Rewriting Idolatry: Doctor Faustus and Romeo and Juliet

Authors

Tom Rutter

Abstract

This essay notes the similarity in diction and staging between the kisses of Faustus and Helen of Troy in the penultimate scene of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, and of Romeo and Juliet during their first encounter in Shakespeare’s play. It suggests that Shakespeare both sanitizes an episode originally associated with sin and damnation, and retains an element of spiritual danger that casts a shadow over his play’s love story. It also argues that the scene from Romeo and Juliet is not an isolated moment of imitation but instead typical of a broader tendency in Shakespeare’s play to rewrite as erotic key moments that in Doctor Faustus are associated with religious terror or transgression. Finally, it speculates that the reason Shakespeare found in Marlowe’s tragic morality play materials suitable for rewriting in a tragedy of doomed love is because of the plays’ mutual concern with the theme of idolatry, and the related question of value. However, where Marlowe shows his protagonist to be guilty of a series of idolatrous, and disastrous, misvaluations, Shakespeare appropriates Marlowe’s terms in profoundly ambivalent fashion, distancing his lovers from the concept of idolatry while simultaneously exploiting its heretical force.

Recommended Citation

Rutter, Tom (2024) "Rewriting Idolatry: Doctor Faustus and Romeo and Juliet," Comparative Drama: Vol. 58: Iss. 3, Article 4.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol58/iss3/4