The Spectacle of Helen in Euripides’ Helen and Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus

Abstract

Abstract This essay traces a line of thought through post-Homeric receptions of Helen, taking as its primary case studies Euripides’ Helen and Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Both plays feature Helen as a figure for articulating the phenomenological challenges that audiences face when viewing mimetic art on the stage. This essay argues that these profoundly metatheatrical plays use scenes of characters’ seeing the distinctive beauty of Helen to compare the power of theatrical spectacle to witnessing the supernatural.