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B. The twenty-four years of "the World." Mediæval conception of magic: unlimited pleasure, unlimited knowledge, magic tricks as relief scenes.
C. The price of the Soul paid at the conclusion of the term of years; last hour on earth of a doomed soul. A masterpiece of dramatic realisation; especially note the device of "dramatic back-ground" (borrowed from Job xxxvi-xxxviii); gradual rise through the final hour of the tempest which is to break at the moment of doom.
Marlowe's answer to the second head is to show a Soul in the process of being lost in this world (to say nothing of the next) by the paralysis of will produced by repeated acts of self-surrender. Especially notice; apparent external restraints on Faust at the end are in reality no more than natural consequences of self-inflicted emotional shocks—thus Marlowe with great skill has reconciled demoniac agency with free will.
- Note such passages as page 34, line 21; page 37,[1] line 3; page 63, line 13; page 66, lines 21-4; page 68; lines 13, 16, 17. Here Faustus supposes himself to be physically attacked by invisible demons. But it is more in accordance with the general drift of the play to understand these as hysterical convulsions, the natural result of oft-repeated emotional transition from the height of hope to the depth of despair.
[Goethe's Version
is not included in the present course, but will be a good companion study. Briefly its thinking on the second head may be summed up thus: The issue is changed at the last moment by a bold evasion of the poet, Faust's acts suggesting, not being saved, but saving others.]
- ↑ The top line of page 37 is in other texts given to the Good Angel, not to Faustus: and this makes the better reading.
