Morality vs Heroic Tragedy in Dr.Faustus

English literature owes a great debt to Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) for identifying a certain type of classical tragic hero in the works of Sophocles and making him intelligible in English cultural terms. Harry Levin called this type "the over-reacher" after rhetorician George Puttenham's attempt to find a close English synonym for the Greek word 'hyperbole' (in The Arte of English Poesie, 1589). Marlowe's characters have an exaggerated appetite for achievement, whether it's knowledge as power (Doctor Faustus), world conquest (Tamburlaine), or revenge and the acquisition of riches (Barabus). Marlowe's heroes were popular then, and remain fascinating now, as portraits of English imperial ambitions dressed in the appearances of a German scholar, an Asian warlord, and a wealthy Maltese Jew. Their exotic appearances and settings gave Marlowe an opportunity to dazzle us with some of the most elaborate and extended set speeches in English drama.

Continuum Press, 2010

Critical consensus identifies Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, probably written and performed around 1588, as the first great tragedy in the English language, a powerful drama that ushered in thirty years of unparalleled dramatic creativity on the English stage. For over 400 years, Marlowe's most often read and most frequently performed play has been surrounded by conjecture; indeed, few works of literature have evoked such violent critical controversy as Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. Almost every aspect of the play has been questioned: the text has been contested; the authorship has been challenged; the date has been disputed; and the meaning has been debated. This volume seeks to guide the teacher and student of Marlowe-and, of course, all successful teachers are also students-through the labyrinth of critical controversy associated with Marlowe's most popular play, and to aid all students of Marlowe in gaining a fuller appreciation of the originality and profundity of this work.

With a tragic story-arc that focuses on rationality and the breaching thereof, along with unique insight into character, Marlowe was a force that ushered in of a new instance of Renaissance tragedy. Douglas Cole describes the substantial effect Marlowe's work had on the shifting theatrical landscape as such, "In textbooks and anthologies of drama, [Doctor Faustus] stands conventionally as the most notable 'bridge-piece' between the theatrical modes of medieval drama and the more modern developments associated with the Renaissance stage" (Renaissance of Tragedy 121).

Nepal journal of multidisciplinary research, 2022

The aim of this present article is to analyze greed of the Renaissance man during the transitional phase between the medieval to the early Renaissance period in the development of human civilization. Christopher Marlow's Doctor Faustus was published in 1592, where a man sells his soul to Satan for power and knowledge. It is the theme of a Renaissance man that has the desire of acquiring unlimited knowledge, individualism, free play of mind, power and pleasure. The hero of the play is at the peak of his achievement and finishes with his collapse into misery, death and damnation. So, Doctor Faustus who pursues false knowledge is given the severest penalty in the form of mental disturbance and unrest through and till the end of his life. At last, he seems to repent and regret for his actions but it is too late. Mephistopheles gathers his soul and Faustus goes with him to hell.

2013

This paper is foregrounded in the premise that Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, one of the towering tragic protagonists in English Drama over the ages, is a singular character who embodies in his being the spirit of inquiry and revolt with the purpose to transcend the limits imposed on human life and endeavor by traditional religion and morality. Faustus is viewed as an embryonic protagonist for the post-Renaissance English tragedy as the potential of his character is subverted by the preclusion of sin and damnation as necessary contingent conditions for any effort to assert individual will over the established order.

I examine the way in which Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus can be seen as a conventional morality play.

A short lecture, given at the University of Liverpool, on Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus. Includes reflections on the Renaissance Man ideal, interpretation, the tragic form and the religious context of the play.

 Marlowe was born in the same year as the greatest dramatist, William Shakespeare; however, Marlowe made his mark on the English theatre scene before Shakespeare. When he died under suspicious circumstances, he was the most respected dramatist of his age.