Point de substance – L’ombre d’Hélène dans Le Docteur Faust et autres œuvres contemporaines

Christopher Marlowe in this play, unlike other contemporary texts, seeks to lend prestige to the antique but very ambiguous figure of heavenly Helen, that still haunts the collective imagination of Elizabethan society. This essay aims to examine how Dr Faustus combines the urge for conquest with the keen desire to ravish Helen of Troy, whose unrivalled beauty caused the destruction of the city. The seductive power of the demonic presence conjured by Faustus’s magic powers is overwhelming.