Doctor Faustus: AS & A2 York Notes

(1) Faustus's decision to pursue necromancy and the pact; (2) his exploits, with moments of wavering resolve; (3) the intense finale.

The play has Gothic elements anticipating Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein": sensation and suspense; darkness and horror; an overreaching hero whose hubris leads to his downfall.

This alternates between showing and telling (e.g. Chorus). Much of the language is paradoxical or ironically ambiguous, as in the use of 'sweet' and 'heavenly'.

Marlowe uses a rich vocabulary with hyperbolic language creating an intense imaginary world referring to classical mythology and the geography of the time.

Marlowe uses unrhymed iambic pentameter for the more elevated passages, prose for the comic scenes and lowly characters.