Supernatural in Renaissance Drama: Marlowe and Shakespeare
This essay examines the role of the supernatural in three major Renaissance dramatic works: Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Hamlet. The paper analyzes how each play constructs the boundary between the human and supernatural worlds, arguing that Marlowe relies on schematic, moralistic characters to convey conventional Christian consequence, while Shakespeare creates individualized, psychologically rich supernatural figures that raise deeper questions about love, reality, and truth. The essay ultimately contends that the supernatural in Renaissance drama functions less as unified theology and more as a vehicle for exploring the playwright's command of language and characterization.
- Introduction: The Permeable Wall Between Humanity and the Supernatural: Three plays compared through supernatural boundary theme
- Schematic Characterization in Marlowe's Dr. Faustus: Marlowe's allegorical, moralistic supernatural characters analyzed
- Shakespeare's Individualized Supernatural World in A Midsummer Night's Dream: Shakespeare's distinct fairy voices versus Marlowe's types
- Love, Reality, and Illusion Across the Three Plays: Enchanted love questions reality in Dream and Faustus
- Hamlet and the Supernatural as Philosophical Problem: Hamlet's ghost raises doubt and philosophical inquiry
- Conclusion: The Supernatural as Literary Device: Supernatural reflects characterization skill, not theology
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper develops a clear comparative thesis across three major Renaissance works, consistently returning to the central question of how each playwright constructs the human–supernatural boundary.
- Direct textual quotations are integrated throughout to support analytical claims, grounding interpretive points in specific dramatic language rather than vague assertion.
- The essay moves from the most schematic play (Marlowe) to the most philosophically complex (Hamlet), creating a natural argumentative arc that builds in sophistication.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative literary analysis: it does not treat each work in isolation but instead uses each text as a lens to illuminate the others. For example, the discussion of Bottom's individualized voice is made more meaningful by the prior contrast with Marlowe's allegorical angels, and Demetrius's enchanted love in the Dream is used to reframe the question of what makes love "real" in Faustus and Hamlet alike.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a tri-part thesis that forecasts the argument for each play. It then moves through close-reading sections organized by play, with a thematic pivot in the middle that links all three through the question of love and illusion. The final section on Hamlet deepens the philosophical stakes established earlier, and the conclusion synthesizes the argument by reframing the supernatural as primarily a function of dramatic language and characterization rather than period theology.
Introduction: The Permeable Wall Between Humanity and the Supernatural
There are things in heaven and earth not dreamt of in the philosophy of Horatio — and not simply in Hamlet, but also in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. All three plays deal with the theme of human aspirations in a world with a permeable, rather than an impermeable, wall between humanity and the supernatural. Yet each constructs that permeability differently. Dr. Faustus suggests that breaking down this wall is initially fun and playful, though it carries dire consequences for the protagonist. Marlowe's schematic characters and images of conventional morality, combined with heightened language, convey humor rather than horror — until Faustus is condemned to hell for all eternity.
The lighter A Midsummer Night's Dream also suggests an initial playfulness in its early language, as human and supernatural lovers transgress the boundaries of sensual propriety. Yet this comedy, set in a pagan land, raises deeper questions about how "real" love truly is — if both supernatural charms and supposedly genuine love are, in fact, equally false. Hamlet, by contrast, begins with a gravity about ghosts and Christian morality that eschews the early humor of Faustus and its dirty dealings with Mephistopheles, lifting the drama to a new level of philosophical inquiry about the relationship between humanity and the supernatural.
Schematic Characterization in Marlowe's Dr. Faustus
The characterization in Marlowe's Dr. Faustus is very schematic, unlike in Shakespeare's plays. The Good and Bad Angels who argue over Faustus' soul set the tone immediately: "Faustus, lay that damned book aside, / And gaze not on it lest it tempt thy soul" (1.1). They employ the stark, moralistic language of a preacher rather than speech specific to individual characters. Even the Seven Deadly Sins are conventional in their depiction, functioning as diversions for Faustus rather than as distinct sprites or fairy-like figures in the manner of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Only when Faustus summons Helen does the text employ truly colorful poetic imagery, as he asks whether this is "the face that launched a thousand ships" (Act 4).
For most of the play, Faustus uses the powers he has acquired through his dealings with the devil — via his agent Mephistopheles — merely to play tricks on other people and to accrue an earthly power he did not possess as a scholar at Wittenberg. Interacting with the supernatural teaches him nothing: not about love, as it does for Hermia and her companions in A Midsummer Night's Dream, nor about his father, as it does for Hamlet. By making the language used to describe the devilish conjuring of Helen more vivid than the language given to the angels, Marlowe's play almost seems to sympathize with Faustus' decision to sell his soul, even though the plot's resolution unambiguously condemns him. Most of the conventionally good or Christian characters never emerge as distinct entities; only Faustus and Mephistopheles register as fully realized presences.
Shakespeare's Individualized Supernatural World in A Midsummer Night's Dream
In Shakespeare, by contrast, every character possesses a distinct and individual voice that eschews stereotyping. Even the oafish Bottom, transformed into an ass at his lowest point, commands a vitality that Marlowe's angels and personified sins entirely lack: "Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle" (3.1). Less seems at stake in the Dream — there are no souls to be lost, and what is done to Bottom is reversible, as are Puck's misunderstandings, unlike Faustus' irrevocable decision. Like Marlowe's use of Helen, Shakespeare employs classical references by setting the play in pagan Athens; but because the action is set in pre-Christian times, the use of supernatural beings carries none of the moral, Christian value structure that governs Dr. Faustus.
The language of Shakespeare's characters nonetheless creates a greater sense of reality in the supernatural world than Marlowe achieves. Rather than reciting moral tracts, Shakespeare's supernatural figures behave like the human characters around them: the fairy king falls in love with a changeling boy, and the fairy queen becomes enamored with an ass. The supernatural in the Dream is not an external theological force pressing down upon human choice, but an extension of the same irrational desires that govern the human lovers.
Conclusion: The Supernatural as Literary Device
The theme of the supernatural in Renaissance drama emerges more as a "problem" than as a unified theology. Often, its use says more about the playwright's ability to use language to characterize than about the ideology of the period. Shakespeare's stress on individualized characterization results in more human fairies and sprites than are found in Marlowe's allegorical world. And even in Marlowe, it is difficult to determine who is truly good or bad, sinner or saint.
When viewed on stage through the lens of an actor's body and a writer's characterization, even angels can seem annoyingly didactic, pagan fairies like Puck can feel genuine remorse, and even sons in revenge tragedies can doubt the reality of their father's ghost. The supernatural, across all three plays, ultimately serves as a mirror for the very human questions of love, truth, morality, and self-knowledge that Renaissance drama placed at the center of its inquiry.
Works Cited
Marlowe, Christopher. "Dr. Faustus." Text B. Edited by Hilary Binder. Tufts Classics Edition online. Last updated 2003. Retrieved from Perseus Database, 8 December 2004.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. MIT Complete Shakespeare. Retrieved 8 December 2004.
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