DOCTOR FAUSTUSにおけるSUPERNATURAL CHARACTERS

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概要

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• When one tries to write anything about Doctor Faustus, one is inevitably confronted by that monster with three heads, as J. B. Steane puts it,-the problems of date, authorship and text. Consequently most essays on the play are concerned with its theme of damnation, either as a theological problem or as a moral issue. Certainly the play is about a man who is damned through his moral choice, and tends to invite due arguements. But Doctur Faustus is a drama, more than anything else, to be performed on the stage. And as such Doctor Faustus has a lot in common with the moralities. No doubt Marlowe has deliberately made use of the techniques used in morality plays in dramatizing the English Faust Book, but in some important points this play shows radical differences. One is the sense of detachment that arises from noticing the irony which the play presents in almost all of its critical situations. Another is the multiple functions which the apparently simple allegorical characters perform in the play. In this paper some of the notable functions of these minor characters are discussed as an integral part of the play. Supernatural characters such as the Old Man and Lucifer are fairly simple in their import in the play. But Mephostophilis and the Angels deserve careful attention. The functions of the former can be summarized as (1) a supernatural, external being, a symbol of hell whose constant presence ominously reminds us of the doom of the hero even in the moments of his glory; (2) a psychological existence which is brought out by Faustus' blasphemous desire, and implies that the fall of the hero is the result, not of temptation, but of his free choice; (3) a dramatic reality with an individuality acquired in the context of the play by expressing his own emotion as a sufferer of alienation from grace; (4) a machine which, by giving Faustus the power of working wonders and thus helping the play to move on, serves as a magnifying glass, so to speak, to make us see not only the gap between Faustus' original designs and the actual trivialities but also the insurmountable limits of man, flashing back to the significance of his initial moral choice. The Angels share (1) and (2) of Mephostophilis' functions. They are not only the symbols of 'good' and 'bad'; they are the projection of Faustus' inner struggle. Besides, they serve as a chorus when they appear for the last time (B text), underlining and commenting on the state of the hero. As is seen from the fact that this play begins with Faustus contemplating, alone in his study, on the fields of learning, and ends with the hero found dead in the same study, the play concentrates on the spiritual problems of this one main character. In fact it is a tragic satire on man's contradictory state of existence: it is in his very nature to aspire to infinity, while he is precluded from attaining it. It is only by relying on complex functions of minor characters that a playwright can give a dramatic representation of such abstract subjects as man's aspiration growing into hubris and the antinomy of his state of existence leading him to destruction.

• 財団法人日本英文学会の論文
• 1970-08-10

著者

• 石田 久

  大阪大

関連論文

• 3. The Tragedy of Hoffman試論(研究発表第一室,日本英文学会第45回大会報告,雑録)
• DOCTOR FAUSTUSにおけるSUPERNATURAL CHARACTERS
• 1. Bussy D' Ambois : ひとつの見解をもとめて(第二室,日本英文学会第36回大会報告)

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