Faustus, who sees his time also coming to a close, becomes a kind of Hamlet-figure and doubts that he can be forgiven. Faustus' problem is more than a life of misdeeds -- it is a problem of lack of faith. The faith of Everyman may have been lukewarm, but it was not corrupt. The faith in the time of Everyman has been polluted by Lutheran and Calvinist doctrines.

Considering the form of the narrative, this is not surprising: Faustus is obsessed with fame and renown. Everyman has no name proper -- and neither does his author. That the author of the medieval morality play should be anonymous is nothing out of the ordinary, and indeed seems all the more fitting when one considers that the second most printed book after the Bible was The Imitation of Christ, a work whose author never put his name on the original (and which...
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