The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
E559827
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is Christopher Marlowe’s renowned Elizabethan tragedy about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power.
All labels observed (6)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Doctor Faustus | 4 |
| The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus | 2 |
| Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus | 1 |
| Doctor Faustus (play) | 1 |
| Faustus | 1 |
| The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5927380 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus Context triple: [Christopher Marlowe, notableWork, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus]
-
A.
Doctor Faustus
Doctor Faustus is a 1947 novel by Thomas Mann that reimagines the Faust legend through the life of a German composer whose pact with the devil allegorically reflects the rise of Nazism and the moral collapse of Germany.
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B.
Doctor Faustus (opera)
Doctor Faustus (opera) is a 20th-century operatic adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s tragic play about the scholar who sells his soul to the devil.
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C.
The Spanish Tragedy
The Spanish Tragedy is a seminal late 16th-century revenge tragedy by Thomas Kyd that profoundly influenced Elizabethan drama and paved the way for plays like Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
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D.
Historia von D. Johann Fausten
"Historia von D. Johann Fausten" is a 16th-century German chapbook that presents one of the earliest and most influential printed versions of the Faust legend, depicting the life and damnation of the scholar who makes a pact with the devil.
-
E.
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi is a dark Jacobean tragedy by John Webster that explores corruption, power, and female agency within an Italian court.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus Target entity description: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is Christopher Marlowe’s renowned Elizabethan tragedy about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power.
-
A.
Doctor Faustus
Doctor Faustus is a 1947 novel by Thomas Mann that reimagines the Faust legend through the life of a German composer whose pact with the devil allegorically reflects the rise of Nazism and the moral collapse of Germany.
-
B.
Doctor Faustus (opera)
Doctor Faustus (opera) is a 20th-century operatic adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s tragic play about the scholar who sells his soul to the devil.
-
C.
The Spanish Tragedy
The Spanish Tragedy is a seminal late 16th-century revenge tragedy by Thomas Kyd that profoundly influenced Elizabethan drama and paved the way for plays like Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
-
D.
Historia von D. Johann Fausten
"Historia von D. Johann Fausten" is a 16th-century German chapbook that presents one of the earliest and most influential printed versions of the Faust legend, depicting the life and damnation of the scholar who makes a pact with the devil.
-
E.
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi is a dark Jacobean tragedy by John Webster that explores corruption, power, and female agency within an Italian court.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Elizabethan drama
ⓘ
play ⓘ tragedy ⓘ |
| antagonist |
Lucifer
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Mephistopheles NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| author | Christopher Marlowe NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
Faustian bargain
ⓘ
Renaissance humanism ⓘ damnation ⓘ pride ⓘ sin and repentance ⓘ the limits of human knowledge ⓘ |
| characterRole |
Doctor Faustus is a scholar who makes a pact with the devil
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Mephistopheles is a demon who serves Faustus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | England ⓘ |
| dramaticDevice |
chorus
ⓘ
comic scenes ⓘ soliloquies ⓘ |
| form | verse drama ⓘ |
| genre |
morality play
ⓘ
tragedy ⓘ |
| hasAdaptation |
film adaptations
ⓘ
opera adaptations ⓘ various stage adaptations ⓘ |
| influencedBy | medieval morality plays ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | Elizabethan era NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| literarySignificance |
major work of the English Renaissance theatre
ⓘ
one of Christopher Marlowe’s most famous plays ⓘ |
| mainCharacter |
Doctor Faustus
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Evil Angel NERFINISHED ⓘ Good Angel NERFINISHED ⓘ Lucifer NERFINISHED ⓘ Mephistopheles NERFINISHED ⓘ Old Man NERFINISHED ⓘ Wagner NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| moralLesson | seeking power at the cost of one’s soul leads to eternal damnation ⓘ |
| notableFeature |
depiction of demons and hell
ⓘ
use of blank verse ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | Early Modern English ⓘ |
| plotSummary | A scholar sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power and is ultimately damned. ⓘ |
| protagonist | Doctor Faustus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| religiousContext |
Christian theology
ⓘ
Protestant Reformation NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| setting |
Wittenberg
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
various locations in Europe ⓘ |
| sourceMaterial | German Faustbuch tradition ⓘ |
| structure | five acts ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus Description of subject: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is Christopher Marlowe’s renowned Elizabethan tragedy about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power.
Referenced by (10)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Doctor Faustus
this entity surface form:
Doctor Faustus (play)
this entity surface form:
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus
this entity surface form:
Doctor Faustus
Doctor Faustus (radio and stage adaptations)
→
mainCharacter
→
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
ⓘ
this entity surface form:
Faustus
Doctor Faustus (radio and stage adaptations)
→
hasCharacterFrom
→
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
ⓘ
this entity surface form:
Doctor Faustus
this entity surface form:
Doctor Faustus
this entity surface form:
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus
this entity surface form:
Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus