The Chorus speaks before Acts I, III, and IV and delivers the
Epilogue at the end. The Prologue to Act
I gives the exposition of the narrative material needed by the audience to
understand the subsequent action. In the
Prologue, the chorus narrates Faustus’s biography, compares him to Icarus, and
foreshadows Faustus’s death. The Prologue,
then, really gives the summary of the entire play, and as we watch the play we
anxiously anticipate the fulfilment of what the Prologue has announced.
The Prologue to Act III narrates the fabulous journey of
Faustus and gives us narrative material which Marlowe could not present
dramatically. Here the Chorus is a
conventional shorthand device which enables the dramatist to narrate rather
than show by dramatic action. The
Prologue to Act III tells us what Faustus has done before he came to Rome in
Act III. The Prologue to Act IV does
much the same thing because it introduces us to Faustus at the time of his
return to Germany and the Court of the Emperor.
As Epilogue the Chorus provides the conventional moral comment on the
action of the play.