SOURCE: "The Censor," and "The Spirits," in his Faustus and the Censor: The English Faust-book and Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus," Basil Blackwell, 1987, pp. 81-97 and 98-120.

In the following excerpt, Empson discusses the demands censors placed on the English translations of the German text and the metaphysical nature of Mephostopheles as well as other spirits.

Gi; the Censore =~ Sthe Censore

There are two topics on which the translation fudges, so far as possible, every time they crop up. One of them has not much doctrinal interest, but had better be taken first; it allows of being carried out very firmly, and is particularly unlikely to be the work of P. F. When Faust demands a wife (GFB, chapter 10; EFB, chapter 9), the spirits punish him for his presumption, but Meph offers afterwards, with an appearance of secrecy, to bring him the 'likeness' of any woman he desires. The spirits were...