FREE ESSAY ON FAUSTUS: RENAISSANCE MARTYR OR TRAGIC HERO

FAUSTUS: RENAISSANCE MARTYR OR TRAGIC HERO

Faustus: Renaissance Martyr or Tragic Hero Faustus died a death that few 
could bear to imagine,
much less experience. After knowing for many years when exactly he would 
die, he reached the
stroke of the hour of his destiny in a cowardly, horrid demeanor. Finally, 
when the devils appeared
at the stroke of midnight, tearing at his flesh as they draw him into his 
eternal torment, he screams for
mercy without a soul, not even God Himself, to help him. However, what to 
consider Doctor John
Faustus from Christopher Marlow's dramatic masterpiece The Tragical History 
of the Life and
Death of Doctor Faustus is a very debatable issue. For example, one can see 
that he threw his life
away for the sake of knowledge, becoming obsessed with the knowledge that he 
could possess. In
this case, he is unarguably a medieval tragic hero. However, when 
considering the fact that he died
for the sake of gaining knowledge, pushing the limits of what is possible in 
spite of obvious limitations
and, eventually, paying the ultimate penalty, he could be considered a 
Renaissance martyr. These
two points of view have their obvious differences, and depending on from 
what time period one
chooses to place this piece of literature varies the way that the play is 
viewed. However, the idea of
considering him a martyr has many flaws, several of which are evident when 
considering who
Faustus was before he turned to necromancy and what he did once he obtained 
the powers of the
universe. Therefore, inevitably, the audience in this play should realize 
that Faustus was a great man
who did many great things, but because of his hubris and his lack of vision, 
he died the most tragic of
heroes. Christopher Marlowe was borne on February 6, 1564 (Discovering 
Christopher Marlowe
2), in Canterbury, England, and baptized at St. George's Church on the 26th 
of the same month,
exactly two months before William Shakespeare was baptized at 
Stratford-upon-Avon (Henderson
275). He was the eldest son of John Marlowe of the Shoemaker's Guild and 
Katherine Arthur, a
Dover girl of yeoman stock (Henderson 275). Upon graduating King's School, 
Canterbury, he
received a six-year scholarship to Cambridge upon the condition that he 
studies for the church. He
went to Cambridge, but had to be reviewed by the Privy Council before the 
university could award
him his M.A. degree because of his supposed abandonment of going to church. 
He was awarded his
degree in July of 1587 at the age of twenty-three after the Privy Council 
had convinced Cambridge
authorities that he had behaved himself orderly and discreetly whereby he 
had done Her Majesty
good service (Henderson 276). After this, he completed his education from 
Cambridge over a
period of six years. During this time he wrote some plays, including Hero 
and Leander, along with
translating others, such as Ovid's Amores and Book I of Lucan's Pharsalia 
(Henderson 276).
During the next five years he lived in London where he wrote and produced 
some of his plays and
traveled a great deal on government commissions, something that he had done 
while trying to earn
his M.A. degree. In 1589, however, he was imprisoned for taking part in a 
street fight in which a
man was killed; later he was discharged with a warning to keep the peace 
(Henderson 276). He
failed to do so; three years later he was summoned to court for assaulting 
two Shoreditch
constables, although there is no knowledge on whether or not he answered 
these charges
(Henderson 276). Later Marlowe was suspected of being involved in the siege 
of Roven where
troops were sent to contain some Protestants who were causing unrest in 
spite of the Catholic
League. Then, after sharing a room with a fellow writer Thomas Kyd, he was 
accused by Kyd for
having heretical papers which denied the deity of Jesus Christ 
(Discovering Christopher Marlowe
2). Finally, a certain Richard Baines accused him of being an atheist. 
Before he could answer any of
these charges, however, he was violently stabbed above his right eye while 
in a fight Ingram Frizer
(Discovering Christopher Marlowe 2). Doctor Faustus could be considered one 
of Marlowe's
masterpieces of drama. It was his turn from politics, which he established 
himself in with his plays
Edward II and Tamburlaine the Great, to principalities and power. In it he 
asks the reader to analyze
what the limits are for human power and knowledge and ponder what would 
happen if one man tried
to exceed those limits. The play opens up with Faustus, who is supposedly 
the most learned man in
the world, talking about how he has mastered every field of knowledge known 
to man. He is bored
with theology, finding that man is doomed no matter what happens, and he has 
become a master
physician, curing a whole village of a plague. He feels that there is 
nothing left for him to learn, as is
frustrated by this; therefore, he decides to delve into the realm of 
necromancy and magic. He calls
upon two other magicians, Valdes and Cornelius, to teach him how to conjure. 
He learns to do so,
and upon his first private experiment into the black art, Mephistophilis 
appears to him in the form of
an ugly devil. This repulses Faustus, so he tells this devil to go away and 
return as a friar. The devil
does so, but then explains that it was not his conjuring that brought forth 
this devil, but the fact that
he conjured and, therefore, cursed the trinity that made him appear. Faustus 
realizes the amount of
power that he can gain from being a necromancer, so he tells Mephistophilis 
to return to hell and tell
Satan that he will sell his soul to him for twenty-four years of absolute 
power. Satan agrees to this,
telling Faustus to sign the bargain in blood. Faustus does so even after a 
Good Angel appears to him
trying to convince him not to do so and several omens appear which warn him 
not to make the bond.
For the next twenty-four years Faustus, with Mephistophilis as his servant, 
has absolute power.
However, in spite of this, he spends his time going to several different 
important places to display his
power in the form of petty tricks. In Rome, Faustus turns himself invisible 
and, along with
Mephistophilis, pokes fun at the Pope and some friars. He also goes to the 
German court where he
shows of his power to Emperor Carolus by conjuring the ghost of Alexander 
the Great. When one
knight is sarcastic with Faustus' tricks, he places a set of horns on his 
head. Later on, Faustus sells
his horse to a horse-courser on the condition that he not take the horse 
into water. Soon thereafter,
the horse-courser returns, furious that his horse turned into a bundle of 
hay in the middle of the lake.
Finally, later on in the play, Faustus conjures up Helen of Troy for some 
fellow scholars for their
viewing pleasure. As the play draws to its climax, Faustus begins to realize 
what he has done and
that death, which he once thought didn't exist, is indeed his ultimate 
destiny. Several times he is given
the hint that he should repent to God. For example, an old man enters 
towards the end of the play
and informs Faustus that it isn't too late to repent because he himself was 
once a sinner but repented.
Faustus still doesn't listen. Finally, as the clock strikes twelve upon his 
hour of destiny, many ugly
devils appear and drag him off as he finally screams for mercy. After 
finishing reading or seeing this
play, one can argue that Faustus was a Renaissance hero. In fact, some argue 
that this play
epitomizes the ideals of the Renaissance: egocentrism and the 
over-indulgence of knowledge. The
lust for power that led to the excess of the Renaissance-the slaughter of 
Montezuma and countless
American Indians, the launching of the Armada, the very creation of the 
English Church out of
Henry's spleen-is epitomized in Dr. Faustus (Shipley 404). Because Faustus 
gave his life and soul
to Satan himself for the sake of gaining a greater knowledge is proof that 
he is a Renaissance hero.
He rebels against the limitations set forth by medieval ideals and makes a 
contract for knowledge
and power. In essence, Faustus, like every other Renaissance man, tries to 
prove that man can rise
above the current set of limitations. Faustus does go to extremes by 
chancing damnation in order to
gain his knowledge; however, he is considered tragic and God himself is seen 
as the bad guy
because He set forth limitations on knowledge and makes man suffer eternal 
damnation when trying
to exceed those limitations. The comedy then comes out when one thinks that 
man was created by
God and, therefore, given his thirst for knowledge by God. When he tries to 
gain knowledge, then,
he is damned forever. This divine comedy is one of the ironies that one can 
perceive in Marlowe's
play. However, this Renaissance view of Marlowe being a martyr much less 
realistic when
considering Faustus to be a medieval tragic hero. In fact, for the very 
reasons that one can argue that
Faustus is martyr, one can give strong evidence that he fell from grace and 
became a tragic hero.
First of all, the Faustus claims that he is a master in all fields of study. 
In medicine, his [prescriptions
are] hung up like monuments / Whereby whole cities have escaped the plague 
(1.1.20-21). He is
bored with the study of law for this study fits a mercenary drudge / Who 
aims at nothing but
external trash, / Too servile and illiberal to me (1.1.34-36). With 
theology, Faustus claims that he is
dumbfounded by the loose translation of the quote from Romans 6:23, For the 
wages of sin is
death. This final area is where the irony is greatly seen in the play. 
Throughout the play, Faustus is
given the option to repent for these sins and turn back towards God. When 
the Good Angel and the
Bad Angel appear to him throughout the play, both sides try to persuade 
Faustus that they are right.
The Bad Angel tells Faustus about how he should delve into necromancy, for 
this art is wherein all
nature's treasury is contained (1.1.75). The Good Angel, on the other hand, 
warns that by dealing
with magic, he would ask for God's heavy wrath upon thy head (1.1.72). At 
first, Faustus is so
eager to gain this knowledge from Satan that he ignores the Good Angel. 
Later, when the Good
Angel appears again and pleads for him to think on heavenly things, but 
again Faustus, either
because he doesn't want to or is afraid to, ignores this angel. The irony 
comes from Faustus' view
on the statement from the Book of Romans mentioned above. Faustus only 
recalls the first half of the
verse; the entire verse states, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift 
of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord. His oversight of this pivotal verse, which in itself 
is the center for Christianity,
is the ultimate irony in his downfall. He refu Secondly, Faustus originally 
asks Mephistophilis and
Satan for the power to do anything, be it to make the moon drop from her 
sphere / Or the ocean to
overwhelm the world (1.3.38-39). He is even promised this power for 
twenty-four years if he sells
his soul to Satan. However, when he is given his extraordinary power, he 
resorts to using it for petty
tricks and tomfoolery. Originally, Faustus gained this power in order to 
learn more about the
essential nature of the universe. However, when he travels to Rome, he 
doesn't try to use his power
in this way; he becomes invisible, boxes the pope in the ear and snatches 
cups away from the pope's
hands. He then causes fireworks to explode at the feet of the cardinals and 
the pope. Finally, he
returns with Mephistophilis, both dressed as cardinals, and poses as two 
fathers returning from a
mission. All of this is pure slapstick comedy to the audience; it is also 
comedy against Faustus. He is
given great powers, and resorts to using them for petty tricks. He does the 
same thing later on, while
at the German Court and Emperor Carolus the Fifth, where he makes the ghost 
of Alexander the
Great appear and where he also makes the horns appear atop the head of the 
knight, Benvolio. He
then shows how his one-time thirst for the secrets of the universe become 
overshadowed by his
simple lustful fantasies when he conjures up Helen of Troy and then, once he 
is faced by the old man
and his warnings, exits with this legendary beauty. Not only is he blinded 
so much by his power that
he resorts to simple tricks, but he is reduced to the indulgence of his 
simple pleasures. Through these
displays of his necromantic powers Faustus shows the true tragedy of his 
character. Finally, and
probably his most tragic flaw, is the fact that he tries to gain a knowledge 
that is completely
forbidden to him. Although the Renaissance view says that from the search of 
such forbidden power
one become mighty and truly great, the medieval view says that there are 
certain limits for man and
he should never try to break those limits. In nature, each and every thing 
obeys a certain order that
God Himself set. First there is God, then the angels, then man, then 
animals, and finally inanimate
objects. If man tries to sink lower into the realm of the animal, which 
implies trying to succumb to
man's animalistic lusts and tendencies, one is seen as succumbing to the 
id personality, as called by
Sigmund Freud. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, one can try to become 
more become
superhuman, attempting to break the limits of man. Lucifer was once of the 
most beautiful angels until
he was guilty of aspiring pride and insolence / For which God threw him 
from the face of heaven
(1.3.68-69). Faustus thinks that he can become like God by gaining these 
great powers; little does
he know that he is damning himself to eternal torment. Even when his final 
seconds are approaching,
he tries to break the limitation that, since time began, man has tried to 
circumvent: time itself.
Although he was given all of the power of the universe, he was ironically 
not given the power to halt
time, and as he is about to meet his destiny, more time is all he can ask 
for so that he can repent for
his sins: Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may 
cease and midnight never
come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make Perpetual day; or let 
this hour be but A year, a
month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent and save his soul! O 
lente lente currite noctis
equi (5.3.133-139). This last line, meaning Slowly, slowly run, O horses of 
the night, sums up
Faustus' desperation and tragic nature very thoroughly. Once he didn't 
believe in death or in hell;
sadly, now he realizes that those two things are the only reality he will 
have from then on. Over time,
this play has received many critiques. In fact, there is question on whether 
or not Marlowe actually
wrote this play in its entirety. One critic says that this drama should be 
regarded as a skeletal
structure of the play written by Marlowe, for the surviving manuscripts are 
so interspersed with
comic scenes and the lines themselves are so often revised according to 
whims of the actors that the
original writing must be culled out of the surviving version (Dr. Faustus 
261). This same author,
when thinking along the same lines as the above quote, says, the exploits 
of Faustus are frequently
rendered pure low comedy (Dr. Faustus 261). From this he concluded that 
these parts weren't
written at all by Marlowe. Although this may be true, as the stylistic 
differences between the comical
and the serious scenes is very broad, drawing this conclusion from the fact 
that the slapstick comedy
that Faustus and Mephistophilis exhibit together is of a much different tone 
from the rest of the play is
preposterous. In my opinion, Marlowe included these scenes and these obvious 
examples of
comedy to show the true tragedy of Faustus. He begins the play as a great 
man who is a master in
every field of knowledge known to man. The best way to represent his truly 
dramatic turn-around is
to show Faustus becoming involved in petty tricks and antics to show of his 
incredible power. This
true tragedy is, I believe, a step that Marlowe consciously took in order to 
show the dramatic
change in the character of Faustus. I am not saying that someone else 
besides Marlowe couldn't
have written these scenes. However, when looking at the debate from this 
point of view, it is very
possible that Marlowe did write them intentionally to show the dramatic 
change in Doctor Faustus.
Faustus was indeed a tragic hero. Many scholars and literary experts may 
debate that, because this
play was written in the Renaissance, Christopher Marlowe intended that 
Doctor Faustus be seen as
a martyr trying to attain that which was forbidden to man in a time when 
doing so was the noble thing
to do. This is not true, however. Doctor Faustus was a tragic hero through 
and through, and the way
that he presents himself in the play is solid evidence for this. To begin 
with, he feels that he can justify
his turning to witchcraft and necromancy by his gaining of all other 
knowledges. The irony here is that
he never did, or he would have realized that even after he had committed 
blasphemy by conjuring
spirits, he could have turned back to God. He also is a tragic hero because 
of his methods of using
his new power. Instead of using it to attain the secrets of the universe, he 
plays petty tricks and
tomfoolery on various important people around the world, including the pope 
and the German
emperor. Finally, he proved his tragic nature by trying to move above and 
beyond the limitations set
by God himself. Faustus knew that he had to abide by certain laws and rules 
that God set aside for
all of mankind. Faustus knew his limitations, and thus by trying to break 
those, he damned himself to
eternal torment. Ironically, Faustus could have been the most incredible 
human being who ever lived.
If he had repented, the world would have seen that God is truly merciful 
because he forgave such a
blasphemous heathen as Faustus. Faustus could have become an example for all 
of mankind and
proven that if he could be forgiven, then all could be forgiven. However, 
because he was stubborn,
ignorant, and blind, he refused to see that he was never truly damned until 
he was drug by the devils
into the heart of hell itself. 
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