Scholarly Addiction:Doctor Faustusand the Drama of Devotion

Abstract

AbstractWhenThe English Faust Bookdescribes Faustus as addicted to study and Marlowe’sDoctor Faustusdepicts necromantic books as “ravishing,” these texts draw on classical and Renaissance notions of laudable addiction. Following its Latin origin in contract law,addictionappears in sixteenth-century writings as service, dedication, and devotion. Tracing invocations of addiction from Cicero to Perkins, this essay explores the influence of Calvin and Calvinist-minded Cambridge divines throughDoctor Faustus’spreoccupation with the challenge of addicted commitment. If Calvinists praise committed devotion, Marlowe challenges such views by staging the terror as well as the wonder of addictive release.