Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was a well-educated scholar and one of the University

Wits who comes in second and closing years of the century. His play Tamburlaine the great,
Doctor Faustus and the Jew of Malta, Edward the second and part of the massacre of Paris and
the tragedy Dido, Queen of Carthage. He is the most talented playwright and Shakespeare is a
visible and distinctive member of the group. His hero, Doctor Faustus is really representative of
the Renaissance spirit.

Scholar R.M. Dawkins famously remarked that Doctor Faustus tells “the story of a
Renaissance man who had to pay the medieval price for being one.” This period in English
literature is also called Catherine period or age for Shakespeare. Re means again or
enlightenment. This was a reaction to the darkness of the middle ages. The Renaissance was a
movement that began in Italy in the fifteenth century and soon spread throughout Europe,
carrying with it a new emphasis on the individual, on classical learning, and on scientific inquiry
into the nature of the world.

Dr. Faustus the protagonist of Christopher Marlowe's great tragedy can be considered as a
tragic hero similar to the other tragic characters such as Oedipus or Hamlet. Dr. Faustus who
sells his soul to Lucifer in exchange of twenty four years of knowledge ought to have some special
features in order to be considered as a typical renaissance man as well as tragic hero.

This interpretation of a Renaissance hero is clearly attached to the character of John

Faustus from the start of the play. As Faustus debates what to do with the rest of his life he runs
through many occupations and dismisses themMarlowe's presentation of Faustus as a
Renaissance hero serve him well. It allows the audience to instantly recognise the German Doctor
as an intelligent man, who is not just an academic but well schooled in various art forms. It is
this that makes his "four and twenty years" proposal to Lucifer all the more disappointing as it
lacks the intellectual weight that we, as the audience, know Faustus has.
 As Hazllit says,”faustus,in his impatience to fulfill at once and for a moment, for a few
short years,all the desries and conceptions of his soul ,is willing to give in exchange his soul,and
body to the great enemy of mankind.”

The German doctor is clearly a very intelligent man, but not only is his proposal
ridiculous, he is manipulated throughout the play by Mephostophilis. Despite asserting in his
soliloquy opening that if he were a magician then his power would "stretcheth as far doth the
mind of man", Faustus curbs his own ability by selling his soul for a mere quarter of a century,
which would effectively be the end of his natural life regardless owing to the poor life expectancy
at the time.. He restricts potential limitless power, imposing time constraints on himself where
none were needed. After earlier asserting that he could soon command "all things that move
between the quiet poles" of the universe, and he aimed to "get a deity", he scales these down
almost immediately, rendering it a task to "give me whatsoever I shall lack". The indisputable
Renaissance man is flaunting his idiocy here, to a point where even the uneducated audience to
which Marlowe's plays would've been performed can see the error in the aspiring magician's
ways.

Renaissance literally means rebirth, and this interpretation of the word lends insight
into the play Doctor Faustus. John Faustus begins the play as a talented man who believes he has
accomplished everything possible in the traditional areas of learning. By the end of Act One,
though, Faustus has tried supernatural means to enhance himself "Had I as many souls as there
be stars / I'd give them all for Mephostophilis". This deal is in a sense a rebirth for the character
of Faustus as he attempts to transfigure himself into a demi-god. This transformation is
reinforced by the ability for Mephostophilis to change his shape at Faustus's request. "I charge
thee to return and change thy shape" is a clear affirmation of the theme of transformation, and
ties in to the overhaul of Faustian personality that takes place throughout this play.
 Renaissance also praised individualism in stead of society. Faustus was an individualistic
type of hero. He did not care for what others thought or what the society said. In stead he wanted
to have his own ideas and challenge others. It is not that he was always right but he had
individualistic ideas all the way in the drama.

Renaissance challenged the supremacy of Catholic pope in Vatican. The same thing can
be seen by Doctor Faustus. He has challenged Christianity and taken the support of the evil.
Mephistopheles was evil and he wanted to take the soul of Doctor Faustus. Well, Doctor Faustus
exchanged his soul for gaining more knowledge and Mephistopheles promised that any kind of
knowledge will be within the power of Faustus.

A very important renaissance element was an appreciation of beauty and art. When
Faustus became very powerful then he wanted to have a very beautiful wife and he selected Helen
from Greek mythology. We know that Helen was the most beautiful woman in Ancient Greece and
for her the battle between Troy and Greece was fought. Also, it is clear from the drama that
Faustus had good appreciation about art. Here, I like to say that in renaissance Italy, painters
and sculptures like Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rafael produced some great piece of
works and thus changed the history of human civilization. Doctor Faustus had the same spirit
about beauty.

There are some anti-renaissance elements that we can see in Doctor Faustus. Well, what
we can see is that after he became very powerful he started to use his power for very small things.
For example, he started to use his power to often nonsense and useless people. He turned the
people he did not like as animals. This was not a good thing. He also became greedy for money
and luxury. He did not give that much importance for knowledge for which his soul is sold. In
stead, he spent his life for luxury and this is against the renaissance spirit ,which makes his
character tragic.
 The action makes Hero Tragic. So, there should be a mistake or fault. Such a fault is
always portrayed by action not by character. Without action there cannot be a Tragedy in the life
of the character. Tragedy always happens, if the character has any evil, too much goodness, lack
of taking good judgments, pride or over-confidence, etc. So, Tragic Hero should have certain
good and evil qualities. He should have the amalgam of goodness and badness. Then and then,
conflict takes place. Conflict is another side of Tragic Hero.

According to Aristotle, he should have certain kinds of good and bad qualities. M.H.
Abrams remarks:

“…He is thoroughly good nor thoroughlybad but a mixture of both; and also that this tragic
effect will be stronger if the Hero is ‘better than we are.’ in the sense that he is of higher than
ordinary moral worth.”

Perhaps the most anti-renaissance element in Doctor Faustus is the death scene. When
he was dying, he became very coward and he forgot everything and he wanted to get the
forgiveness of god. He wanted to again come back to religion and Christianity. It was he who
fought against the Christian ideas and made fun with religion but when death came to him he
became very afraid.

Mountaines and hilles, come, come, and fall on me.

And hide me from the heauy wrath of Grod,

No, No!

Then wil I headlong runne into the earth

Earth gape! no, it wil not harbour me.

Of course, it is natural because when a person is dying then he becomes very afraid. And
secondly, if he was shown that he was not afraid of death and accepted death easily and did not
care of Christianity then the audience of Christopher Marlowe’s time would become angry.
Christopher Marlowe would have suffered from the Church that he was against Christianity. So,
we have to think of the time that Christopher Marlowe wrote the drama.

To close, Marlowe portrays Faustus as both the typical Renaissance man and as a fairly
developed tragic hero. This is no contradiction in terms, and the rounded character that a
Renaissance man has to be, makes Faustus all the more universal in what eventually germinates
into a cautionary tale. Yet Marlowe himself was no pious traditionalist, and it is tempting to see
in Faustus—as many readers have—a hero of the new modern world, a world free of God,
religion, and the limits that these imposed on humanity. Faustus may pay a medieval price, this
reading suggests, but his successors will go further than he and suffer less, as we have in modern
times. On the other hand, the disappointment and mediocrity that follow Faustus’s pact with the
devil, as he descends from grand ambitions to petty conjuring tricks, might suggest a
contrasting interpretation. Marlowe may be suggesting that the new, modern spirit, though
ambitious and glittering, will lead only to a Faustian dead end.