There is in the original legend of Faust little of that titanic discontent with the spiritual limits of humanity, which is now regarded as the fundamental characteristic of the Faustian nature. It is not the desire to solve the riddle of the universe that drives him to the pact with the Devil, but the less worthy desire for power and pleasure. It is true that “he took to himself eagles’ wings and wanted to fathom all the causes in heaven and earth,” but the Promethean defiance which some scholars have sought to establish as his guiding motive, was a preconception implanted in their own minds by a study of the Faust of Goethe. The Faust of the Historia obliges the Devil to answer all his questions and shows afterwards a lively interest in the organization of heaven and hell, but the first-fruits of the pact are food, wine and women. Even Marlowe’s Faustus promises himself merely treasure, delicacies and power from intercourse with the spirits; philosophy, medicine, law and theology are all inadequate for the man who longs to “raise the wind, or rend the clouds,” but when his league with hell has endowed him with supernatural powers, the only use he finds for them is to gratify his sensual desires or indulge in practical jokes. It cannot be said that Marlowe has realized in his tragedy the potentiality of the legend, though he seems to have had an inkling of it. The Helen episode gives rise to the finest poetical passage in the play:—
“Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”—
and the final scene, with Faust’s death presaged by the striking of the clock, is impressive, but the author has done little to raise the conception to a higher plane.
After the production of Marlowe’s play the name of Faustus appears to have become a household word, and there are various allusions to the character in contemporary writings, including a reference in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives. William Prynne relates in his Histrio-Mastix, The Players’ Scourge, 1663, a curious incident which occurred during a performance. He is quoting the tragic end of many who have been slain in playhouses in London, “Nor yet to recite the sudden fearful burning even to the ground, both of the Globe and Fortune Playhouses, no man perceiving how these fires came: together with the visible apparition of the Devil on the Stage at the Belsavage Playhouse, in Queen Elizabeth’s days (to the great amazement both of the Actors and Spectators) whiles they were there profanely playing the History of Faustus, ... there being some distracted with that fearful sight.”
There was no further development of the theme in this country, for it degenerated into a subject for farce and pantomime. There were further editions of the English Faust book, and in the year 1664 there was published in London The History of Doctor John Faustus; Compiled in Verse, very pleasant and Delightfull, with a doggerel dedication to the reader:—
“Reader, I would not have you think,
That I intend to waste my ink,
While Faustus Story I reherse,
And here do write his life in verse.