Christopher Marlowe

Boredom, ambition and the usual man’s willingness to overcome his limits push famous scientist Faustus to reject traditional disciplines and even God in favour of necromancy.
 Seduced by dreams of glory and omnipotence, Faustus gives in to Mephistopheles’s temptations and signs a contract with no less than Satan himself: 24 years of knowledge in exchange for his soul.
 Distracted by devilish performances, travels around the world, beautiful past queens and pleasurable tricks, will Faustus succeed in saving himself?
 An old but modern story on Man’s thirst for power and knowledge topped with five rich extensions to contextualize the work and its author. 
 
 Teacher's Resources available online: Answer Key - Audioscripts - Summing-up Activities
 
 La noia, l’ambizione e la solita volontà dell’uomo di sfidare Dio spingono il famoso scienziato Faustus a firmare un contratto addirittura con Satana stesso: 24 anni di conoscenza in cambio della sua anima.
 Distratto da quadretti demoniaci, bellissime regine del passato e piacevoli scherzi, riuscirà Faustus a salvarsi?
 Una storia antica ma moderna sulla sete dell’uomo per il potere e la conoscenza, arricchita da approfondimenti utili a contestualizzare i vari personaggi e l’autore.

Characters

Chapter 1 – The thirst for knowledge

Extension: Progress, science and technology in the Renaissance

Chapter 2 – The pact with the devil

Extension: The real Dr Faustus

Chapter 3 – In Rome with Pope Adrian

Extension: Angels and demons

Chapter 4 – In Germany at Charles V’s court

Extension: Major and minor characters in Doctor Faustus

Chapter 5 – The punishment

Extension: Faustus in music

Summing-up activities

Glossary

???? The word demon comes from Greek too, and means  divine power, fate , that s why, in the past, it didn t have a negative connotation, but indicated good nature spirits, similar to ghosts, representing the good forces of nature which gave people energy and talent. The term devil refers specifically to Satan, meaning  enemy, adversary . Satan was created by God as a wonderful and powerful angel called Lucifer, whose name means  Light Bearer5  or  Morning Star . Then, since Lucifer got extremely greedy6 and proud and wanted to become like God, he rebelled against him, and there was a big battle in Heaven sometime between the creation of the Earth and the tempting of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In his rebellion against God, Lucifer wasn t alone: the Scriptures say that a third of the angels followed him. These rebellious angels are now known as demons, and, among them, are Belzebub and Mephistopheles. Like all other demons, they now serve Satan and, like him, are evil7 and hate God and all people.They enjoy and want to cause pain, misery and suffering. They are very powerful and strong and are not to be messed around with8. In order to tempt and seduce people into sin, they can make themselves look very attractive and claim to have more knowledge than they really have. In conclusion, angels and demons can be considered symbols of the eternal fight between  good  and  evil , where  good  is usually associated with life, charity, stability, happiness, love and justice, and  evil  is associated with conscious and deliberate bad behaviour, discrimination intended to hurt others, humiliation of people, destructiveness, and acts of violence. 5. bearer: carrier, transporter. 6. greedy: wanting more money, food, or power than you really need. 7. evil: bad, immoral. 8. be messed around with: be played with. 54 

4 In Germany at Charles V s court BEFORE READING Chapter 1 Answer the questions. 1. Have you ever been punished by your parents or teachers for behaving badly? 2. What was your  crime  and what was the punishment? 3. If you had Dr Faustus s unlimited powers, what punishment would you impose on someone who made you suffer? 2 Which kingdom do these words refer to? Faustus   Alexander the Great   sword   wine   forest   horse   Frederick   Benvolio   Darius the King of Persia   trees   grapes   water   flowers   wood   stags   thorns   Duke of Anholt   dollars Living Non-living De ad 3 There are 9 irregular past tenses hidden in the box and used in Chapter 4. Find them and remember they may read across, backwards, down, and up. S A W T H L H I D E U E R A N M R K T F E L T O A Z T U P R D E D A M B 55 

Faustus, celebre scienziato, cede alla tentazione di conoscere e potere, firmando un patto con il diavolo. Ma riuscirà a salvare la sua anima?

Doctor Faustus

Level B1 • Pre-Intermediate - Collana RAINBOWS

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