The Curious Thing About Dr Faustus

             

Faustus begins to waver in his conviction to sell his soul. The good angel tells him to abandon his plan and “think of heaven, and heavenly things,” but he dismisses the good angel’s words, saying that God does not love him (5.20). 

The good and evil angels make another appearance, with the good one again urging Faustus to think of heaven, but the evil angel convinces him that the wealth he can gain through his deal with the devil is worth the cost.

 Faustus then calls back Mephastophilis, who tells him that Lucifer has accepted his offer of his soul in exchange for twenty-four years of service. 

Faustus asks Mephastophilis why Lucifer wants his soul, and Mephastophilis tells him that Lucifer seeks to enlarge his kingdom and make humans suffer even as he suffers.

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/doctorfaustus/section4/ 

[above taken from linked site -for a full 'Precis' of the C. Marlowe Play- ]

It is interesting to see that Marlowe introduces a 'TRIAD' of 'Demons' when Faustus 'summons' Them up from some place unbeknown even to Satan, who when asked for the location of 'Hell' apparently says 'its nowhere and everywhere'

Instead a curious occurrence an almost accidental 'Counter' to the 'Demons' is revealed to be 'Bell, Book and Candle' [another TRIAD]

Magic and the Supernatural

The supernatural pervades Doctor Faustus, appearing everywhere in the story. 

Angels and devils flit about, magic spells are cast, dragons pull chariots (albeit offstage), and even fools like the two ostlers, Robin and Rafe, can learn enough magic to summon demons. 

Still, it is worth noting that nothing terribly significant is accomplished through magic.

 Faustus plays tricks on people, conjures up grapes, and explores the cosmos on a dragon, but he does not fundamentally reshape the world.

 The magic power that Mephastophilis grants him is more like a toy than an awesome, earth-shaking ability. 

Furthermore, the real drama of the play, despite all the supernatural frills and pyrotechnics, takes place within Faustus’s vacillating mind and soul, as he first sells his soul to Lucifer and then considers repenting.

 In this sense, the magic is almost incidental to the real story of Faustus’s struggle with himself, which Marlowe intended not as a fantastical battle but rather as a realistic portrait of a human being with a will divided between good and evil.

The 'Mephisto' Character comes across as a rather reticent 'Devil' who can provide all manner of ethereal things but lacks the ability to provide anything of real substance- the example of a 'Demon' in the 'Form' of a Woman given to Faustus being particularly relevant

 [if You read all the notes in that linked site above You will see what I mean about everything being 'illusory']

As to why Faustus chose 'Magic' as His 'Major' only Marlowe can answer but it seems that two things may be in operation here- the first being 'inferior' feeling function on the part of the Author who seeks to 'bedazzle' His Readers with 'Arcane Knowledge' - the second being the realisation that His own Vanity is now 'projected ' onto His Characters...for Me the appearance of the Name 'Robin' is very significant but I digress.

Another interesting Author of the 17th Century was a Guy named Thomas Dekker.

Dekker embarked on a career as a theatre writer in the middle 1590s. His handwriting is found in the manuscript of Sir Thomas More, though the date of his involvement is undetermined. More certain is his work as a playwright for the Admiral's Men of Philip Henslowe, in whose account book he is first mentioned in early 1598. While there are plays connected with his name performed as early as 1594, it is not clear that he was the original author; his work often involved revision and updating. Between 1598 and 1602, he was involved in about forty plays for Henslowe, usually in collaboration. To these years belong the collaborations with Ben Jonson and John Marston, which presumably contributed to the War of the Theatres in 1600 and 1601. But Dekker is credited as the sole author of The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599), his acknowledged masterpiece – a boisterous, rowdy comedy of London life as seen through the eyes of a romanticist. Francis Meres includes Dekker in his list of notable playwrights in 1598.

For Jonson, however, Dekker was a bumbling hack, a "dresser of plays about town"; Jonson lampooned Dekker as Demetrius Fannius in Poetaster and as Anaides in Cynthia's Revels. Dekker's riposte, Satiromastix, performed both by the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the child actors of Paul's, casts Jonson as an affected, hypocritical Horace.

Satiromastix marks the end of the "poetomachia"; in 1603, Jonson and Dekker collaborated again, on a pageant for the Royal Entry, delayed from the coronation of James I, for which Dekker also wrote the festival book The Magnificent Entertainment.^[1] After this commission, however, the early Jacobean period was notably mixed for the author.

 In late 1602, he appears to have broken his association with Henslowe, for unknown reasons. He wrote for Worcester's Men for a time, then returned to the Admiral's Men (now patronized by Prince Henry) to produce The Honest Whore, an apparent success.

 But the failures of The Whore of Babylon (1607) and If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil is in It (1611) left him crestfallen; the latter play was rejected by Prince Henry's Men before failing for Queen Anne's Men at the Red Bull Theatre.

[Wikipedia]

Most of Dekker's work is lost. His apparently disordered life, and his lack of a firm connection (such as Shakespeare or Fletcher had) with a single company, may have militated against the preservation or publication of manuscripts. 

Dekker's poetry entered into modern popular song (although almost unnoticeably) when some of the lyrics of the poem "Golden Slumbers", from Dekker's play Patient Grissel,

 were included by Paul McCartney in the Beatles' 1969 song "Golden Slumbers".