1. MARLOWE: The Father of English Tragedy & the Creator of English Blank Verse

2. Marlowe’s Poetic Language Inverted structure Blank verse Elaborate comparisons Imagery Rhetorical symmetry

3. Inverted Structure  “O what a cozening doctor was this!” (4.5.31).  “Learn è d Faustus, / To find the secrets of astronomy / Graven in the book of Jove’s high firmament, / Did mount him up to scale Olympus’ top: / Where, sitting in a chariot burning bright / Drawn by the strength of yok èd dragons’ necks / He views the clouds, the planets, and the stars....” (3.Chorus.1- 6).

4. Blank Verse  “Mephistophilis. Within the bowels of these elements / Where we are tortured and remain forever. / Hell hath not limits nor is circumscribed / In one self place, but where we are is hell, / And where hell is there we ever shall be” (2.2.125-29).

5. Elaborate comparisons “Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast. / What shall I do to shun the snares of death?” (5.1.68-71).

6. Imagery  “My God, my God, look not so fierce on me. / Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile. / Ugly hell, gape not, come not, Lucifer!” (5.2. 191-199).

7. Rhetorical symmetry “Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, / And burn è d is Apollo’s laurel bough, / That sometime grew within this learn è d man. / Faustus is gone. Regard his hellish fall, / Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise / Only to wonder at unlawful things, / Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits, / To practice more than heavenly power permits” (5.3.20-28).

8. Importance to Poetry A. C. Swinburne, critic: Marlowe was “the father of English tragedy and the creator of English blank verse.” Tamburlaine Prologue shows Marlowe’s contempt for stage verse of the period: “jygging vaines of riming mother wits” presented the “conceits [which] clownage keepes in pay.” Dramatic poets of 16 th c followed where Marlowe led

9. Multi-Dimensional Characters  Is Faustus completely good or bad?  Does Faustus change during the course of the play?  Is Mephistophilis completely evil?  Marlowe’s characters are much more fully developed than the characters in medieval plays.

10. Importance to Tragedy Blank verse Poetic language Multi-dimensional protagonists Humorous subplots that parallel larger themes Episodic treatment of events

11. Epitaph for Marlowe “Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, / And burn è d is Apollo’s laurel bough, / That sometime grew within this learn è d man” (5.3.20-22).

12. Sources Barnet, Sylvan, ed. “Introduction.” Doctor Faustus. Christopher Marlowe. New York: Signet Books, 1969. vii- xix. Bevington, David. “General Introduction.” The Complete Works of Shakespeare. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Rpt. in Doctor Faustus: Divine in Show. Ed. McAlindon, T. Twayne’s Masterworks Studies. New York: Twayne, 1994. 152-170. Duncan-Jones, Katherine. “Devil May Care.” New Statesman 131 (1996): 42-44. McAlindon, T. Doctor Faustus: Divine in Show. Twayne’s Masterworks Studies. New York: Twayne, 994. “The Sixteenth Century I1485-1603): Introduction.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6 th ed. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton,1996. 253-273. Stenning, Rodney. “The ‘Burning Chair’ in the B-text of Doctor Faustus.” Notes and Queries 43 (1996): 144-145. Stumpf, Thomas A. “Images and Music.” Freshman Seminar: Visits to Hell. (2001). 29 Sept. 2004. Walton, Brenda. Lessons for Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Orlando, FL: Network for Instructional TV, 1998. 12 Oct. 2004..http://www.unc.edu/courses/2001fall/engl/006m/005/thumbnails.html.http://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/marl.htm