Divine Thoughts and the Corruption of the Will in Doctor Faustus

Auteurs-es

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.12745/et.25.1.4361

Mots-clés :

Christopher Marlowe; Philosophy; Faustus; Thomas Aquinas; William of Ockham

Résumé

In act 2 scene 1 of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, the title character professes that ‘hell is a fable’. But how could Faustus not believe in hell, standing in the presence of a devil that he himself only recently conjured? What is the philosophical difference in the play between ‘experience’, as Mephistopheles describes it, and Faustus’s lack of understanding on the state of his soul? This article discusses the controversy between Ockhamist and Thomist epistemology, and places Faustus within early modern debates concerning the status of knowledge and its effect on the soul’s search for God.

Biographie de l'auteur-e

Nathan Pensky, Carnegie Mellon University

Nathan Pensky (dpensky@andrew.cmu.edu) completed his PhD in English at Carnegie Mellon University in 2021.

Téléchargements

Publié-e

2022-06-10

Numéro

Vol. 25 No. 1 (2022)

Rubrique

Articles

Licence

Contributors to Early Theatre retain full copyright to their content. All published authors are required to grant a limited exclusive license to the journal. According to the terms of this license, authors agree that for one year following publication in Early Theatre, they will not publish their submission elsewhere in the same form, in any language, without the consent of the journal, and without acknowledgment of its initial publication in the journal thereafter.