Comedy In Doctor Faustus.

Last English Lit lesson we looked at comedy and the idea of comedy in the play Doctor Faustus. We started off talking about comedy and what we thought it meant and was. Obviously everyone knows what comedy is, but it ended up being pretty hard to explain, I ended defining it as a "form of entertainment which makes you laugh or amuses you, a.k.a, HANNAH' Well, she is a VERY funny gal! We then talked about other things about comedy , such as what makes it comedy, so kind of a relief of tension, breaking of taboo's etc. 

After this we looked at the idea of Renaissance Comedy, and we wrote that comedy as a genre, during the Renaissance times, was more about mistaken identities, love and marriage. Then there was comedy in a tragedy, which was more about 'lower' status characters outwitting their 'higher' status characters, and was more like wordplay and slapstick. This in turn lead us on to the point of our lesson, comedy in Faustus. 

We looked at the final scene of Act 1, so Act 1 Scene 4, and discussed its comedic values and the point or worth of it being included in the play as a whole, as well as where it is in the play. This scene is in between to quite vital scenes, the one where Faustus meets Mephistopheles and before he sells his soul. DUN DUN DUN! Anyway, in the scene, the character Wagner is trying to convince the character, who we have just been introduced too, Robin, to be his slave basically. The situation between Wagner and Robin is meant to mirror that of Mephy and Faustus. However, although it seems to mirror the scene before, this scene is meant to be funny and well full of comedy. It was so funny, like really really funny...

After reading the scene we started quickly discussing reasons and possibilities as to why the scene as included and why it was placed in between two very serious and important scenes. I feel the main reason, and I sort of mentioned it earlier, for why the scene was included was because it mirrored or was parallel to the events between Mephy and Faustus and I feel Marlowe wanted to ridicule and mock Faustus. Marlowe does this successfully because he creates a contrast and comparison between the lowly "boy" that is Robin and the great Doctor Faustus. He does this by making Robin rejects Wagners offer of becoming his servant boy and so causes Fautus to appear foolish and well stupid. This would be comical to a Renaissance audience because, when we looked at their style and the criteria for their comedy, it mentioned lowly status outwitting higher status. So, although Robin didn't outwit Faustus personally, he technically outwitted Faustus with his overall decision,and so placed the lowly person as being more clever (?) than Faustus, who felt he was better than "divinity...medicine...law and theology."

Other slightly weaker interpretations as to why the scene was included are:

• It was used to relieve tension from the audience, as the two scenes surrounding this scene touch on what would have been a pretty heavy subject for them, e.g. the corruption of religion and association with the devil. 
• Its connected to relieving the tension, as I felt he wanted to lift the atmosphere because he included the scene as he was trying to break, what would have been considered during his times, as a taboo subject (Not entirely sure) 
• Faustus was trying to ridicule norms, so in this context I feel Marlowe was trying to ridicule the fear the audience feels towards certain parts of religion etc. (Not entirely sure myself again)

As you can probably tell I'm not really entirely sure or certain as to why this scene was included and why it was included where it was, but if I become more certain or we go over it more in class them I will blog about it. 

Done.