Marlowe's Doctor Faustus: Tragedy, Renaissance, and Damnation

Marlowe in His Elizabethan Context

Christopher Marlowe's play The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus is a striking adaptation of the German narrative of Johann Faust, who traded his soul for knowledge and power. With its emphasis on intellectual pursuits, the play illustrates Marlowe's distinctive contribution to Elizabethan drama. While much of Marlowe's life remains a mystery, we do know that, unlike Shakespeare, Marlowe attended Corpus Christi College on a scholarship. During this time, he began writing plays. Roma Gill points out that Marlowe's writing began with translating Ovid and Lucan (Gill). She states:

"Marlowe's translations of these elegies are not uniformly successful; but they nevertheless form an impressive achievement. For the Latin elegiac couplet, Marlowe substituted the rhymed pentameter couplet — which John Donne later followed, imitating Marlowe with his own elegies." (Gill)

These translations illustrate an interest in traditional verse and, at the same time, demonstrate his ability to improvise upon it. When he was 26 years old, he wrote the play Tamburlaine, whose protagonist is the "vehicle for the expression of boundless energy and ambition, the impulse to strive constantly upward to absolute power" (Abrams 792). These same characteristics are reflected in Doctor Faustus. M.H. Abrams asserts that English theater had not seen characters like this before. After the success of Tamburlaine, Marlowe lived with fellow playwright Thomas Kyd, who informed the Privy Council in England that Marlowe was guilty of atheism and treason. In May of 1593, Marlowe was stabbed and killed in an argument at the Widow Bull Inn. His short life leaves us to wonder what might have been, especially when we consider the lasting popularity of Shakespeare.

During the few years he lived, Marlowe contributed much to English drama. He is considered a "University Wit" (Egendorf 18), along with John Lyly and Robert Greene, because his plays featured blank verse and "often examined the ways in which an outsider can usurp power through treachery" (18). Interestingly, despite these contributions to Elizabethan drama, Marlowe and the other University Wits did not fundamentally transform English theater. This is primarily because they despised popular theater and "sought to use their education to write more erudite drama" (Egendorf 18) that appealed to intellectuals. Egendorf explains that this goal was not achieved because popular culture at the time expected playwrights to conform to traditional dramatic techniques. As a result, Marlowe and his fellow Wits were forced to sacrifice their loftier ideals in order to survive. Nevertheless, Marlowe's plays remain unique in several important respects.

For instance, Marlowe is credited with advancing the art of dramatic structure in English drama and with perfecting dramatic poetry (Wilson 275). Many critics refer to Marlowe's "mighty line" (275), which demonstrates the power of dramatic verse he developed. An example appears in Faustus when Faustus encounters Helen of Troy:

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss (V.i.98–100)

This is a remarkable achievement on Marlowe's part, one that was later refined and built upon by Shakespeare.

Marlowe was alive during a time of discovery, and this is evident throughout The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Arnold Schmidt observes that aspects of Humanism, Individualism, and the New Science had a profound impact on Marlowe's plays (Schmidt). Renaissance Humanists preferred individual values to medieval social and religious attitudes. A significant aspect of humanism focused on personal happiness in the earthly realm, as opposed to viewing life solely in relation to happiness in the afterlife. This intellectual freedom helped revolutionize a period of new science, from which emerged figures such as Galileo and Copernicus. The social climate also offered individuals the opportunity to advance in society, so that ambition and strength came to characterize the "upwardly mobile Renaissance individual" (Schmidt). Schmidt notes:

Renaissance Humanism and the Tragic Hero

"Marlowe's heroes epitomize this character type, aspiring to a greatness that extends beyond their current status. This overzealous ambition often results in ruthless and irrational actions; they have the power to make their own choices, yet those choices lead to their downfall. In this sense, Marlowe's work serves to caution the viewer against this kind of behavior." (Schmidt)

If any character captures this sentiment, it is Faustus and his insatiable desire for knowledge and power.

D.J. Palmer claims that Marlowe and Kyd are chiefly responsible for developing the characteristics of the tragic hero in Elizabethan drama (Palmer 52). Judgment is conveyed through irony, and protagonists are distinguished from earlier heroes by a "greater measure of awareness which endows them with spiritual grandeur" (55). Additionally, these characters exist in a:

"Vaster, more spacious world than Elizabethan drama had previously known, for not only do they have it more to themselves but their passions convulse the whole universe, soaring beyond that limited sphere of action which circumscribes the lives of tyrants, revengers, and lovers." (Palmer 58)

Palmer observes that Marlovian drama is "more intellectual and metaphysical in its conception of human will and action: he brings to the stage a diversity of speculative interests, notably in theology, political theory, and astronomy" (58). Furthermore, Marlowe's learning is "vital to the presentation of the character and tragic conflict" (58) of the play. When we examine Faustus's motivations, we realize that they do not stem from any particular external situation or from an interaction between character and circumstance. Instead, his passion is "self-generated" (59). Death is the final victory in Marlovian tragedies, leaving the audience to reckon with human mortality with a "peculiar intensity" (59).

The story of Faustus has been adapted many times over the centuries. Mack Maynard claims that Marlowe's depiction of the man "exemplifies the intellectual aspirations of the Renaissance" (Maynard 1829), yet Faustus is haunted by a sense of "vanity and sinfulness" (1829). The popular tendency is to associate Faustus with witchcraft and its punishment, but Marlowe's tragedy encompasses "larger and deeper implications" (1829) — implications rooted in the Renaissance itself.

Maynard demonstrates how Marlowe presents two distinct phases of Faustus. The first depicts a man who becomes dissatisfied with his accumulated knowledge; the second depicts a man who "embraces magic and the devil's art" (1829). This second image is significant because it appeals to Renaissance values in which attitudes of discovery are met with excitement and delight. Marlowe's Faustus is a more compelling version of the story because Faustus's despair "cuts deeper" (Maynard 1830) than that of a man who simply dabbles in magic. As a Renaissance character, Faustus "embodies a more deeply earned dissatisfaction" (Maynard 1830). The drama suggests something more than ordinary melancholy:

The Play's Structure and Medieval Influences

"Seems to suggest that the seeds of damnation are implicit in some of the most cherished and proud pursuits of the period; their depiction as devilish temptations is a concrete way of symbolizing their comprehensively damning nature." (1830)

From this perspective, Maynard asserts that the play is one of the "most contemporary statements we have of man's terror at the daring of his own thought and the need for limits" (1830). The Renaissance dimension adds depth to the character of Faustus, making both the man and his terror appear more real.

The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus exhibits the traditional characteristics of tragedy associated with Elizabethan drama: the play unfolds in five acts, and we follow a tragic hero who falls as a result of his own tragic flaw. However, the play also bears the clear influence of medieval morality plays. Glynne Wickham asserts that morality plays prepared the way for later dramatic forms, arguing that their qualities "enable authors and actors to develop their crafts experimentally little by little, while depending for the broad effect upon well-tried routines with which their audiences were already familiar" (Wickham, qtd. in Egendorf 16). Doctor Faustus is an example of how playwrights were ingenious in borrowing from the past even as they pushed forward. The tragedy retains the Chorus associated with medieval plays, and Faustus encounters the seven deadly sins — a common feature of the morality-play tradition.

Marlowe establishes Faustus as a tragic hero early in the play through his lofty ideals, which will ultimately lead to his downfall. His ignorance is revealed in his early exchange with Mephistophilis, when he is told that Lucifer became the prince of devils as a result of his "aspiring pride and insolence" (I.iii.71). Mephistophilis even urges Faustus to forget his "frivolous demands" (I.iii.84) that "strike terror" (I.iii.85) on his soul. Faustus is too consumed with his own selfish gain to grasp the hidden meaning in Mephistophilis's words.