Doctor Faustus: Openings and endings
13 lenses on openings and endings for Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. Count lenses are exact for our text. AI lenses are our reading and cite only quotes that passed a word for word check.
Jump to: F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10 F11 F12 F13
F1. First line and first paragraph: what each does. Both
The first full paragraph runs to 9 words and 1 sentences.
Purgatory, come to beg a pardon of your Holiness. (Ch 1, para 1)
The first line is a curse spoken by the Pope's friars against Faustus. It establishes the play's tone of damnation and introduces magic as a force of transgression.
Scenes (numbered through the play): Scene 1
How! bell, book, and candle,--candle, book, and bell,-- Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell! (Ch 1, para 7)
F2. What the first page sets up: voice, world, question. AI
The first page sets a world where magic is real and dangerous, where Faustus has already made his pact, and where supernatural forces pursue him. The voice is dramatic and urgent.
Scenes (numbered through the play): Scene 1
How! bell, book, and candle,--candle, book, and bell,-- Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell! (Ch 1, para 7)
Monarch of Hell, under whose black survey Great potentates do kneel with awful fear (Ch 1, para 51)
F3. How many words before the lead appears? Count
First dialogue after 3,678 words. See the full lens on the book page.
F4. How many words before the first line of dialogue? Count
First dialogue after 3,678 words. See the full lens on the book page.
F5. The hook of chapter one. AI
The hook is Faustus's display of magical power against the Pope and his friars, showing the cost and thrill of his pact. The audience sees magic work and consequences follow.
Scenes (numbered through the play): Scene 1
How! bell, book, and candle,--candle, book, and bell,-- Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell! (Ch 1, para 7)
F6. Prologue: its job and its length. Both
No prologue: the book starts in its first chapter.
Not a feature of this book. The play has no prologue. It opens directly into action with the Pope's curse.
F7. How fast is the main story question posed? AI
The main story question is posed at once: Faustus has made a pact and his time is nearly expired. Will he repent or be damned? Section 1 establishes this urgency.
Scenes (numbered through the play): Scene 1
the restless course That time doth run with calm and silent foot, Shortening my days and thread of vital life (Ch 1, para 87)
What art thou, Faustus, but a man condemn'd to die? Thy fatal time doth draw to final end (Ch 1, para 102)
F8. Final chapter: which beats resolve what. AI
Section 2 resolves the central question: Faustus chooses Helen and damnation over repentance. The clock strikes midnight and devils claim him. His final monologue expresses terror and despair.
Scenes (numbered through the play): Scene 2
Accursed Faustus, where is mercy now? I do repent; and yet I do despair (Ch 2, para 26)
O lente, lente currite, noctis equi! The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike (Ch 2, para 66)
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough (Ch 2, para 70)
F9. Last line: what it leaves in the mind. Both
The last full paragraph runs to 11 words.
SCHOL. (Ch 5, para 7)
The last line of the play (quote 8) states that Faustus's branch is cut and his laurel burned, leaving the mind with finality of damnation and the waste of his potential.
Scenes (numbered through the play): Scene 2
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough (Ch 2, para 70)
F10. Loose ends tied and left open. AI
The play resolves its central arc: Faustus is damned. Minor threads like Robin's theft and the Horse-courser's trick are left open, serving as comic subplots without resolution.
Scenes (numbered through the play): Scene 1, Scene 2
F11. Epilogue: its job. Both
No chapter called an epilogue. The last chapter is 90 words.
Not a feature of this book. The play ends with Faustus's damnation. Sections 3 to 5 are editorial notes, not an epilogue.
F12. Echoes between the opening and the ending. AI
The opening curse and the closing damnation echo each other. Both invoke hell and finality. The play begins with Faustus cursed by the Pope and ends with him cursed by devils.
Scenes (numbered through the play): Scene 1, Scene 2
How! bell, book, and candle,--candle, book, and bell,-- Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell! (Ch 1, para 7)
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough (Ch 2, para 70)
F13. Length of the wind down after the climax. Count
After the climax (chapter 2, our reading) the book runs 6,386 more words, 51.2% of the whole.
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