Brain Pain discussion

British playwright Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593) was quite a controversial character in his day. Popular writer, possibly a spy for the British monarchy at some point, accused of various crimes and heresies, his history is brief but intriguing. Arrested in 1593, possibly for alleged blasphemy and heretical ideas in his writing, he was stabbed to death a few days later under mysterious circumstances. He left behind only seven plays, some translations and some poetry. Doctor Faustus is one of his best known plays.


Wikipedia link for Christopher Marlowe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christop...


Wikipedia link for the play (the Synopsis section is spoiler-laden!):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_F...


Feel free to use this thread for your questions and to post links to resources related to Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.

Also, if you’ve written a review of the book, please post a link to share with the group.

Thank you for all your great work Jim!

A couple of interesting links I found while prepping for Marlowe's play:

BBC3 radio play:
http://bbc4free.blogspot.com/2011/07/...
(I hope this is not a pirate site!)

There's also a LibriVox audio recording:
http://librivox.org/the-tragical-hist...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7BM5r...

BBC Open University course on Marlowe's play:
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history...

BBC4 discussion of Faust (podcast available):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y2bt

Book Portrait wrote: "Thank you for all your great work Jim!

A couple of interesting links I found while prepping for Marlowe's play:

BBC3 audio play:
http://bbc4free.blogspot.fr/2011/07/b......"

Some great links here! Thanks for posting. The Open University looks very interesting. Will explore it later today.

There is a stage production of it on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4DXV8...

I hope it's worth it. Haven't watched it yet.

This edition of Marlowe I bought some years ago has the book we read previously. It's a pity I only saw it today. In case anyone's interested:

http://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Faustus-...

Simone wrote: "This edition of Marlowe I bought some years ago has the book we read previously. It's a pity I only saw it today. In case anyone's interested:

http://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Faustus-......"

There's some great information in the introduction about the English translation of the 1587 German chapbook. It looks like Marlowe would have read it in late 1588 and written his version between then and late 1589.

Thanks for the link!!

Simone wrote: "This edition of Marlowe I bought some years ago has the book we read previously. It's a pity I only saw it today. In case anyone's interested:

http://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Faustus-......"

Speaking of editions, if anyone hasn't bought a copy yet (and wants to buy a paper edition, rather than just download the free etexts), the New Mermaids series is excellent for early modern drama. I've read several plays in the series, including Doctor Faustus, and they have very good / informative introductions as well as good footnotes and they're cheaper than other (longer / more elaborate) critical editions like the Norton Critical Editions.

In terms of online resources, I heartily recommend luminarioum.org, they have a page on Marlowe with info about his life, etexts, 'study resources' (which are usually notes from university courses) and links to a few douzen articles / essays about different aspects of his life / work, quite a lot of which are on Doctor Faustus.

EDIT: also, there's an interesting page on Marlowe on the website of the Norton anthology of English literature, it's called The Magician, the Heretic, and the Playwright.

Simone wrote: "There is a stage production of it on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4DXV8...

I hope it's worth it. Haven't watched it yet."

It's very interesting-I didn't always like the interpretation but on the whole it helped my reading of the play.

Thank you everyone for these great resources. I forgot how much I loved this play-I'm ready to go over to Mephistopheles (almost) just for the poetry.

This my be my most fun read on Brain Pain so far; I feel like a kid in a candy store.

Andreea wrote: "Speaking of editions, if anyone hasn't bought a copy yet..."

Thanks for the links Andreea!

@Ellie - remember what I said about not signing anything with blood!!

Oops!
Plus, I've always had a huge crush on my projection of Marlowe-spy, Catholic, atheist, and so one. And early death always gets me (other of my heroes include Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, you get the picture).

Ellie wrote: "Oops!
Plus, I've always had a huge crush on my projection of Marlowe-spy, Catholic, atheist, and so one. And early death always gets me (other of my heroes include Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, you ge..."

Ellie, I'm with you!! Although there's not as much factual information on Marlowe as I'd like, I do love all of these "mysterious" qualities of his. (And Hendrix, Morrison, and Joplin are among my heroes too, as well as Kurt Cobain. All four of them died at the age of 27, but have left SO MUCH incredible music for us.)

Has anyone here seen the movie Shakespeare in Love?? It's a fun depiction of Shakespeare and his actors of the time. The "friendly competition" between Marlowe and Shakespeare that's depicted in this film is pretty funny.

Just got the Penguin edition of The Complete Plays of Marlowe from the library. What does anyone know of this edition? It was the only one available, so I really don't have any choice. I am looking forward to reading through Doctor Faustus.

Catherine wrote: "Just got the Penguin edition of The Complete Plays of Marlowe from the library. What does anyone know of this edition? It was the only one available, so I really don't have any choice. I am looking..."

The Penguin edition has the "A" text, which is what we'll be discussing because it is believed to be a close representation of Marlowe's production.

Jim wrote: "Catherine wrote: "Just got the Penguin edition of The Complete Plays of Marlowe from the library. What does anyone know of this edition? It was the only one available, so I really don't have any ch..."

Wonderful! Thanks Jim. I look forward to this discussion as I know very little of Marlowe.

I believe this link points to the A text version

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/779

Mekki wrote: "I believe this link points to the A text version

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/779"

It sounds like some kind of hybrid version:

"From The Quarto of 1604

Edited by The Rev. Alexander Dyce"

The 1604 is the "A" text, but this info suggests the good Rev. Dyce did some amending:

"In reprinting this edition, I have here and there amended the text by means of the later 4tos,--1616, 1624, 1631."

It would probably be better to look for an "A" text version.

Book Portrait wrote: "...A couple of interesting links I found while prepping for Marlowe's play:

BBC3 radio play:
http://bbc4free.blogspot.com/2011/07/...-..."

This play is great, thanks for the link. I am getting a lot more out of the text by listening to it as I read. It stays very close to the text (with a bit of risqué anachronistic song and dance thrown in).