DOCTOR FAUSTUS AS A RENAISSANCE PLAY:

Renaissance which literally means re-birth or re-awakening ,is the name of a

Europe-wide movement which closed the trammels and conventions of the
Mediaeval age, and makes for liberation in all aspects of life and culture. There was
a shift from heavenly to earthly life. Wealth, knowledge and power of knowledge
were the touchstones for the Renaissance man on which he judged and gauged
each and everything. The main ingredients of this new spirit were individualism and
worldliness. These two traits found manifestation in many forms such as: 1.
Yearning for knowledge 2. Learning without fetters 3. Love of beauty 4. Hankering
after sensual pleasures of life 5. Spirit of adventure 6. High ambition 7. Lust for
power and pelf Though the influence of the spirit of the Renaissance marks all the
writers of the later half of the age of Elizabeth---- in poetry, drama and prose
romances and novels, that influence can be seen working with particular force on
Marlowe and his fellows who together are called the University Wits. Of them
again, the writings of Marlowe are the most prominent embodiment of the spirit of
the renaissance. Generally speaking, Marlowe himself is the spirit of the renaissance
incarnate. In the conception of the central characters of his dramas, he is impelled
by the renaissance spirit for unlimited powers, unlimited knowledge for the sake of
power, unlimited wealth, again, for the sake of power. On the aesthetic side, love of
physical beauty, unbounded desire of love for the pleasures of the senses, infinite
longing for truth are the characteristics of the imaginative life which glittered before
his eyes in that great age of daring adventures. Marlowes Doctor Faustus is the
representative of the Renaissance and reflects the contemporary problems of life.
Doctor Faustus being the product of Renaissance and the mouthpiece of Marlowe is
dissatisfied with the conventional sphere of knowledge. He has a towering ambition
to become a deity. The knowledge of logic, medicine, law and divinity are
insufficient for him as he says: Philosophy is odious and obscure, Both law and
physic are for petty wits, Divinity is basest of the three. He wants to attain super
human power, like Renaissance man, which can only be gained by necromancy. For
him A sound magician is mighty God. So he declares his intention in these words:
Here, Faustus, tire thy brain to gain a deity. There was, an intellectual curiosity
during the Renaissance: The new discoveries in science and developments in
technology went beyond mere material advances. It was a youthful age to which
nothing seems impossible. Before the European, this period opened a new world of
imagination. All these things stirred mens imagination and led them to believe that
the infinite was attainable. In Dr. Faustus, Marlowe has expressed such ideas, when
Faustus says:
O, what a world of profit and delight, Of power, of honour, of omnipotence, Is
promised to the studious artisan! All things that move between the quiet poles Shall
be at my command: In fact, Marlowe was profoundly influenced my Machiavelli
(1469-1527), the famous Italian writer, who disregarded all the conventional, moral
principles to achieve the ends by any fair or foul means. The ambition of Marlowe
led him to rebel against God and religion and to defy the laws of society and man.
His refusal is bound to bring mental conflict which results in deep despair and
defeat both Marlowe and Faustus. Dr. Faustus makes a bargain with the devil to
achieve his goal. He is ready to pay any price for the attainment of his purpose.
Although, his conscience pricks him and there are Good and Evil angels who warn
him against the danger of damnation, yet he cannot resist the temptation as Evil
angel says: Be thou on earth as Jove in the sky, Lord and commander of these
elements. And then, Dr. Faustus, as the true embodiment of Renaissance spirit,
starts dreaming of gaining super-human powers and performing miraculous deeds
with the help of the spirits raised by him, Ill have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl, Ill have them read me strange philosophy, And
tell the secrets of all foreign kings. All these proud assertions clearly show Faustus
Renaissance spirit of adventure and supreme craze for knowledge and power
without any limit. And finally, we find Faustus discarding God and defying all
religious and moral principles, when he sells his soul to the devil to master all
knowledge and to gain limitless powers. He says: Ay and Faustus will turn to God
again: To, God? He loves thee not The God thou servst is thine own appetite. To
Faustus, knowledge means power and its power that will enable him to gratify the
sensual pleasure of life like the man of Renaissance; he is a worshipper of beauty.
That is why just after making the agreement with the devil for twenty four years of
worldly pleasures, and his first desire is that of the most beautiful woman. He asks
Mephistophilis: Let me have a wife, The fairest maid in Germany. For I am wanton
and lascivious, And can not live with-out a wife. Faustuss keen longing to have
Helen and to find Heaven in her lips reveal his supreme love of beauty and yearning
for sensuous pleasures. The magnificent apostrophe to Helen in the most inspired
and lyrical passage of the play wonderfully illustrates the Renaissance spirit of love
and adoration for classical beauty as well as urge for romance and mighty
adventures. Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss! ---
Her lips suck forth my soul; See where flies it! --Come, Helen, come, give me my
soul again, Here will I Dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all in dross that is not
Helena. After completing the period of twenty four years, Faustus comes to his
tragic end. In the last moment, he learns that supernatural powers are reserved for
the gods and the man who attempts to handle or deal in magical powers must face
eternal damnation. He repents of his deeds but it is absolutely of no avail. Some of
the critics are of the opinion that Marlowe in his Dr. Faustus wanted to resist the old
religious ideas along with the new ones. He emphasized upon the people that
religion could not be completely ignored. Dr. Faustus tried to gain everything
possible in his temporary world neglecting religion, but at last, he was damned
forever and deprived of heaven. Another group of critics says that free play of man
in this world is limited by God. If a man tries to cross limits, he will be damned, and
thrown into hell. Hence according to them God is jealous of man and does not want
that man should stand equal to him. So Marlowe revolted against this injustice of
God in the person of Dr. Faustus. But he had to end his play with this advice:
Faustus is gone; regard this hellish fall, Whose fiendish fortune may exhort the
wise, Only to wonder at unlawful things Whose deepness doth entice such forward
wits To practice more than heavenly powers permits. Written&Composed By:
Prof.A.R.Somroo M.A.English&Education. 0662610063,Cell:03339971417 Khangarh.
DOCTOR FAUSTUS DRAMATIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LAST SCENE
Marlowe is a great expert in painting the extreme agony and anguish in his scenes.
Hence his death scenes in all the plays are memorable for its deep pathos and
poignancy. The closing scene of Doctor Faustus shows the inevitable disaster in a
very powerful manner. It shows the overwhelming destruction of a proud and
inordinately ambitious soul that defied God and denounced Christianity, and
surrendered himself to the Devil to gain divinity and to become ----- lord and
commander to these elements. Marlowe reaches the most magnificent flights of
imagination in the last scene of Doctor Faustus. The last hour soliloquy of Faustus is
lyrically and dramatically intense passage that remains unsurpassed in the English
dramatic literature. It is quite obvious that Marlowe draws the clash between
Faustus Renaissance dreams and desires of limitless knowledge and power, and the
medieval belief of the retribution which awaits the person who adopts means to get
such ends. So we find that Faustus is caught between the medieval and the modern
world and ultimately doomed and destroyed in clash between the different sets of
values in the final scene. We notice that such human clashes are the heart of
tragedy. The Christian sets of values ultimately prevail over the Renaissance dreams
and desires, and the play ends with the solemn appeal from the Chorus urging us to
learn lesson from the rise and tragic fall of Doctor Faustus. Faustus is gone; regard
his hellish fall, Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise, Only to wonder at
unlawful things Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits To practice more
than heavenly power permits. After Faustus denounced the theology and
surrendered to the Devil, the development of action of drama proceeds into deep
dramatic irony as it is revealed before us and we realize that the play is shot
through and through with dramatic irony. The grim irony reaches its climax in the
last scene and the tragic heros last hour soliloquy reveals it most pathetically. what
has happened now to this proud scholar of Wittenberg? This inordinate ambitious
soul who dreamt of becoming Jove and commander of the elements is now an
absolutely broken down personality and very ironically he wishes to be transformed
even into a mean beast to escape eternal damnation. Just like a senseless child
Faustus is now appealing to Fair natures eye to rise again and make a perpetual
day. That Faustus may repent and save his soul We find him passionately appealing
to God Whom he abjured to gain a deity: O God, If thou wilt not have mercy on my
soul, Yet for Christs sake, whose blood hath ransomd me Impose some end to my
incessant pain.
And when the last hour strikes, the agonized cry of the terror stricken soul met with
its eternal doom. And damnation finds the most powerful expression in Faustuss
final soliloquy in the closing scene: Oh, it strikes, it strikes; No body turn to air Or
Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell; O soul, be changed into little water drops, And
fall into the ocean, neer be found. Once the suffering of this hell was nothing but
old wives tale to Faustus. The grim irony is most tragically revealed when we hear
that the last words from the dying lips of Faustus are: Ah! Mephistopheles--- and
then his soul is snatched away by Devils disciples to gaping ugly hell for eternal
damnation. According to Richard B. Sewali, the end of Marlowes play shows, of
course, that Faustus could not live out his idea. But, between the disillusioned
scholar of the first scene and the agonizing, ecstatic figure of the final scene there is
a difference. He enters not alone this time, but with the scholars and for the first
time in the play he has normal, compassionate discourse with his fellows. His role of
demigod over, he is human once more, a friend and befriended. Ah gentlemen,
hear me with patience, says he who has but recently lorded it over all creation. His
friends now seem sweeter than any princely delegate. Although the thrill of his
exploits still lingers----And what wonders I have done all Germany can witness, yea
the entire world---he is humble and repentant. He longs to be able to weep and
pray but imagines in his despair that devils draw in his tears and hold his hands as
he would lift them up. He confesses to the scholars the miserable source of his
cunning. Knowing his doom is near, he refuses their intercession and bids them,
talk not of me but save yourselves and depart. If to the orthodox it is more a
sinners fate than a heros; there is something of the classic apotheosis in faustus
final moments. He transcends the man he was. He goes out no craven sinner but
violently, speaking the rage and despair of all mankind who would undo the past
and stop the clock against the inevitable reckoning. Stand still, you ever-moving
spheres of heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come.

Written & Composed by: Prof. A.R. Somroo M.A. English, M.A. Education Cell:
+923339971417