Repressed sexuality and Doctor Faustus
A personal speculation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21569648 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tufan De (0009-0005-5803-6334, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Pages | 1-8 |
| Publication date | 2025-02-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Forum of Psychoanalysis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0803-706X • E-ISSN: 1651-2324 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0803706x.2025.2456150 |
| OpenAlex | W4407948759 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
More often than not, Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe is regarded as an iconoclastic text which not only blurs the boundaries between morality and immorality, good and evil, salvation and damnation, by challenging the preconceived ecclesiastical and moral codes, but also foregrounds the undercurrents and conflicting mental forces operating in the disturbed psyche of its eponymous hero. Therefore, during the latter part of the twentieth century, re-examination of Doctor Faustus through a Freudian conceptual framework emerged as a convincing theoretical approach to understand the complexities inherent within the character of Faustus. The paper succinctly tracks the trajectory of this intellectual scholarship, which makes an attempt to interpret the narrative of the Marlovian Doctor Faustus through the lens of Freudian psychoanalysis. Side by side, the paper, by employing close reading as its tool, tries to establish a link between the sublimation of Faustus' repressed sexual desires and his penchant for the art of necromancy, and thus, offers an alternative psychoanalytic interpretation of Doctor Faustus. Furthermore, the paper intends to investigate the importance of Freudian defense mechanisms which Faustus applies time and again to resort to self-delusion and to dilute his claustrophobic situation
Economics · Human sexuality · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Speculation · Cinema and Media Studies · Gender Studies · Psychology · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism · Social Psychology · Theater, Performance, and Music History
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |