Faustus and the Censor: The English Faust Book and Marlowe's 'Dr. Faustus

Library Journal

Most readers of Marlowe's play see the overreacher as having sold his heavenly birthright for a mess of pottage. Empson's thesis is that the play's deterioration after Act I is the result of cuts and changes made by censors to bring the play into line with Elizabethan orthodoxy. In the original, Empson argues, ``Faust wins at the end what he says he wants at the start . . . having become legally a Middle Spirit, he is entitled to oblivion, and free from eternal torture.'' The highly sophisticated arguments, drawn from comparisons between English and German versions and variant Marlowe texts, can adequately be appreciated only by Marlowe scholars. Margaret Hallissy, Long Island Univ., Greenvale, N.Y.