The study is an examination of the quest motif as it occurs in the Tarot and two dramatic works, King Lear and Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. The development of the quester is traced from his naivete, through a series of trials, to the consummation of his quest.The hero's quest is essentially to achieve an integration of polar opposites: light and dark, good and evil, the conscious and unconscious. Both the Fool of the Tarot and Lear seem to achieve that harmony, and, thus, I treat the Tarot and King Lear in separate sections of the first chapter. I begin with the Tarot also because of its enormous suggestiveness for elucidating the quests of Lear and Faustus. The archetypal nature of the quest is ultimately what unites the three works, and the Tarot provides a repository for the symbols and primordial images that inform quest literature.The second chapter deals with Dr. Faustus. Unlike the Fool and Lear, Faustus never seems to attain the hero's vision of light and harmony (however, the conclusion is ambiguous); indeed, he inverts the quest to its diabolical opposite and becomes the trickster in league with the demonic forces that form the negative corollary to the hero. Faustus' quest is the coexisting opposite of Lear's and the Fool's, and, as such, is the other pole that must be seen to experience the whole.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/181055 |
| Date | January 1975 |
| Creators | Welch, Patrick J. |
| Contributors | Hozeski, Bruce W. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | v, 90 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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