“Dr.Faustus” , written by Christopher Marlowe shows the spirit of Renaissance. It encapsulates the power for the search of knowledge and quest for external knowledge. Marlowe has shown the humanistic values of man in the society along with the morality guided by the spirit of Reformation. The play tries to establish Faustus as a man of Renaissance who is in a quest for knowledge to dominate the world. The themes of the play includes humanism, spirit of inquiry , necromancy , moral conflict and biblical allusions, dominion.
The element of imitation is one of the important elements of Renaissance Period. The poets were imitating the classical models and Marlowe was heavily influenced by Greek and Senecan models. The plays opens with a chorus which is written based on a typical Greek tragedy where the chorus highlights the events that seems to occur in the future. The chorus is important in Greek tragedies as it evokes horror and the upcoming sequences of events and Marlowe also depicted the sequence of events that were about to follow as the play progresses. He depicts Faustus as a man from Germany who is dissatisfied with the worldly knowledge of logic,reason , science and others and wants to acquire more powerful knowledge.
The play depicts the spirit of inquiry which is the prominent essence of Renaissance Period. Faustus was a man of wisdom but lacks practical acumen. He was a man in search for knowledge who rejected the worldly knowledge and tries to understand the realm of necromancy to acquire a dark power. He pursued necromancy and black arts to quest for the power of dominion. The element of dominion is seen when Faustus bow down to the devil and a servant “Mephastophilis” of Lucifer as he summoned him. It is firstly a symbolical reference to dominion of the dark power over mankind. Faustus made a deal with the devil for twenty- four years of service to serve him and he will sell his soul to Lucifer while inscribing it in his blood. The element of dominion is also seen when Wagner summons the devil to scare the clowns to serve Wagner and it reflects that these knowledge of necromancy has a potential to dominate over the world. Marlowe showcased the journey of Faustus to the origin of Renaissance ideals of Europe including Germany, Italy and France and Rome. The journey to these places significantly throws more meanings into the origin of spirit of inquiry.
The element of humanism is one of the important elements of Renaissance Period. Humanism explored the interests in the inward problems of human personality and consequently believed that man is responsible for their own actions. Humanism focuses on the centring of man and believes that man is responsible for their own actions. Faustus inward personality is explored as a person of skeptic as he doubts the existence of “hell” and considers it as a myth. He eventually becomes prideful as he is able to master dark arts and summons the spirits of “Aexander the Great” , “Helena” and others. His own pride eventually lead to his own downfall as the knowledge which he attains not only has the potential to dominate over mankind but also the moral conscience. Hence, one can observe the humanistic values in the play where Faustus is responsible for his own actions and for his excessive pride of achieving such power.
The element of Reformation also played a significant role in the play. Reformation in England sought for morality in every discipline and manners of life. Marlowe depicts the moral conflict in the play where Faustus is agitated by the good and evil angel. The good angel tries to persuade him not to sell his soul and repent for his sins yet Faustus believes that his actions are worth it. It can also be found that the moral conflict comes from external forces including other characters who dissuades Faustus to repent for his sins after they saw his ability to summons spirits. It made him to work on his moral conscience for the repentance but the devil seems to hold a dominion over his mind and later it was late for him to repent for his sins. The Reformation had shrouded the morality that one should not open the “forbidden” knowledge and it is never too late for repentance but Faustus delayed till his time was over and it resulted to his own death through his own actions.
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