Scene IV- comic scene

Though this scene may be described as comedic in terms of a play, it can hardly be called 'funny'. A few examples of wordplay and puns can't make a scene humourous. Most likely it is regarding as 'comedic' when compared to the serious tone of the rest of the play. Faustus is preparing to sell his soul to the Devil, whilst these two characters are being more jovial in tone- they use a ligther tone of speech, for instance when Wagner asks "hast thou any comings in?" the clown replies "Ay, and goings out too.". Visual humour is emloyed as well; the clown 'runs up and down crying' upon seeing a pair of devils, despite earlier talking about how he would show bravado when facing the devils.Though it may only be simple humour, the effect may be to loosen the audience, in other words to give them a light-hearted scene in the midst of the disturbing facts of Faustus selling his soul.
 
This scene, however, is so vastly different styilistically from the rest of the play, for example it uses prose (a 'lower-status' form of speech) rather than verse which is used in the rest of the text. Not suprisingly, there has been doubt cast over whether Marlowe actually wrote this scene at all. Perhaps it was written by a contributor some time after the main play who decided to add it to give a sense of comic relief, or maybe Marlowe did indeed write it and simply could not write comic scenes very well. Either way, it does little to add to the progression of the play, and the only real reason for it's inclusion appears to be as a break for the audience so they are not overwhelmed by too much gothic imagery.