Session 11(a): Evil in Marlowe and Co.

Concurrent Session 11a: Evil in Marlowe and Co.
Chair: Robert Bichler

‘Ah, Mephistopheles!’: Intimacy and the Devil in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus
Andrew McCarthy
Department of English, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

In recent works on early modern England, scholars have dedicated numerous pages to the discussion of Queen Elizabeth’s Jewish physician, Roderigo Lopez, and the curious circumstances surrounding the doctor’s execution on charges of attempting to poison the queen. This incident was clearly on the mind of early modern English playwrights and audiences alike, as similar displays and accusations of Jewish wickedness in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Marlow’s The Jew of Malta indicate. I shall argue, however, that the tension evidenced by Lopez’s untimely death is, ultimately, not one of religion, but of appropriate proximity and intimacy. As famously discussed by Machiavelli, the keeping of proper counsel is critical to political success. The idea that guilt lies in an abuse of intimacy is more striking to me than the fact that Lopez was Jewish. Lopez was simply too close to the queen. The allusion to Dr. Lopez in the A-text of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus shows that this question of appropriate intimacy was one which could be discussed under the guise of spiritual well-being. Marlowe’s use of the devils is suggestive in this context, not only because the devil is used to signify the presence of evil, but because intimacy is explored through its startling absence. While it is true that Faustus does interact with peripheral characters, his most intimate relationship is with the devil’s confidant, Mephistopheles. But the relationship with evil cannot replace the human connections Faustus so clearly craves, and thus the devil as a surrogate for appropriate counsel reinforces warnings of the possible consequences of becoming too intimate with evil, inappropriate counsel, and the wrong company. My paper will explore the curious relationship between Faustus and Mephistopheles and reveal how, for Marlowe, intimacy was the birthplace and the birth-rite of evil.

The influence of Hermann Witekind’s (aka August Lercheimer) Christlich bedencken vnd erinnerung von Zauberey (Heidelberg, 1585) on Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (1588-1592) has been indirectly identified as reaching the playwright via the English Faustbook (1592), but I believe closer ties can be proven. When reading Doctor Faustus alongside the closely related play Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1589-1592) by Robert Greene, points of intersection between Witekind, Marlowe and Greene can no longer be denied; parallels far exceed the anecdotes stemming from the Faustbook, both in its English version as well as in its German original from 1587. By the same token, Paul Friese’s Deß Teufels Nebelklappen (1583) clearly influenced Marlowe’s as well as Greene’s portrayal of the devil and of the impact of evil upon human nature. Friese places the agency of wickedness firmly in the devil’s hands, but ascribes responsibility to the Christian soul even more firmly: the human failure to resist temptation and fall victim to the wicked deceptions of the devil are what leads humankind to its damnation, never the devil directly. Rather we see a God disappointed, occasionally even disgusted with humankind, turn against His creation and grant the devil express permission to play upon human weakness and torment the human soul. In Marlowe and Greene, we learn time and again that redemption and salvation lie right around the corner. Friar Bacon reaches for it; Faustus recoils.

Despite the considerable influence John Milton’s work had upon a host of writers, one author stands out as particularly indebted to his vision: Nathaniel Hawthorne, documenter of America’s early moral development in The Scarlet Letter, The House Of The Seven Gables, and short stories of good and evil. Though Hawthorne managed to carve himself a niche in literary history away from the shadow of Milton in his prose, he draws heavily on Milton’s ideas of tragic form in his writing, particularly concerning the choice of good and evil. This article explores the extent to which Hawthorne follows Milton while simultaneously attempting to break from his influence. First, I examine Milton’s conception of the psychology of good and evil, and to what extent we as readers are able to choose between the two moral extremes. Second, I turn to the works of Hawthorne and determine both what his view of this same moral decision is and to what extent he aligns himself in this view with Milton’s concepts. I demonstrate that while Hawthorne is indebted to Milton’s views of tragedy and the parameters which the latter author establishes, both in subject matter and degree he establishes his own authoritative voice in the field of literature largely because of the ways in which he parts philosophical and aesthetic company with his predecessor.

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