Smart Is as Smart DoesFaustus is super-smart. So smart that he can best any one of his academic colleagues in debate, so smart that he becomes arrogant, "swoll'n with cunning, of a self-conceit" (P...

Partner in CrimeIn Act 1, Scene 3, as he contemplates making a deal with the devil, Faustus remarks, "Had I as many souls as there be stars, / I'd give them all for Mephistopheles" (1.3.100-101). I...

Have you ever seen those cartoons where a generally a-okay character is tempted to do something really bad? Suddenly, a little red dude holding a pitchfork appears on one shoulder, and a serene-loo...

When we first meet Pope Adrian in Act 3, Scene 1, he doesn't exactly make a great first impression. He's too busy commanding rival Saxon pope Bruno to get down on all fours so he can use him as a s...

Faustus's servant, Wagner, is more than just a servant. He's also a bit of a smart aleck who, like Faustus, enjoys the thought of having someone at his beck and call. Let's be honest: who wouldn't?...

Dick and Robin are the town troublemakers, the class clowns. They get up to lots of mischief when they ditch their duties as stable boys for some rather misguided attempts at practicing the dark ar...

After Faustus decides to study magic, these scholars get majorly worried. First they want to know his whereabouts. And when the find out that he has taken up with two famous magicians—Valdes and...

Like Greek plays such as Antigone or Oedipus Rex, Doctor Faustus makes use of an old-school group called a Chorus. They're a group of people (or perhaps a single person) who comments on the ac...