ABSTRACT
The author assigns the Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus after a selection of sonnets by Petrarch, Wyatt, and Shakespeare. She examines the ways in which the notion of the blazon is dramatized in Doctor Faustus. The magic of hell consists of the same kind of performance the early modern theater offers its audiences, and the key to enjoying such performance safely is the firm knowledge that it is nothing more than a short-lived illusion. The dramatization of the blazon in Doctor Faustus serves the purpose of teaching audiences what happens when one is unable to understand how theater works. On stage, any dramatization of dismemberment cannot succeed without the prop, and so a definition is in order. A prop is any 'moveable physical object of the stage theatrical furniture, costumes, and hand properties'. The blazoning of Faustus, because it happens on stage, doesn't just consist of dismemberment: it consists of literal objectification into items the early modern audience recognizes as props.
