Term Essay Chew 1

Hansel Chew

Asst. Prof. John Tangney

HL 2002: Renaissance Literature

4 October 2014

Doctor Faustus: A Medieval Tragedy of The Renaissance Man

In Christian theology, every being has its place prescribed

according to the Great Chain of Being. As the Creator of the

universe, God is necessarily perfect and He sits at the top of this

hierarchy, sovereign over all his creatures. These positions were

thought to be permanent and fixed. However, during the

Renaissance, there was an increased self-consciousness about

fashioning of human identity as a manipulable, artful process

(Greenblatt 2). Thinkers like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola believed

that the dignity of man derives from his free will, by which he had

potential to elevate himself to higher forms. Such Promethean

aspirations are taken to extremes in Christopher Marlowes The

Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, in which Faustus, as a model of

Renaissance humanism, overreaches and pays the tragic price for

not recognising his limited place within the universal order. In

professing a moral lesson of human boundaries and a reverence for

divine justice, Marlowes drama delineates orthodox medieval values

even as the Renaissance celebrates mans unique position in the

world.

Marlowe seems to warn against the imprudent ambitions of

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Renaissance humanism and the hubris of man when he describes the

egotism of Faustus in the Prologue by drawing an allusion to Icarus:

Faustus is swollen with cunning, of a self-conceit, / [h]is waxen

wings did mount above his reach, / [a]nd melting heavens conspired

his overthrow (20-22). Having already attained the end[s] of every

legitimate field of scholarship from philosophy to law, from medicine

to divinity, Faustus hunger for a greater subject [to fit his] wit is

demonstrative of the excessive pride and inordinate aspiration that

mark him as an overreacher (1.10-11). Moreover, his invocation of an

authority for each subject only to dismiss them as being [t]oo servile

and illiberal (1.36) is a symbolic rejection of the scholastic

confidence and control invested in these experts during medieval

times, in favour of individual inquiry by which he can pursue a

world of profit and delight, / Of power, of honor, of omnipotence

(1.53-54) in full Renaissance spirit without being circumscribed.

Yet there is a keen sensitivity to the fact that he is still but

Faustus, and a man (1.23), and is thus unable to attain the unlimited

power he craves. His mastery of the subjects that he considers

unworthy of his intellect and inadequate for his purposes, is in fact

the legitimate boundary that God sets for even the Renaissance Man,

whose knowledge and power must be commensurate with his human

condition. It is hence only by being a sound magician that he can

transcend or perhaps it would be more accurate to account for his

practice of magic as a transgression his limits to become a mighty

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god (1.62). According to Robert Ornstein, his heroic choice is not

between alternative paths of self- fulfillment but between the self-

destructiveness of mighty strivings and the salvation that demands

self-abnegation and the denial of heroic aspiration (1380). By

surfeit[ing] upon cursed necromancy (Prologue.25) that is the

latter-day forbidden fruit, Faustus commits the sin of eating from its

Tree of Knowledge, and is therefore equated with the serpent

Lucifer, whom God cast down from the face of heaven for his

aspiring pride and insolence (3.67-68). Both Lucifer and Faustus

overstepped the boundaries of their rightful places, and it is their

defiance of heavenly laws and their challenge to divine supremacy

that precipitates their fall from grace.

There is no need to justify the laws of God to man because

Faustus is no atheist; he is acutely aware of the divine justice of

Gods heavy wrath upon [his] head should he covet all natures

treasury, and attempt to be on earth as Jove is in the sky, / Lord

and commander of these elements (1.72-77). This makes his

abjuration of God puzzling. After all, to barter off ones soul into

eternal damnation for twenty-four fleeting years of temporal

indulgence is, from a prudential perspective, not only a bad bargain

but also self-annihilating.

To read his choice of evil as purely motivated by humanistic

agendas against the limits imposed by heaven is perhaps too

simplistic. The allegorical mechanism that the Good and Evil Angels
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serve in manifesting Faustus spiritual conflicts suggests that his

decision to gain a deity (1.63) may instead be explained by his

failure to recognise the validity of central Christian truths (qtd. in

Westlund 192). It is the Evil Angel who wins each argument and

denies him the proper understanding of these truths; at first

tempting him with promises of honor and of wealth (5.21), then

dissuading him from repentance by sowing despair that God cannot

pity [him] (5.189). Reading from Jeromes Bible, he fatalistically

concludes that man must die an everlasting death (1.46) since

[t]he reward of sin is death and belike [humans] must sin (1.40-

46). Yet, this despair of Gods mercy is a direct misreading of

scripture because Faustus omits an essential part of the verse that

would have changed his understanding of divine grace: For the

wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus

Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23). His transaction with Lucifer is then

a deliberate and conscious choice of evil that is rooted in a faulty

syllogistic understanding of the human condition, instead of one that

has been dictated by a deterministic fate.

Furthermore, that Faustus chooses to believe the very opposite of

what the Bible is communicating, is symptomatic of his despair

regarding the salvation that God will grant him if he only repents.

Since sin is an earthly phenomenon present in daily life while

grace is intangible, it is unsurprising that Faustus is convinced that

the former is more real than the latter (Westlund 194). Faustus has
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thereby unwittingly spurned eternal life for everlasting death, only

because earthly pleasures become so much more enticing when man,

as he falsely believes, is predestined to suffer in the afterlife. Since

for him there exists no salvation of the soul, it is no wonder that

there would be [n]othing so sweet as magic is to him (Prologue.26).

The notion of Faustus as a tragic Renaissance hero standing up to a

medieval universal order hostile towards humanistic achievement is

thus deflated, for the irony is that he is just a victim of his own

fallible humanity.

In any case, Faustus desire to subjugate [all] things that move

between the quiet poles [to his] command (1.56-57) is less a

humanistic endeavour, than a pursuit of that which is immediately

supernatural. One should recognise that while the modernity of

Renaissance humanism lay in its increasing concern with the purely

natural and human, Marlowe was fascinated by the superhuman and

by the very metaphysical speculations that lay beyond human

reason and experience (Ornstein 1381). Faustus cannot take

pleasure in the [u]npleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile arts he

has previously excelled in because he judges that which is merely

human nothing but external trash (1.35) for petty wits (1.107-9).

Because they do not provide a sufficiently vehement experience that

would outweigh the gravity of death, these accomplishments are

ultimately inconsequential. His attitude, contrary to what at first

seems like a Renaissance pursuit of human achievement, is actually

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anti-humanistic.

Underlying his scorn [of] those joys [he] never shalt possess

(3.86) is therefore a rebellion against his mortality, which he also

believes to be mans inherent and unavoidable sin. As such, Faustus

rages against the dying of his light by grasping at that which is

above his reach; he would live for the mastery of the material world

and attempt to be like a god, yet only to die with the nihilism he

considers elemental to mortal finitude. While other Elizabethan

tragic heroes acknowledge their mortality and thereby rob death of

its infinite terror, Faustus never learns how to die because he

cannot accept that he must die, and is hence denied this victory over

death. Moreover, since God is by definition perfect, it follows

axiomatically that His law is perfectly just. Since one cannot imagine

any justification for a Promethean kind of disobedience against an

omnipotent and loving Christian God (Ornstein 1381-2), it makes

the transgression of Faustus a necessarily sinful act of blatant hubris

one without recourse to claims of Renaissance tragic heroism

because [t]he god [he] servest is [his] own appetite (5.11).

Unfortunately for him, it seems that the potential of the power he

would attain by buy[ing] [the] service [of] Mephastophilis with his

soul (5.32) falls far below his expectations. From the very

beginning, it is clear that Faustus command over Mephastophilis is

illusory. While his ego blinds him to believe that it is due to the

force of magic and [his] spells that the devil yields to him [f]ull of
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obedience and humility (3.30-1), Mephastophilis had in fact come

in hope to get his glorious soul (3.49). Furthermore, as soon as the

deed of gift a travesty of the New covenant, by which Christ

redeems for man that which Faustus cheaply hazards is

blasphemously Consummatum est (5.74), Faustus learns of the

impotence of Mephastophilis powers. When originally he had hoped

to make spirits fetch [him] what [he pleases], / [r]esolve [him] of all

ambiguities, / [p]erform what desperate enterprise [he wills] (1.79-

81), it seems that Mephastophilis is incapable of executing anything

that goes against the sovereignty of Almighty God. The mythic

import of Renaissance daring is reduced to mere examples of the

petty sins that cower before the medieval understanding of Gods

supremacy over all of His Creation.

Mephastophilis cannot satisfy Faustus with the fairest maid in

Germany (5.139) but can only fetch [him] a wife in the devils

name (5.145), for marriage is a sacred sacrament that he has no

power to violate. The epistemological mystery of the creation is

likewise denied an answer since the devil is prohibited to name the

divine Creator who is against [their] kingdom [of] hell (5.245-6).

As for the questions that Mephastophilis does answer, a disappointed

Faustus cannot help but deride them as slender trifles [that even]

Wagner can decide (5.224). It is hence ironic that Faustus had

abandoned his former studies because they could [a]fford no

greater miracle (1.9) only to realise that he has paid a tremendous

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price for a devil who possesses no greater skill than to tell him

mere freshmens suppositions (5.225-30). By portraying the power

of devils as necessarily ineffective at fulfilling desires, Marlowe

suggests the theological belief that without God, man as imperfect

beings can do nothing. It is indeed true that one can find wholeness

only in God. Considering how God is the logos of the universe, and is

thereby the ultimate maker of Truth itself, it is God, and not

Mephastophilis, that has the answer Faustus ardently seeks. Faustus

has obviously misconceived the nature of God when he thinks that he

can transcend his sin-tainted mortality by turning towards the vanity

of necromancy, for it is ironically by the grace of God that Faustus

can ever [taste] the eternal joys of heaven (3.78) a fact that he

was too glutted with self-conceit to recognise.

Having rejected God, Faustus is thrust into the mediocrity of sin;

for even with Mephastophilis at his beck and call, he hardly achieves

anything remarkable during the precious twenty-four years. Instead

of facilitating a boundless ambition, his sins [illustrate] the

smallness of their preoccupations [and] their vices (Smith 173). As

Faustus proceeds through his life of profligacy, his exploits get

increasingly pathetic as the order of personages in whose presence

he performs the black art (9.2) decrease in rank: from playing

tricks on the Pope to cheating a horse-courser. The worthlessness of

the entitlements granted him by the devilish pact is nowhere more

ironic than when Faustus, who had fancied himself as great

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emperor of the world [n]ow that [he has] obtained what [he]

desires (3.104-12), is reduced to a sycophant before the actual

Emperor, content to do whatsoever [his] majesty shall command

[him] (9.14-15).

Such mediocrity is also reflected by the parade of the Seven

Deadly Sins, who far from being awe-inspiring, are really little more

than clowns appropriately equipped with frivolous rejoinders (Smith

172). One would expect that Pride might at the head of the parade,

and as the principal sin that causes the fall of Lucifer and Faustus

be absorbed in more grandiose schemes of egotistic immorality than

that of Ovids flea creep[ing] into every corner of a wench (5.283).

As such, Marlowe affirms that sin, despite its grave consequences, is

actually petty in nature and is thus incongruous with the acquisition

of knowledge and power (Smith 171). Moreover, the failure of

Faustus to achieve his purposes serves to demonstrate that evil does

not pay its dues. Certainly, thou art deceived (5.175) like Faustus

should one trust in infernal powers, for they make but empty

promises.

As it is, Faustus may have been swindled and thus deprived of

[heavenly] joys (5.179), but since God is so clearly superior to the

devils, and alone possesses the power to redeem him, then one

wonders why Faustus does not simply repent. After all, the

promptings of the Good Angel to do penance even after the pact is

made imply that Faustus is not irrevocably damned. That

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Mephastophilis too, realizing that he cannot touch his soul for

[h]is faith is great, resorts to earthly and physical temptations like

Helen to afflict his body with (12.69-70), is evidence that Faustus is

still within salvation. God will indeed pity [him] if [he] repent[s]

(5.192), yet the tragedy is that Faustus is never able to alleviate his

strong sense of despair. Convinced that God loves [him] not

(5.10) because scarce can [he] name salvation, faith, or heaven

before his sin comes to thunder in his ears, Faustus believes himself

so hardened [that he] cannot repent (5.194-6). By presuming that

his sin is greater than Gods grace however, Faustus commits the

ultimate sin of despair against the Holy Spirit. Hence, where

Christs blood streams in the firmament (13.70), Faustus finds not

the assurance of love from Christ, whose blood hath ransomed

[him] (13.90), but shrinks from the heavy wrath of God and his

ireful brows (13.75-77). In his final hour, he sees, not the loving

Father, but the wrathful Jehovah (Ornstein 1383) to whom he

implores, My God, my God, look not so fierce on me! (13.110).

While it is Faustus hubristic pride and ambition that leads him into

sin, it is despair the unbelief that Gods mercies are infinite and

the insistence that his offense can neer be pardoned (13.13-15)

that ultimately completes his hellish fall (Epilogue.4).

With its warning against the practice [of] more than heavenly

power permits (Epilogue 8), Doctor Faustus is ostensively a moral

tale about Renaissance overreaching. Yet its focus on sin and

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salvation also reinforces orthodox Christian values inherited from

medieval times. It may be that the dignity of man lies in his free will,

but even that gift from God is subject to his divine law. The tragedy

of Faustus is thus not just that he is guilty of pride and despair, but

that he possesses a misguided and defective theology. He does not

understand that the foolishness of God is wiser than human

wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:25) even that which the Renaissance Man

is endowed with. In judging Gods mercy and grace according to

imperfect human standards of justice, he fails to recognise His true

nature, and thereby loses his chance for salvation.

Works Cited

Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning. Chicago: The

University of Chicago Press, 1980. 1-2. Print.

Marlowe, Christopher. The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. The

Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th Ed. Stephen

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Greenblatt et al. Vol. B. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company,

Inc., 2012. 1127-1163. Print.

Ornstein, Robert. Marlowe and God: The Tragic Theology of Dr.

Faustus. PMLA, Vol. 83, No. 5 (Oct., 1968): 1378-1385. JSTOR.

PDF File.

Smith, Warren D. The Nature of Evil in "Doctor Faustus". The

Modern Language Review, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Apr., 1965): 171-175.

JSTOR. PDF File.

Westlund, Joseph. The Orthodox Christian Framework of Marlowe's

Faustus. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 3, No. 2,

Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (Spring, 1963): 191-205.

JSTOR. PDF File.