Upon the publication of Goethe’s epic drama, the Faustian legend had reached an almost unapproachable zenith. Although many failed to appreciate, or indeed, to understand this magnum opus in its entirety, from this point onward...

What shall a man gain if he has the whole world and lose his soul,” (Matt. 16: v. 26) – but for a notorious name, the ethereal shadow of a career, and a brief life...

In fine, a life of good or evil, the hope of Heaven or the despair of Hell, Faustus stands as a reminder that the choice between these two absolutes also falls to us.

… Faustus … dared to confirm he had advanced beyond the level of a scarlet sinner — he was a conscious follower of the Prince of Darkness. The fact he could publicly project an Antichrist...

(Marlowe’s) Faustus stubbornly reverts to his atheistic beliefs and continues his elementary pagan re-education ~ the inferno to him is a ‘place’ invented by men.

Thus, Marlowe posed the silent question: could aspiring Icarus be happy with a toilsome life on land managing a plough with plodding oxen having once tasted the weightless bliss of flight?