Role of Chorus in Doctor Faustus

Doctor Faustus By Christopher Marlowe
The Faust legend had its inception during the medieval period in Europe and has since become one of the world's most famous and oft-handled myths. The story is thought to have its earliest roots in the New Testament story of the magician Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-24). Other references to witchcraft and magic in the Bible have always caused people to look upon the practice of magic as inviting eternal damnation for the soul.

When the Renaissance came to northern Europe, Faust was made into a symbol of free thought, anticlericalism, and opposition to church dogma. The first important literary treatment of the legend was that of the English dramatist Christopher Marlowe.

Faustus becomes dissatisfied with his studies of medicine, law, logic and theology; therefore, he decides to turn to the dangerous practice of necromancy, or magic. He has his servant Wagner summon Valdes and Cornelius, two German experts in magic. Faustus tells them that he has decided to experiment in necromancy and needs them to teach him some of the fundamentals.

When he is alone in his study, Faustus begins experimenting with magical incantations, and suddenly Mephistophilis appears, in the form of an ugly devil. Faustus sends him away, telling him to reappear in the form of a friar. Faustus discovers that it is not his conjuring which brings forth Mephistophilis but, instead, that when anyone curses the trinity, devils automatically appear. Faustus sends Mephistophilis back to hell with the bargain that if Faustus is given twenty-four years of absolute power, he will then sell his soul to Lucifer.

Later, in his study, when Faustus begins to despair, a Good Angel and a Bad Angel appear to him; each encourages Faustus to follow his advice. Mephistophilis appears and Faust agrees to sign a contract in blood with the devil even though several omens appear which warn him not to make this bond.

Faustus begins to repent of his bargain as the voice of the Good Angel continues to urge him to repent. To divert Faustus, Mephistophilis and Lucifer both appear and parade the seven deadly sins before Faustus. After this, Mephistophilis takes Faustus to Rome and leads him into the pope's private chambers, where the two become invisible and play pranks on the pope and some unsuspecting friars.

After this episode, Faustus and Mephistophilis go to the German emperor's court, where they conjure up Alexander the Great. At this time, Faustus also makes a pair of horns suddenly appear on one of the knights who had been skeptical about Faustus' powers. After this episode, Faustus is next seen selling his horse to a horse-courser with the advice that the man must not ride the horse into the water. Later, the horse-courser enters Faustus' study and accuses Faustus of false dealings because the horse had turned into a bundle of hay in the middle of a pond.

After performing other magical tricks such as bringing forth fresh grapes in the dead of winter, Faustus returns to his study, where at the request of his fellow scholars, he conjures up the apparition of Helen of Troy. An old man appears and tries to get Faustus to hope for salvation and yet Faustus cannot. He knows it is now too late to turn away from the evil and ask for forgiveness. When the scholars leave, the clock strikes eleven and Faustus realizes that he must give up his soul within an hour.

As the clock marks each passing segment of time, Faustus sinks deeper and deeper into despair. When the clock strikes twelve, devils appear amid thunder and lightning and carry Faustus off to his eternal damnation.

The Role of the Chorus in Doctor Faustus
The tradition of the Chorus developed in classical Greek drama. A group of 12 to 24 performers would passively comment on the action in a tragic or comedic work, giving the audience greater insight or simply moving the plot along.In Greek drama of the fifth and sixth centuries B.C. the chorus was an essential feature and the convention came from the drama of those ancient days. But then the chorus consisted of homogenous, non-individualized group of performers who commented with a collective voice on the dramatic action. It numbered twelve or fifteen member sin tragedies and twenty-four members in comedies, and performed using several techniques, including singing, dancing, narrating, and acting. The Elizabethan playwrights, instead of following the Greek convention, borrowed the prologue of the Chorus more from the old Miracles and Mysteries. So in the dramas of this age a chorus became just an actor who used to speak the prologue or announce the incidents that were going to happen in the beginning of an act or at the close of the play.Sometimes they also made moralizing comments.

The chorus functions in several ways throughout the play. It stands outside the direct action of the play and comments upon various parts of the drama. The chorus speaks directly to the audience and tells the basic background history of Faustus and explains that the play is to concern his downfall. The chorus is also used to express the author's views and to remind the audience of the proper moral to be learned from the play itself. The opening speech of the chorus functions as a prologue to define the scope of the play.

The chorus speaks in very formal, rhetorical language and explains that the subject of this play will not be that which is usually depicted in dramas. Instead of a subject dealing with love or war, the play will present the history of a scholar. The purpose of this explanation is that, traditionally, tragedy had dealt with such grand subjects as the history of kings, great wars, or powerful love affairs. Consequently, Marlowe is preparing the audience for a departure in subject matter. Most frequently, tragedy is concerned with the downfall of kings, and Marlowe's tragedy does not fit into this formula since this drama deals with the downfall of a man of common birth.

The Chorus opens Doctor Faustus by setting the stage for the theme of the play. This story will not, according to the Chorus, be a tale of love or war, but rather “the form of Faustus’ fortunes, good or bad." The Chorus infers much about Faustus’ nature; it is within these opening lines that Marlowe makes his Icarus allusion.

The Chorus tells of Faustus’ growing boredom, explaining that the doctor turns his mind to necromancy when theology proves uninteresting. The audience learns of Faustus’ chief character flaw-his pride-and his interest in the pursuit of knowledge, regardless of the cost. These two factors provide the impetus for much of the following action.

The Chorus reappears in the middle scenes. Faustus has been granted twenty-four years to employ Mephistophilis’ services, and after that time has run out, Lucifer will take his soul. Marlowe skims over the bulk of those twenty-four years, creating the atmosphere of urgency. Time flows at an unnatural rate in the play, which contributes to the sense that Faustus’ deal with the Devil was not worth the price.

The Chorus sums up Faustus’ actions during those years, describing briefly his visits with royal courts and then his return to Germany. Once home, Faustus’ fame became known around the world, but the source of his knowledge was not made public.

Fittingly, the Chorus both opens and closes Doctor Faustus. "Faustus is gone; regard his hellish fall," the Chorus warns. The Chorus appears earlier in the play to provide the background to the story, or to move the plot along; at the end of the play, the Chorus provides the moral of Faust’s decline. “Only to wonder at unlawful things" is the role of man, according to the Chorus.

Marlowe uses the dramatic Chorus as both character and literary device. Primarily, the use of the Chorus is a practical necessity, allowing time for the actors and sets to change, as well as performing the two main functions enumerated above. Additionally, the Chorus lends to Doctor Faustus the sense of epic Greek tragedy, appropriate given both the subject matter and the multiple references to the Greeks. The Chorus itself speaks of the burned laurel of Apollo in the final lines of the play, for example. This usage of the Chorus is an element well worth study, and so adds to the importance of Doctor Faustus as a dramatic work of literature.