Show STUDENT LIFE the knowledge and magic power which can be attained only by league with Lucifer After a considerable period of hesitation the compact is finally made and sealed with blood twenty-fou- r years being to Faustus to enjoy all the given worldly pleasures diabolic power can provide But before and aft the league is made circumstances friends and good spirits exert all their persuasion in vain to pull the hero back from the destruction that lies before him His pleasures are given him conceived by the author in the most glowing fashion Then all too soon the time arrives to pay the penalty and in a powerful final scene Faustus delivers up his soul Of course the play is crude and has a host of weaknesses and why not? Shakespeare in that day was cruder still and most of his contemporaries were mere chaos The characters are broadly drawn and the attempts at humor are wretched But look at the positive side of the question There is a grasp of great thoughts and a sympathy with vast ambitions that is new in English literature This is the hero’s own expression of his desires “Had I as many souls as there be stars I’d give them all for Mephistophilis By him I’ll be great emperor of the world And make a bridge thorough the moving air To pass the ocean with a band of men : I'll join the hills that bind the Afric shore And made that country continent to Spain And both contributory to my crown” There is too an ability to embody splendid things in an everlastingly final phraseology tophilis asked by Faustus a fallen angel is out of hell “Why this is hell nor am Mephis- why he replies : I out of it Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God And tasted the eternal joy of Heaven Am not ' tormented with ten thousand hells In being deprived of everlasting bliss?” Faustus looking upon the spirit of the beautiful Helen bursts forth: “W as this the face that launched a thousand ships And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?” And again Faustus struggles in the agony of his last hour on earth with the outcry : "See see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament One drop would save my soul !” Such things as these are an unquestionable indication of great latent power especially when coupled with the unity and simple directness of the serious scenes of the drama epi- Setting aside the pseudo-comi- c ! |