The ceremonial magician of Tudor-Stuart drama: a product and reflection of contemporary belief.

Abstract

The period 1588 to 1611 produced many so-called magic plays. Of these, however, five may be called true ceremonial magic plays: Marlowe's Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, Robert Greene's Honorable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Anthony Munday's John a Kent and John ,a Cumber, the anonymous John of Bordeaux, and Shakespeare's Tempest. In these five, magic is a key structural element, the magicians represent real entities, their magic belongs to one of two contemporary systems of magic, and the consequences of their actions reflect contemporary moral beliefs. Used in medieval drama as abstract personifications of evil and good, spirits became, in Renaissance drama, less abstract and more capable of intervention. Furthermore, Italian commedia dell' arte contributed the figure of the magician to secular drama and may have influenced the behavior of the English magician. Thus, the English audience was familiar with both spirits and magicians In English secular drama prior to Doctor Faustus. A second element which influenced the use of the magician as character was the fervent belief of the Elizabethan Englishman in magic, a belief based on tradition and strengthened both by those medieval Catholic beliefs and practices which led the common people to equate the Church with magic and by reaction against those Reformation doctrines which deprived man of control over his environment and his physical and moral salvation. During the Renaissance, interest in magic increased, and two discernable systems of ceremonial magic belief, theurgy and goety, emerged from Renaissance Neoplatonism. Although the members of the Elizabethan audience had varying degrees of knowledge concerning these systems, their general tenets were widely known, and they were closely connected to contemporary moral beliefs about magic. The orthodox View In Protestant England was that any magic was immoral. For the majority of the less orthodox, the line between goety, a system in which the magician had contact with devils, and witchcraft was ill defined. Thus, any magician who had contact with devils was merely a witch. In contrast, those magicians who practiced theurgy, a system in which the magician had contact with median spirits, avoided the practice of witchcraft. Both the systems of magic and the views of their morality are reflected in the ceremonial magic plays. Both Marlowe's Faustus and Greene's Friar Bacon practice goety and suffer adverse effects from doing so. Ultimately, they renounce that practice. That Marlowe's Faustus is as incompetent and ill-prepared a magician as he is a scholar strongly suggests that it is the practitioner rather than the system of magic which is at fault. His fate thus reflects not the view that all magic is immoral, or even that association with devils can have no other end, but that the practice of magic is serious and should be considered so by the practitioner. In any case, his fate also satisfies both the orthodox belief and the belief that goety is, at base, witchcraft and sacrilege. Greene's Bacon is a competent goetist who suffers the inevitable consequences of sacrilegious association with devils. The goetist Friar Bacon of John of Bordeaux neither suffers such ill effects nor renounces his art. However, this magician's constant identification with Christianity and his protection of Christian values both negate the usual association of goetist with witch and emphasize the prevalence of that identification. The favorable view of theurgy is reflected in John a Kent and The Tempest. John a Kent, in legend a consorter with devils, works only through a median spirit; it is his opponent, John a Cumber, who has contact with devils. Kent uses his powers for moral purposes and has no need to renounce his practice of magic. Prospero, the only pure theurgist of the five magicians, works through an aerial spirit and ceases his practice of magic not because that magic is inherently immoral or sacrilegious but because it has caused him to neglect his proper role as a temporal ruler. Because the ceremonial magic plays reflect Elizabethan culture, an understanding of the beliefs of the period about magic and about its moral implications makes possible a more informed reading of the plays.