Faustus and the Promises of the New Science, c. 1580-1730

From the Chapbooks to Harlequin Faustus

Christa King, Christa Knellwolf King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754661337
• eBook ISBN: 9781351936910
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Having identified the literary origins of the Faustus legend in the German Faust Book (1587) and its English translation (1592), this book argues that these works transformed a simple rogue's tale into an incisive study of morality and beliefs. The chapbooks' contrastive portrayal of an imaginary experience of hell and a pseudo-scientific journey through the cosmos is interpreted as an unconventional approach to the questions of an inquiring mind. This study offers the first analysis of the chapbooks as literary works in their own right, as opposed to simply being sources for Christopher Marlowe's play. It is also the first study to describe the Faustus typology as a vehicle by which uncompromising thinkers of early modernity and the Enlightenment questioned contemporary views about religion, morality and the possibility of experiencing transcendence. While arguing that Marlowe's Doctor Faustus primarily examines the imaginary foundations of religious rules and standards, the author suggests that the 1616 version of the play revived the chapbooks' accounts of spiritual ravishment and intellectual ecstasy. Imaginary explorations of cosmic space became popular in the seventeenth century and gave rise to strongly diverging works of literature, embracing the arcane spirituality of Milton's Paradise Lost as well as Fontenelle's sociable but essentially secular fantasy of cosmic travel. This book shows that contemporary responses to early modern science also tended to address the most urgent concerns of the Faustus legend, explaining the re-emergence of the typology in Mountfort's late seventeenth-century farcical Faustus play and early eighteenth-century harlequinades about Doctor Faustus

Chapter 1

Introduction: Radical Explorations of Faustus

The Faustus legend has been popular in various generic guises and thematic transformations for almost five hundred years. It began as an oral tale about the provocative actions of a fictional character modelled on medical doctors, pharmacists, alchemists, quacks, experts in natural magic and performers of fairground spectacles. While not all of these historical characters possessed special knowledge, all of them challenged established beliefs in one form or another. It goes without saying that such personages aroused much talk and gossip, and the tales which surrounded these figures found their way into broadsheets and lampoons depicting Faustus as a petty criminal who could also draw on the sympathies of the public.

Within a short time the Faustus typology established itself in the popular imagination and inspired writers throughout the ages to imagine a version of the myth that would capture the most urgent concerns of their particular period. Its enduring presence in western culture proves that it was easily recognized as an invaluable tool for examining the thoughts and actions of characters who were extraordinary because they either excelled in their intellectual faculties and artistic gifts or simply in the power of their imagination. Since all of these special skills harboured at least a certain potential for wielding power over others, specially gifted intellectuals were always taken to pose a threat to social stability. The resulting need to contain the danger gave rise to nebulous notions of transgression, the exploration of which became a major task of the Faustus tale.

Historical Faustus Figures

Deciding the question of whether Faustus really existed and what he might have been like is of only marginal interest for this study. Rather than follow the elusive steps of an individual, it explores the overt and implied meanings of the stories about this legendary hero. For the purposes of this study it is nevertheless relevant to point out that the fictional Faustus draws on several personages who lived around the same time as Martin Luther. Several travelling scholars appear to have adopted the name Faustus. Johann Sabellicus, who lived around 1480–1540 and travelled Germany under the name of Georg Faust, became particularly famous.¹ This historical character left behind a trail of offences and frequently had to leave town in a hurry. His bragging, together with his taste for staging sensational spectacles, elicited a great deal of public interest and extraordinary feats were ascribed to him. His infamy was notorious.² Descriptions of his evil deeds gave impetus to the growth of the Faustus legend, which in turn helped to consolidate the period’s increasing sympathy for characters that subverted authority. In the Faust Books, Faustus’ first name is a variant of John. As William Rose points out, there was a historical character who called himself Johann Faust.³ The fictional John Faustus may be modelled on his historical namesake. However, I would suspect that the Faust Books’ choice of first name is primarily a means of alluding to key figures in the life of Christ: John the Baptist and Saint John of the Gospels. The decision to call the hero of the chapbooks John would reinforce the resemblances between Faustus and Christ, which I will discuss at length in the next chapter.

A striking precursor to a figure such as Sabellicus is found in a contemporary and memorable opponent to Aurelius Augustinus, the patron of Martin Luther’s monastic order:⁴ Faustus of Milevis. Living in Numibia, North Africa, around 350–400 AD, Faustus of Milevis was a key protagonist of Manichean theology. He taught a rationalist interpretation of the Bible, embarked on an uninhibited interpretation of its individual books and questioned the authenticity and ethical import of certain passages. Luther, by contrast, was strongly opposed to an unguided approach to the biblical text, despite having translated the Bible into the vernacular.

The writings by Faustus of Milevis do not survive but Augustine quotes him extensively in his refutation of Manicheanism. A special feature in Milevis’ theories concerns the reasonableness of human nature. For example, he said: ‘I look upon myself as a reasonable temple of God’.⁵ As a young man, Augustine had been attracted to the Manichean philosophy. His face-to-face encounter with Manichaeus and some prominent members of his movement, however, left him bitter and frustrated, so that he angrily attacked this strand of Christianity. Although initially fascinated by the North African ascetics, Augustine was discomfited by the arcane symbolism of Manicheanism. In particular, he responded indignantly to its polytheistic tendency and objected to its pantheistic adoration of sun, moon and other cosmic bodies. Augustine also indicted the Manichaean sect for its self-centredness and lack of humility. He energetically objected to the Manichaean decision to worship the God of the New Testament while decrying the God of the Old Testament as an arbitrary tyrant, because such an attitude either challenged the supposedly divine authority of the Bible or implied the existence of multiple godheads.

It is important to remember that the teachings of Augustine played a prominent role in Luther’s life. While caught in a thunderstorm in 1505, Luther vowed to become a monk, and he chose the monastery of the Augustinian Eremites in Erfurt because this order offered the best resources for pursuing his dogmatic studies. When he heard about a scholar, who travelled Germany under the name of Faustus, his in-depth familiarity with Augustinian theology must have led him to interpret the motives of this character in the light of the controversy between Augustine and the North-African Faustus.

Since the chapbooks present their religious outlook through the lens of the cautionary tale, it is impossible to say whether they aimed to revive the Manichean philosophy. Even if the author of a (lost) original Faust Book was inspired by Faustus of Milevis, this does not mean that he (or she?) must have admired everything about the North African ascetic teacher. A sixteenth-century intellectual who wished to give voice to a positive understanding of the physical world, would in all likelihood have been inspired by Milevis’ comment that ‘your religion resembles ours in attaching the same sacredness to the bread and wine that we do to everything’.⁶ Even if the Faust Books do not directly advocate the pantheistic outlook of the Manicheans, the worship of the ‘divine luminaries’ of sun and moon fits well with the sixteenth-century chapbooks that describe the life of Faustus. Moreover, the Manichean idea that it is possible to refine and perfect the self through rational application of morality provides an exciting backdrop to a revisionary understanding of sin and damnation.

Whoever was responsible for writing Spies’ Faust Book (or its lost precursor) may easily have been aware of the fourth-century Faustus. The name Faustus could serve as a pointer to the Manichean beliefs that humankind was the epitome of creation. But there are also other points of reference for the arguments in favour of the innate dignity of mankind. One of the most powerful assertions of the human ability to attain a divine frame of mind is Pico della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486):

Then Bacchus the leader of the muses, in his own mysteries, that is, in the visible signs of nature, will show the invisible things of God to us as we philosophize, and will make us drunk with the abundance of the house of God. In this house, if we are faithful like Moses, holiest theology will approach and will inspire us with a twofold frenzy. We, raised to the loftiest watchtower of theology … shall be prophets, his winged lovers, and finally, aroused like burning Seraphim, filled with divinity, we shall now not be ourselves, but He himself who made us.⁷

A similarly daring celebration of human aspirations can be found in the poem that introduces Giordano Bruno’s On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1584):

Henceforth I spread confident wings to space;
I fear no barrier of crystal or of glass;
I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite.
And while I rise from my own globe to others
And penetrate ever further through the eternal field,
That which others saw from afar, I leave far behind me.⁸

Bruno said about himself that he despised those who are incapable of grasping the sublime and metaphysical dimensions of the infinite. His self-confident description of his achievements and his elitist contempt for inferior minds also resembles Faustus’ attitude towards himself and his fellow beings.

But of course, the sixteenth-century Faustus was not merely a proponent of a rationalist type of Christianity; his main claim to fame was that he practiced magic. The Christian type of magician, Johannes Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, who had himself argued that the unaccountable appearance of marks in the shape of the cross had been the trigger for the plague, decried Faustus as a charlatan. The Abbot’s letter to the court astrologer of the Electoral Palatinate indicts this Faustus for his unhallowed teachings:

… he deserves to be flogged so that he cannot dare to continue teaching despicable things which contradict the Holy Church. What else are the titles, which he has assumed than signs of a highly foolish and nonsensical spirit, which prove that he is a windbag rather than a philosopher? He accordingly appropriated the following titles which he thought to deserve: Magister Georg Sabellicus, Faustus junior, originary source of necromancers, astrologer, second in the rank of magicians, chiromancer, aeromancer, pyromancer, second in the rank of hydromancers. Just consider the foolish audacity of this man! … I crossed the path of this man a few years ago … When he heard about my presence he fled from the hostel; nobody could persuade him to introduce himself to me. The records of his foolish acts, which, as I note, he sent to you, had also been passed on to me …⁹

Trithemius goes on to say that this Faustus junior had claimed to possess the entirety of human knowledge and that his own supernatural skills were even superior to those of Jesus. The Abbot concludes his tirade by reporting that, to top it all, Faustus was guilty of pederast abominations.¹⁰

A magician and necromancer calling himself Faustus also crossed Luther’s path in 1533. In the context of discussing the dangers of black magic, Luther’s Table Talks mention the following episode:

As a necromancer by the name of Faustus was mentioned one evening, Doctor Martinus said finally: ‘The devil does not use the service of the magicians against me; if he had had the power and the might to harm me, he would have done so long ago. He has certainly many times held me by the head but he has nevertheless had to let me go…. He has sometimes given me such a hard time that I did not know whether I was alive or dead. He has also driven me into such desperation that I did not know whether there is a God…. But I have fought him with the word of God. Otherwise there is neither help nor counsel … if God does not help us….’¹¹

Consistent with Luther’s fixated belief that the devil is the agent behind all extraordinary events,¹² he describes the travelling magician as an instrument of the devil. But the Table Talks do not connect this historical Faustus to the Faustus legend and there is no reference to a pact with the devil.¹³ Luther’s description shows that he connects Faustus so strongly with the devil that they have almost become identical. It does not surprise us, therefore, that Luther refused to have any dealings with his contemporary Faustus.¹⁴

When we compare these historical descriptions of an arrogant megalomaniac and charlatan with the characteristics of the hero of the Faustus legend, we notice a significant discrepancy. It is true that some parts of the chapbooks describe Faustus as someone who likes to impress large audiences with spectacles and silly pranks. In the first two parts of the German and English Faust Books, which are the main focus of my discussion, however, he comes across as an introverted, almost reclusive scholar who only interacts with his amanuensis and his supernatural visitors. His role as a teacher dominates the last part of these Faust Books but his raucous behaviour clashes with his solitary exploration of heaven and hell. Although he is living in a buoyant circle of students and fellow scholars his early musings about the nature of the world concentrate on the landscape of his mind. They describe the inner world of a sensitive scholar in a state of isolation unaffected by his sociable environment.

Even though Faustus is portrayed as a man of the world in the last third of the German and English Faust Books, he interacts less with other people than he does with Mephostophiles and other visitors from the spirit world. It almost seems out of character that Faustus addresses his final lamentation to a group of students to whom he speaks with a great deal of familiarity: ‘My trusty and well-beloved friends, the cause why I have invited you into this place is this: Forasmuch as you have known me this many years, in what manner of life I have lived …’ (EFB 177). His choice of words implies that he has been in close contact with a circle of students for his whole life. It is telling that his more public role is elided from the early parts of the narrative. The interest of the literary sections, which have undoubtedly been written at a later stage, revolve around an individual who thinks and acts at a distance from his surroundings. But the egotistic emphasis of these early sections describes a modern character who ponders the nature of the universe on his own instead of discussing it with his fellow scholars.

New Ideas about Human Nature

The Faustus legend, then, portrays a scholar who objected to every sort of restraint. He was undaunted in his examination of all aspects of creation – including heaven and hell – seeking to explain them according to his own intellectual powers. As I will argue in this book, the legend embarked on an uncompromising investigation of sacred and secular matters through its portrayal of a character who wanted to experience and enjoy all aspects of his contemporary world. Numerous stories about his adventures with conjurors, demons and devils emerged during the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Radical Explorations of Faustus
• 2 The Insatiable Speculator: The Hero of the Faust Books
• 3 The Devil of Empiricism: Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus
• 4 The Alternative Worlds of the New Science: Burton, Milton and Fontenelle
• 5 Comedies, Farces and Harlequin Doctor Faustus
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index