic episodes.)
  • Phillips, D. Z., "Knowledge, Patience, and Faust," Yale Review LXIX, No. 3 (March 1980): 321-341. (Analyzes the Faust legend by offering a philosophical analysis of the meaning of the phrase "the future is in God's hands.")
  • Pittock, Malcolm, "God's Mercy Is Infinite: Faustus's Last Soliloquy," English Studies 65, No. 4 (August 1984): 302II. (Defends the theatrical value of Faustus's last soliloquy.)
  • Rasmussen, Eric, A Textual Companion to Doctor Faustus, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993. (Supplies a detailed analysis of the textual problems in Doctor Faustus.)
  • Ribner, Irving, "Marlowe and the Critics," Tulane Drama Review 8, No. 4 (Summer 1964): 211-24. (Traces scholarly reaction to Marlowe's works from 1774 to 1962.)
  • Rowse, A. L., Christopher Marlowe: A Biography, London: NEED PUB, 1964, 219 p. (Summarizes and assesses what is known about Marlowe's early life, education, literary career, and death.)
  • Sewall, Richard, The Vision of Tragedy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959. (Defends the notion of "Christian tragedy" and argues that Doctor Faustus fits the definition.)
  • Shaw, Bernard, "The Spacious Times," in Plays and Players: Essays on the Theatre, London: Oxford University Press, 1952, pp. 105-14. (Includes an 1896 performance review of Doctor Faustus.)
  • Smith, James, "Marlowe's Doctor Faustus," Scrutiny VII (1939): 36-48. (Suggests that Doctor Faustus is best read as an allegory.)
  • Steane, J. B., Marlowe: A Critical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964. (Comprehensive overview of Marlowe's plays and poetry.)
  • Stroup, Thomas B., "Doctor Faustus and Hamlet: Contrasting Kinds of Christian Tragedy," Comparative Drama 5 (1972): 243-53. (Compares the anguished questions about the nature of existence in Doctor Faustus and Hamlet.)

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