AS/A-Level English Literature: Doctor Faustus Student Text Guide

Excellent set of notes...it does precisely what it says on the label...This volume opens with some 40 pages of background notes on Marlowe, Canterbury, his life and works, the basics of the Elizabethan theatre, a quick introduction to the Renaissance, magic, the Faust legend, and a critical history of the play's staging. All this is clearly laid out, concise, informative...The book now moves on to 13 pages of scene summaries - a useful set of notes to remind you of the overall structure and dynamic of thework, something you can and will refer to if you're studying the play in anydepth. Further pages explore the various characters, themes, imagery, andspecific aspects of the play, concluding with a glossary of literary terms and concepts... the book concludes with a couple of specimen essay questions... The real substance of these notes may well lie in the 60 or so pages which explore the structure and body of the play. There's certainly enough here, when taken in conjunction with you reading the text at least twice, to stimulate your knowledge and understanding of the work ...This book certainly helped me get to grips with the play.

I'm teaching Dr Faustus as a paired text with King Lear for the Edxecel English Literature AS course, and this book has been superb. I've used it to inform my own planning, and also advised my students to get a copy for revision. The most useful thing is that unlike some study guides, which often offer only general notes on texts, all of the information in this book is tailored to modern A-level specifications. As such, this book includes sections on areas such as audience responses over time, detailed language analysis and key passages from useful critics' responses (any English teacher knows how time-consuming it can be to find decent critical material for use in class). It's so good that I've just bought the Tess of the D'Urbervilles guide. 2/10/10