Dr Faustus This play is set in renaissance

Dr. Faustus

This play is set in renaissance , a period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the dark Ages that were marked by an era of the hold of church over all aspects of scoirty. Generally described as taking place from the 14 th century to the 17 th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art. A cultural movement called humanism began to gain momentum in Italy as a part of the Renaissance movement. Among its many principles, humanism promoted the idea that man was the center of his own universe, and people should encourage embrace human achievements in education, classical arts, literature and science.

Following are some of the important achievements of the era: - Artists like da Vinci incorporated scientific principles, such as anatomy into their work, so they could recreate the human body with extraordinary precision. -Architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi studied mathematics to accurately engineer and design immense buildings with expansive domes. -Scientific discoveries led to major shifts in thinking: Galileo and Descartes presented a new view of astrology and mathematics, while Copernicus proposed that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the solar system- -Voyagers launched expeditions to travel the entire globe. They discovered new shipping routes to the Americas, India and the Far East, and explorers trekked across areas that weren’t fully mapped.

Humanism encouraged Europeans to question the role of the Roman Catholic church during the Renaissance. Hence the era is marked with skepticism. As more people learned how to read, write and interpret ideas, they began to closely examine and critique religion as they knew it. Also, the printing press allowed for texts, including the Bible, to be easily reproduced and widely read by the people, themselves, for the first time. In the 16 th century, Martin Luther, a German monk, led the Protestant Reformation – a revolutionary movement that caused a split in the Catholic church. Luther questioned many of the practices of the church and whether they aligned with the teachings of the Bible. In the play, the protagonist is also presented as anti-papal, pro-German and favouring Protestantism.

Doctor Faustus contains a good deal of satire of the Pope and his court as representatives of the Catholic faith as is obvious in Scene 8. The worldly interests in food and drink exhibited by the Pope, his cardinals and bishops carry the weight of the play's religious satire. Faustus and Mephastophilis play practical jokes on the Pope and his monks, exposing them as nonspiritual and materialistic while creating humour. The Pope's inability to deal with the apparent presence of evil spirits at his court is also the target of Marlowe's satire and this is strengthened by the jokes about the excommunication ritual and the mocking remarks about Purgatory

This play preserves the morality play structure of a neutral hero who falls under the sway of the diabolical figure and receives counsel from the good and bad angel. Like a morality play all the action happens within the soul of the protagonist which becomes a battle ground on which the forces of good and evil contend for ascendancy. Faustus thus becomes an archetypal symbol of man’s aspirations, follies and impossible dreams as well as the tempted soul. The seven sins are also characters that form an essential part of a morality play.

The play is full of references to grace and damnation. Faustus' practice of black magic and his pact with Mephastophilis, the agent of God's enemy Satan, condemns him to damnation and eternal punishment in hell. But throughout the play, almost until its last lines, Faustus is conscious of the possibility of repentance and salvation, by the intervention of God's grace and mercy. There are many biblical references that allude to it.

It is a tragedy of a scholar whose will to power stems from a transgressive will to knowledge. The protagonist aspires for a knowledge that his epistemological tradition does not approve. Therein also lies his greatness. By this aspiration he challenges the authority and, in the end, is enforced to accept a tragic death. ‘The tryst of Faustus with forbidden knowledge and socially disapproved power and the tragical outcome of such tryst foreground the questions about sovereign subjectivity and the liberating efficacy of transgression. ’

Faustus weighs his decision with much pseudo rationalizing. Faustus’s survey of the ruling forms of knowledge reveals a gap between his desire and the inadequacy or disapproval of the existing tradition of knowledge to fulfil it. Through an exposition of this gap, Marlowe seems to be revealing what Foucault speaks about the relationship between power and transgression. According to Foucault, power not only represses the desire of transgression, it also incites such a desire. Faustus’s desire for transgressive knowledge and power may be interpreted as being incited by the suffocating limit that the knowledge of power forces on him. However his very act to transgress theses imposed limits results in his tragic downfall.

From Faustus’s point of view, divinity presents an ideology of pre-determined fall and damnation that seems to have mostly been shaped by the Calvinistic theological interpretation of the Bible. It is hence in direct contradiction to the limitless freedom and appreciation for all things pleasurable as propounded by the spirit of Renaissance. Faustus in thinking like that deliberately omits the Christian solution of faith in God’s mercy as devised in the scripture as the escape route of this inevitable web. One reason behind Faustus’s ignoring of this way-out may likely be due to the fact that Faustus probably does not want such a solution that places him in servitude to God for, as he himself proclaims he wants to be a “demigod” an ultimate authority in this world.

There are two types of comic scenes: the first consist of burlesque of the main action- in which minor clownish characters conjure spirits of their own, the other in which Faustus along with the devils is playing tricks on the pope, putting horns on the head of a doubting knight, a scaring horsecourser show. These scenes show frivolity and confused values in Faustus in addition to establishing a mood of trivial fooling. The imagery associated with comedy is prevalent in the play. Many of the comic scenes that burlesque the tragedy of Faustus are satiric mirrors of Faustus' debasement. There is a lot of appetite imagery as Faustus equates aspirations with appetites when he himself says "how am I glutted with conceit of this" or when the chorus says, "glutted now with learning's golden gifts/ he surfeits upon cursed necromancy