Doctor Faustus at Rome

Davidson, Clifford

doi:10.2307/449777

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Likewise, Marjorie Garber has argued that Marlowe stages in the interlude at Rome an "anti-Mass" that shows how the pope "approaches the meat and wine in an epicurean rather than a sacramental manner," and that "he is physically prevented from partaking of the 'troublesome banquet' by Faustus's prankish intervention." 52 In spite of its anticlericalism, the play's liturgical parody can also be said to reveal Faustus's fascination and even obsession with the Eucharist, if we focus not only on the desacralizing theft but on the ritual significance of these purloined props. Just as he steals the food, he also seizes the pope's dish and cup, which represent the paten and chalice, the official vessels required for the Mass as stated in the rubrics of the missal.…”

Section: Magic Books and Mass Booksmentioning

confidence: 96%

The Last Temptation of Faustus: Contested Rites and Eucharistic Representation in Doctor Faustus

Zysk

2013

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies

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Situating Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus within the contexts of liturgical history and sacramental theology, this essay argues that the Eucharist provided an influential aesthetic resource for English dramatists in the wake of the Reformation. Drawing on Eucharistic theology, liturgical books, and the ritual of the Mass, Marlowe’s play reveals the early modern theater as a venue for “contested rites” where liturgical and theological debates could be waged. The essay establishes connections between magic and the Mass by analyzing the “affective textuality” and liturgical rubrics in both necromantic books and liturgical books. It then proceeds to scenes in which Faustus draws on the efficacious language of sacraments, the doctrine of transubstantiation, as well as topoi like Eucharistic gazing and blood sacrifice. In this analysis, conventional oppositions such as parody and piety, medieval and early modern, Catholic and Protestant, and word and flesh are shown to be mutually constitutive at each of the drama’s captivating turns.

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Section: Magic Books and Mass Booksmentioning

confidence: 96%