Doctor Faustus E-Book

Christopher Marlowe

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes. The translations, by leading experts in the field, are accurate and above all actable. The editions of English-language plays include a glossary of unusual words and phrases to aid understanding. Doctor Faustus tells the classic story of a learned Doctor who sells his soul to the devil. This edition contains two self-contained versions of the play, known as the A-text and the B-text, allowing readers to compare the available versions, and performers to choose the version that suits them best. It also contains a full introduction, notes on further reading, a chronology and a glossary of difficult words. Edited by D.Bevington & E.Rasmussen, and introduced by Simon Trussler.

Leseprobe

DRAMA CLASSICS

DOCTORFAUSTUS

byChristopher Marlowe

with an introductionby Simon Trussler

London

NICK HERN BOOKS

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Introduction

For Further Reading

Marlowe: Key Dates

Doctor Faustus: A-Text

Dramatis Personae

Prologue

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

Epilogue

Doctor Faustus: B-Text

Dramatis Personae

Prologue

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

Epilogue

Glossary

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Introduction

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

Christopher Marlowe was the second of nine children of a Canterbury shoemaker. Born in 1564, the same year as Shakespeare, he attended King’s School, Canterbury, before entering Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, on a six-year scholarship intended to lead to Holy Orders. He duly achieved his BA Degree in 1584, but was awarded his MA in 1587 only following the Privy Council’s insistence. During the intervening three years he is thought to have been acting as a government spy against the French, in the Catholic seminary at Rheims.

Marlowe was probably in London later in 1587 for the first staging of the two parts of his heroic drama Tamburlaine the Great, but it is uncertain whether Doctor Faustus followed in 1588 or was first performed as late as 1593. The dates of his other plays – The Jew of Malta, Edward II and The Massacre of Paris – are also conjectural, though their number suggests a young dramatist pursuing a busy stage career. Yet hints of a darker side to Marlowe’s life persist. In 1589 he was briefly imprisoned in Newgate with his friend, the poet Thomas Watson, who had killed an innkeeper’s son in a street brawl. Three years later he was fined and bound over to keep the peace for assaulting two constables in Shoreditch – yet was also apparently back in government service, as a messenger during the siege of Rouen.

A fellow writer, Robert Greene, attacked Marlowe around this time for ‘diabolical atheism’ (the book’s publisher apparently censoring yet more scandalous allegations). Then, in 1593, the dramatist Thomas Kyd, arrested for possessing atheistical writings, alleged that these had belonged to Marlowe, also accusing his former friend of treason and sodomy. Summoned to appear before the Privy Council, Marlowe was examined on 20 May, released on bail, and ten days later stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer in a house or tavern in Deptford, south east of London. A dispute over the reckoning had allegedly been the cause, and Frizer was pardoned following a coroner’s finding of ‘homicide in self-defence’. On the day of Marlowe’s burial, in an unmarked grave in Deptford parish church, a note was delivered to the authorities from the informer Richard Baines, ‘concerning his damnable judgement of religion and scorn of God’s word’.