The Language of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, from Book 1 Chapter 2, ‘Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus’ by Anita Pacheco
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If you have never read a Renaissance play before, and even if you have, you may well find Doctor Faustus a challenging read. This is chiefly because, like the plays of Shakespeare, Doctor Faustus was written during the historical period known as the Renaissance (or the early modern period), when the vocabulary was significantly different from 21st-century English. It is also written largely in blank verse, a term which requires a few words of explanation. Look for a moment at the four opening lines of
Doctor Faustus:
Not marching now in fields of Trasimene
Where Mars did mate the Carthaginians,
Nor sporting in the dalliance of love
In courts of kings where state is overturned .... (1-4)
If you count the syllables in these lines, you will find that each one contains 10 syllables. If you read the lines aloud, you will hear that for the most part every other syllable carries a particularly marked accent:
Not march/ing now / in fields / of Tra/simene /
Where Mars / did mate / the Car/thagin/ians /,
Nor sport/ing in / the dall/iance / of love /
In courts / of kings / where state / is o/verturned /....
The second line doesn’t fit all that comfortably into the overall pattern because it feels a bit awkward giving a strong stress to the last syllable of ‘Carthaginians’. But we can still say that, roughly speaking, each line of verse has five stressed and five unstressed syllables, and that these are arranged in a fairly regular pattern of unstressed/stressed. In poetry, this pattern, or metre, is called iambic pentameter, which is generally thought to be the poetic metre that most closely reproduces the cadence of English speech. This is also blank verse because, in addition to being written in iambic pentameter, the lines are unrhymed. (There is more information on metre on pp. 144-7 of your edition.) Marlowe was known and admired by his contemporaries for the skill with which he used blank verse in his plays.
Don’t worry if this discussion of metre is new to you: its purpose is just to make you aware that the play’s verse has an underlying rhythm. This rhythm is mainly determined by the metre which, as we have just seen, is more regular at some points than others, but it is also affected by punctuation, which can slow the verse down (if there are a lot of stops and pauses) or speed it up (if there are few of these).
Everyone has their own way of reading, but I would suggest, especially if this is your first encounter with Renaissance drama, that when reading the play you focus on the story: try to get the gist of what happens, who the main characters are and what they do. Don’t worry if you find this hard going or feel that you are not getting it all. Remember that reading early modern English is challenging, and that in Part 2 of this unit we will be looking more closely at particular parts of the play and discussing them together. It might also be a good idea to listen to the audio version of the play as you read. This will add to your understanding and enjoyment of the play and make it much easier for you to hear the rhythm of the verse.
The edition of Doctor Faustus that we are using offers a lot of help with the play’s language and themes in notes that are conveniently located on pages facing the text. You should use these as and when you feel you need them, but do keep in mind that the important thing at this stage is just to grasp the broad outlines of the plot. The edition also contains a wide-ranging selection of information relevant to the study of Doctor Faustus. Apart from the biography of Marlowe, none of this material is required reading, though you should feel free to read it if you wish to.