DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
(Maharajah Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University )
Name :- chintavankumar n bhungani
Semester:- m.a sem 1
Roll no:- 06
Paper no:- 01 .RENAISSANCE LITERATURE
Enrollment no:- PG15101006
Email id:- cnbhungani7484@gmail.com
Bloge id:- chintavanbhungani201517.blog.spot.com
Topic:- DOCTOR FASTUS AS CHARISTIAN TRGEDY?
ANSWER: - Doctor Faustus is a play by ChristopherMarlowe, the tragical history of the life and death of doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as doctor Faustus based o the German story Faustus .doctor Faustus was first published in 1604, eleven years after Marlow’s death and at least ten years after the first performance of the play. It is the most controversial Elizabethan play outside of Shakespeare, with few critics coming to any agreement as to the date or the nature of the next.
Christopher Marlowe (baptized-26 February 1564-30 may 1593) was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era, Marlowe
Was the foremost “Elizabethan tragedian” of his day. He greatly influenced William Shakespeare who was born in the same years as ,Marlowe and who born in the same years as Marlowe and who rose to become the pre-eminent Elizabethan playwright after Marlowe’s mysterious early death . Marlowe’s plays are known for the use of blank verse and their overarching protagonist.
v Marlowe’s great plays:-
· TAMBURLAINE
· THE JEW OF MALTA
· DOCTOR FAUSTUS
· EDWARD II
· THE MASSARE AT PARIS
· THE SCHOOL FOR NIGHT
Ø ABOUT FAUSTUS LEARNS NECROMANCY
As a prologue, the chorus introduces us to Faustus and his story. He is described as being “baste of stock” however he is able to become a doctor. During this opening we also get our first clue to the source of Faustus’s downfall. Faustus’s tale is linked to that of Icurus, who flew too close to the sun and fell to his death when the sun melted his waxen wings .this is the hint to Faustus’s end as well as bringing our attention to the idea of “hubris” which is represented in the icurus and tory and ultimately Faustus.
Ø Why doctor Faustus is a Christian tragedy? :-
Doctor Faustus has elements of both Christian morality and classical tragedy. On the one hand, it takes place in an explicitly Christian cosmos: god sits on high as the judge of the world, and every soul goes either to hell or to heaven .there are devils and angels, with the devils tempting people in to sin and the angels urging them to remain to god. Faustus’s story is that tragedy in Christian terms, because he gives in to temptation and his damned to hell. Faustus’s principal sin is his great pride and ambition, which can be contrasted with the Christian virtueof humility; by letting these traits rule is life, Faustus allows his soul to be claimed by Lucifer , Christian cosmology’s prince of devils
Yet while the play seems to offer a very basic Christian message- that one should avoid temptation and sin , and ripened if one cannot avoid temptation and sin – its conclusion can be interpreted as straying from orthodox Christianity in order to confirm to the structured of tragedy. In a traditional tragic play, as pioneered by the Greeks and imitated by William Shakespeare , heroes is brought low by an error or series of errors and realize his or her mistake only when it is too late. In Christianity,though, as long as a person alive, there is always the possibility of repentance – so if a tragic hero realizes his or her mistake, he or she may still be saved even at the last moment. But though Faustus, in the final, wrenching scene, comes to his senses and begs for a chance to repent, it is too late, and he is carried off to hell. Marlowe rejects the Christian idea that it is never too late to repent in order to increase the dramatic power of his finale, in which Faustus is conscious of his damnation and yet,tragically, can do nothing about it.
“Why this is not hell, nor I am out of it.
Think’st thou I’ who saw the face of god,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
Ø Magic and the supernatural:-
The supernatural pervades doctor Faustus ,appearing everything in the story .angels and devils flit about, magic spells are east, dragons pull chariots and even fools like the two ostlers ,robin and rafe , can learn enough magic to summons demons .still , it is worth nothing that nothing terribly significant is accomplished through magic. Faustus plays tricks on people, conjures up grapes, and explores the cosmos on a dragon, but he does not fundamentally reshape the world. The magic power that Mephistopheles grants him is more like a toy than an awesome, earth-shaking ability. Thermorethe, real drama of the play despite all the super natural frill and pyrotechniques take place with in Faustus’s vacillating the magic is almost incidental to the real story of Faustus’s struggle with himself, whichMarlowe intended not as a fantastical battle but rathe r as a realistic portrait of a human being with a will divided between good and evil.
Theme also suggested that Christian story of conflict between food and evil in the world and the woman soul.
Ø The Good Angel and the Evil Angel
The angles appear at Faustus’s shoulder early on in the play – the good angel urging him to repent and serve God, the evil angel urging him to follow his lust for power and serve Lucifer. The two symbolize his divided will, part of which wants to do good and part of which is sunk in sin.
· Theme Analysis:
One of the most important and prominent themes in Doctor Faustus by far the conflict between good and evil in the world and the human soul. Marlowe’s play set the precedent for religious works that were concerned with morals and suffering. In the play, Doctor Faustus is frequently accompanied by two angles, one good and one evil. Both spirits try to advise him on a course of action, with the evil one usually being more influential over his mind. These two angels embody the internal battle that is raging inside of Faustus. On one hand he has an insatiable thirst for knowledge and supremepowers, on the hand, Faustus realize that it is folly to relinquish heavenly pleasures for fleeting mortal happiness.
Ø Theme of pride :-
The major theme of doctor Faustus is the pride which goes to a fall. Faustus sin is not his practice of necromancy, but his denial of god’s power and majesty. His pride is the source of his damnation. All the other sins committed by him are various aspects of the sin of pride. Even his despair in the last scene of the play is another aspect of his pride because it prevents him from asking for god’s forgiveness. Faustus despair denies god’s mercy.
Ø Minor theme is Faustus quest for knowledge :-
One of the play’s minor themes is Faustus quest for knowledge .he examines all the orthodox branches of knowledge and finds them wanting. He chooses magic, for it promises “a world of profit and delight, /of power, of honor, of omnipotence.” For twenty four years, he seeks experience of all kinds. However,finally, his knowledge brings him despite instead of freedom.
Another minor theme of the play is the quest for power.faustus power exists more in his imagination then in fact. When he performsmagic, the audience gets the impression that he is practical joker or a court entertainer. It is true that he plays pranks of the produces the spirits of Alexander his paramour, dairies and Helen of troy .it is also true that he grapes out of season for a pregnant duchess. All the performance are far removed from his first confident assertion that” a sound magician is demy-god. Faustus power is an illusory, since in each stage he depends upon Mephistopheles.
Ø Theme of mood:-
The predominant mood of the whole play is somber tragedy, in which the protagonist chooses to be on the side of the devil and to embrace the evil generated by the devil. Faustus practice of black magic is “more than heavenly power permits” and brings about his “hellish fall”. Throughout the play there isa comic interlude that provides a temporary mood of levity.
Ø Myth of Christianity:-
According to Jung, the death of meaning in the mythic symbols of Christianity was beginning during thru renaissance-reformation period, the age of Dr. Faustus’s. Mankind then began to lose something which, in one form or another, is necessary for psychic health. “Mankind has never lacked powerful images to lend magical aid against all the uncanny things that live in the depths of the psyche, “says Jung, but the images of Christian myth-logy no longer work for Faustus when he comes to a crisis in his life. They continue to operate only in a very strange way, in the nature of the neurotic. But they do not form the basis for anything like a healthy approach toward life.
Conclusion:-Christianity considers knowledge as sin and doctor Faustus tries to get knowledge he is hungry for more knowledge which becomes reason for his death thus, is Christian tragedy.
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