Anti-Papistical Sentiments in Doctor Faustus

Abstract

This study differs from the researches of modern scholars who attempt to read Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus as a morality or anti-papistical play by arguing that Faustus misquotes the Scriptures and presents clergy as deceptive to show his dissatisfaction with the basic doctrines of Christianity. Faustus, as a doctor of divinity, abandons religion as a way of salvation because he feels that it could not fulfill his desire to live a secular life and reach immortality. As a result, Faustus bargains his soul with the devil in exchange for twenty-four years of living a dissolute life and knowing the secrets of the universe.