Doctor Faustus

Doctor Faustus, restless for knowledge, forsakes scholarship for magic and makes a pact with the Devil: if the evil spirit Mephistopheles will serve him for 24 years, Faustus will yield his soul to the Devil after death. It isn’t long before Faustus has doubts about the bargain, but Mephistopheles has plenty of entertainment at hand to distract Faustus from the terrifying reality of his position and the prospect of its agonising conclusion.

In Doctor Faustus, the greatest tragedy in English before Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe puts some of the greatest poetry ever written for the stage and a good deal of anarchic comedy at the service of a mythic tale illustrating mankind’s insatiable desire for knowledge and power.