Reviews

I had to read this play for university. It isn’t the most engaging or interesting play I've read, but it definitely isn’t bad. I've very neutral feelings towards it. The only thing I really liked about it, is that it is filled with historical, biblical and mythological references, which were fun to recognise.

madzie's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

tacanderson's review against another edition

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Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

First off, Christopher Marlowe was a badass. The background provided in the beginning of the book was fascinating. The footnotes in the play were very helpful and the actual book of Faustus, the source material for the play at the end was interesting.

your_beauty_effulgent's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

windhover's review against another edition

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3.0

This was a much easier read than I expected. In my edition, it's only 150 pages and that's counting the notes on each left-hand page. The story is quite straight-forward.

Spoiler

Doctor Faustus makes a deal with the Mephistophilis, runs around doing magic for three acts and then gets dragged to hell.

The archaic language (and bits of Latin) can be difficult but, in my edition, all the difficult stuff is glossed.

I'm not sure why this is classic. Not that I didn't enjoy it. I did enjoy it, but mostly nothing jumped out and said, "I'm so special people will be reading this book in four centuries just to find me." Some of the speeches were pretty great. Also, there are a lot of special effects that would probably be more exciting to see than to read about (e.g., Enter LUCIFER and four DEVILS [above]). I might give it another try someday to see if it comes off stronger a second time through. It was short and pleasant enough for a second read.

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