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- Title
Scholarly Addiction: Doctor Faustus and the Drama of Devotion.
- Authors
Lemon, Rebecca
- Abstract
When The English Faust Book describes Faustus as addicted to study and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus depicts necromantic books as "ravishing," these texts draw on classical and Renaissance notions of laudable addiction. Following its Latin origin in contract law, addiction appears in sixteenth-century writings as service, dedication, and devotion. Tracing invocations of addiction from Cicero to Perkins, this essay explores the influence of Calvin and Calvinist-minded Cambridge divines through Doctor Faustus's preoccupation with the challenge of addicted commitment. If Calvinists praise committed devotion, Marlowe challenges such views by staging the terror as well as the wonder of addictive release.
- Subjects
ADDICTIONS in literature; FAUST (Legendary character); DOCTOR Faustus (Play : Marlowe); ENGLISH Faust Book, The (Book); MARLOWE, Christopher, 1564-1593; CALVIN, Jean, 1509-1564; PERKINS, William, 1558-1602; MEDIEVAL &; Renaissance (Literary period)
- Publication
Renaissance Quarterly, 2016, Vol 69, Issue 3, p865
- ISSN
0034-4338
- Publication type
Essay
- DOI
10.1086/689036