The forme of Faustus fortunes

About this book

The book presents a topomorphical analysis of the B-text of Christopher Marlowe's Tragedy of Dr. Faustus, the first extant editions of which survive in copies printed in 1604 and 1616. The analysis reveals that the B-text (1616) has a dispositio,ie a balanced structure, consisting of 20 scenes and 4 choruses, and a double time frame both matching the 24 years of Faustus's compact with the devil. Also, the book identifies and analyzes Marlowe's highly controlled style of speech composition, a feature that is much in evidence in the play's central sequnces of disputed authorship. The A-text (1604) does not reproduce this feature in the materials the two versions share in common, making it the later version of the two.