Seeing sin more as human separateness from creation than as disobeying God may be a more powerful way to teach the concept to today’s students.
Tag Archives: Doctor Faustus
Sin = Separation from Creation
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Christopher Marlowe, Genesis, John Milton, Martin Heidegger, Paradise Lost, Redemption, Religion, Sin, Spirituality Comments closed
Death, Faustus, and a Search for Meaning
The Faustus story can aid one in an existential search for meaning.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Christopher Marlowe, death, Existential crisis, teaching Comments closed
Is Mitt Romney a Doctor Faustus?
If Mitt Romney sells his soul for the nomination, can he get it back? Christopher Marlowe would say that it doesn’t look good.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Christopher Marlowe, Jane Austen, Mitt Romney, politics, Presidential Primaries, Sense and Sensibility Comments closed
Classic Lit and Transformative Epiphanies
A student wrote, “By forcing myself to examine my ideas and Dr. Faustus more carefully and within the lens of my experience, I had several epiphanies that I feel were transformative both to my essay as well as to my understanding of my experience with depression.”
Faustus, Case Study of a Depressive
Today I share the story of a student making the case that Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus is a case study of a depressive.
Hell, an Inner Emptiness that Can’t Be Filled
“I think Hell is a fable,” Doctor Faustus tells Mephastophilis at one point in Marlowe’s 1593 tragedy. While many Elizabethans would have disagreed—the play terrified them precisely because they believed in a literal hell—we’re more sympathetic with the notion now. To most of us, fire and brimstone and devils with pitchforks are the stuff of […]
Soul-Selling for Dummies
How do I sell my soul? Let me count the ways. I wrote in Sunday’s entry how the ego and the soul are pitted against each other in an unending battle. Just think how much better off we’d all be if humans listened to their higher selves and ego took a back seat. […]
The Hell of Ego, the Heaven of Love
Spiritual Sunday A reader’s response to Friday’s post on the Faustus story has me thinking more about Marlowe’s marvelous play. Marlowe informs us that we don’t need to die to go to hell. If we refuse to listen to the voice of our soul, we can find hell right here on earth. If there were […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Christopoher Marlowe, King Lear, Religion, Soul, William Shakespeare Comments closed
