“The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.” So Hamlet decided in the second act of the eponymous play, meditating upon the reappearance of his father’s tormented spirit. Yet whether or not the diabolical lies at the heart of Hamlet, it is certainly present in Christopher Marlowe’s earlier play, Doctor Faustus, in which its protagonist bargains away his soul to Lucifer in exchange for 24 years in which he is, supposedly, granted his heart’s desires. It is an amusing coincidence that both Hamlet and Faustus are students of the University of Wittenberg, the crucible of Renaissance humanism and intellectual prowess. Put bluntly, their education is not worth it. Both of them act in foolish ways at various points in their respective dramas, and end up paying the price in brutal fashion.
Hamlet has been written about ad nauseam, but Doctor Faustus remains a strange anomaly in the field of drama and literature. Virtually everyone…
