Eulogy Of The Tragical History Of Doctor Faustus By Christopher Marlowe Poem by Z.I. Mahmud

Explore Marlowe's presentation of Doctor Faustus as a character who gets what he deserves. You must relate to your discussion to relevant contextual factors.
Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan playwright wrote the tragical play and morality drama of Doctor Faustus in blank verse. Marlowe's depiction and embodiment of Doctor Faustus personifies the necromantic and damnable life allegorizing evil's triumph over angelic and evangelic nature as-the damnation of human soul. Doctor Faustus being the protagonist was skeptical, desperate and scholarly erudite, and lately he forsakes as well as abjures God, the Holy Scriptures and the Bible.
The morality play begins with a prologue by the chorus in prefatory note who informs Faustus' parentage of a base stock of Rhodes in Germany. He went to procure scholarship from Wittenberg and achieved doctoral fellowship in Divinity. Notwithstanding, Faustus' lustful ambition and carnal-wanton desires are filled with ravish-voluptuousness as allusions to these lines: "His waxen wings…melting heavens conspired his overthrow; "… Icarus the son of Daedulus along with his father escaped from Crete by flying with wings made of fathers and wax. The wings melted as they flew very near to the sun. This mythology poignantly portrays a satirical caricature of the fate ordained and destined in Faustus' eternal damnation.
Doctor Faustus beseeches Wagner, the attendant to summon his necromantic acquaintances Valdes and Cornelius. Because Faustus believed that with their "sage conference" he would be accomplished in black art-necromancy. Furthermore, Faustus, baffled and perplexed the Germany clergymen, surpassed all the learned scholars of Wittenberg and made them throng around him in the same way as the spirits of hell clustered around the renowned singer Musaeus, the son of Orpheus when he came down to the underworld. Even Agrippa's high esteem throughout Europe for same of black magic would be a triffle matter in Faustus' realm.
Faustus conjures in a grove amidst the gloomy shadowy earth; begins incantations. Mephistopheles, the deputy of Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness and Hell admonished by Faustus because of his scanty and ugly looks. Mephistopheles reenters like a Franciscan Friar whom Faustus abjures as a subordinate to be in acquiescence and obeisance. "I charge thee wait upon me whilst I live…Or th' ocean to overwhelm the world." Faustus proclaims that there was no chief except Belzeebub and he would sell his soul to the devil after twenty four years (craving for mundane sensual pleasures and voluptuousness and filled with avarice and gluttony) .
Morality plays were very common during the 15th and 16th centuries as they sensed to educate the audience about their religion exhibiting parable and fable. Through Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe, depicted the ambiguity and duality of character. The Good Angel and Bad Angel symbolize and personified the former his conscience of morality and the latter his inordinate ambition and passion for lustful desires. Morality plays in Elizabethan England were alluded to these themes and motifs during the revival of at, literature and theatre. Faustus goes beyond the typical Renaissance because the protagonist is willing to sell his soul for twenty four years of being omnipotent and omniscient, which suggests the need for knowledge is the wealthiest and the greatest desire for a Renaissance man, in the same way to that money is the greatest desire to a modernman.
The necromantic protagonist would build an altar and a church and offer luke-worm blood of new born infants in his adoration and love of Lucifer. He even stabs his arm and the blood congeals -to write in blood pact bond between him and Lucifer, Mephistopheles provides a chaffer of coals to thicken the blood and takes away his soul. "Consummatum…bequeath'd his soul to Lucifer." These are the symbolic poignant expression of Faustus' inordinate ambition and passion: "I John Faustus of Wittenberg…soul to Lucifer…" (Lines 110)Act II Scene I.
Faustus declares hell as old wives' tale and a mere triffle. He would love to have a mistress: wanton and lascivious. Mephistopheles entertains him as a Devil dressed like a woman with firecracks. The contemplation of Faustus after a scoffing and scathing drollery with the wicked Mephistopheles are gracefully and eloquently depicted in his soliloquy as both Good and Bad Angels whispered their counsels. "My heart so harden'd …salvation, faith or heaven." (lines 20)Act II Scene II.
Lucifer, Belzeebub and Mephistopheles incantation enchanted and allured Faustus' soul with enticement of the Seaven Deadly Sins: "Pride, Covetousness, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth and Lechery. Faustus was contemplating path of eternal damnation but Lucifer proclaimed ominous apprehension which remembrances' of Faustus perdition: singing of the pact.
Faustus visited extensively throughout Europe and Mephistopheles allured him to enchant incantation and buffoonery with the Pope and the Cardinal Friars on St. Peters Eve at the banquet. As the startled Pope was chanting to exorcise apparition of purgatory spirits; invisible Faustus boxed him in his ear. Necromancy, which was illegal during the Renaissance period and only God should have the ower to give life. Faustus' skepticism in religion would be due to the play being written in the Protestant Reformation period, Marlowe's incisive interpretation of the corruption within the Catholic Church in scene 8 through alliterative diction: "My Lord, here is a dainty dish"; in a recent modern interpretation of the play, Faustus stabbed the Pope through the heart whereas the original text revealed Faustus hits the Pope a box of the ear as he crosses himself again at the banquet hall. This adaptation portrays how, during the Renaissance, hitting the Pope would be seen as a farcical and comedic, however, it would have admired the effect on modern audience.
Faustus was poetic and Marlowe's gift to poetry and lyricism and poetry would be celebrated among the Renaissance bourgeois and aristocratic audience. Being downcasted and downhearted, Faustus thrives and strives to have a glimpse of the eternal and everlasting glimpse of the beauty of maiden Helen's glorious brilliance."Sweet, Helen make me immortal with…Her lips suck forth my soul…(lines 90)Act V Scene I.
William Hazlitt remarked: His Doctor Faustus, although a imperfect and unequalled performance, but it is his greatest work. Faustus, himself, is a rude sketch but a gigantic one. The character maybe considered as the personification of the pride of will, eagerness of curiosity, sublimed beyond the reach of fear and remorse.
"Repentance is never a serious possibility for Faustus; he is doomed from the start." In the light of this comment, explore Marlowe's dramatic presentation of Doctor Faustus. You must relate to relevant contextual factors in your discussion.
Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus maybe reckoned as the first greatest spiritual tragedy or tragedy of the soul. In this epoch making drama the deep moral agony and anguish as well as painful spiritual conflict has been superbly laid before us by the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe.
In the prologue by the chorus Christopher Marlowe's exposition of Machiavellian hero Doctor Faustus-the protagonist filled with inordinate ambition and indomitable passion depiction being narrated. The scholarly erudite doctorate of Divinity, despite his accomplishments and blessings fell an easy victim to the lure of unholy necromancy-the black art of incantation to perform miraculous feats by the apparition of evil and devilish spirits.
Marlowe has very amazingly illustrated the allusion and reference to Faustus' ultimate doom and devastation to Greek and Roman mythologies which are abundance in Elizabethan Renaissance England. "Till swoln with cunning of a self-conceit; His waxen wings did mount above his reach. And, melting, heavens conspir'd his overthrow." The story of Icarus in that same way elucidate the young and ravish son of the witch-craft and necromancer, Daedulus (a fugitive and prisoner of King Minos of Crete) . With waxen-feathered wings both flew away, but unfortunately, Icarus flew very high nearing the sun. The waxen wings melted and he dropped in the sea and was drowned. To learn and practice the black art of magic he surrendered his soul to the Devil and died a miserable death to be doomed to hell forever.
The appearance of Good Angel and Evil Angel symbolizes the personification of the dilemma or the psychological conflict between the devil and the dead sea. Because the former represents the conscience of morality and the latter represents lustful desires for inordinate ambition and indomitable passion. "Have not I … my Mephistopheles (lines 26-30)Act II Scene II. Faustus has the realization that he is doomed forever. When he looks at the beautiful sky, a sense of guilt and remorse invades the soul. The deep agony and painful conflict in the mind of Faustus has been depicted poignantly by Marlowe. He wants to forsake the unholy black art of necromancy and regret towards retrospection. But he succumbed into sunken bed of chasm so deep that salvation and divine mercy recedes him like a miracle to him. In these moments of despair and dejection, Faustus attempts to console and pacify his mind by remembrances and recollection of the sensual pleasures of voluptuousness. He reminisces how he had the incantation of apparition of the great Greek legendary epic poet, Homer to sing before him the story of romance of Prince Paris (Alexander)for Cenone, a lady nymph of Mount Ida and her tragic death after being deserted by the prince. With his supernatural powers, Faustus also compelled the spirit of Amphion to play on his harp sweet music which once charmed the stones to move of their own accord and build a wall around the ancient Thabes for its fortification.
Lucifer, Beelzebub and Mephistopheles have appeared to meet Faustus when a conflict between the evil and the good raged in the soul of Faustus followed by the incarnation of Good Angel and Bad Angel. "Ah, Christ, my Saviour, Seek to save distressed Faustus' soul. My heart's so hardn'd, I cannot repent." This disposition and propensity of Doctor Faustus' repentance provoked the influence of contemplation by the Good and Bad Angels in Faustus' mind.
The Pope and the Cardinal of Lorraine in the banquet with friars attending on St. Peter's Eve scene embody satirical and comical farce. This allegorizes mockery and pantomime of the Elizabethan Catholicism's buffoonery and travesty. The snatching of the dishes and drinks by Faustus horrifies and terrifies Friars, furthermore, whenever firecrackers were used by Mephistopheles. The Pope crosses himself when the Cardinal of Lorraine assures that some spirits have appeared with presumption of redemption from the purgatory. Faustus hits him a box of the ear.
Schelling remarked with illumination and enlightenment: "Marlowe gave the drama passion and poetry; and poetry was his most precious gift. Shakespeare would not have been Shakespeare had Marlowe never lived or worked. He might have not been the altogether Shakespeare that we know." The "Morning Star of Elizabethan Drama" was inevitably "Columbus of the new literary of the world".
"O I'll leap…my Christ." (lines 78-80) . This dramatic and poignant soliloquy embellishes anguish and agony of the terror- and- grief stricken soul of Doctor Faustus. Terror made him frantic and desperate. He is albeit determined to achieve salvation. But, unfortunately, the clock strikes twelve and the Devil seems to drag and thwart Faustus. He seems to behold a vision of Christ on the cross silhouetted in the firmament of the sky and Christs' holy blood streaming down the vast eternal sky. One drop of the Saviour's blood could wash away all his sins-this would be suffice to redeem his soul from eternal devastation and devastation. But to his great dismay, the Devil would pierce his body to pieces and enslave his soul. The mountains do not fall on him nor the earth opens wide, he turns to the stars under whose influence he was born and due to whose influence he is now doomed to eternal damnation. He now frantically appeals to the stars so that they would made him rise like a mass of vapour in to the very depths of the dark clouds saturated with moisture and falling rain drops would purify his damnable soul. "You stars…to heaven". (lines 90-96)Act V Scene III.
Faustus, the erudite scholar, who won the laurels of Apollo, the emblem of uncommon learning, has met with a tragic end prematurely. In spite of all his great talents his unbridled ambitious soul wanted to delve deep into the mysteries of nature and to gain supernatural powers by any means foul or fair. Marlow evinced envision of evocation amongst the Elizabethan people who were madly running down after limitless power and position throwing overboard all ethical and moral values.
This is a culmination of annotations and bibliography-
Critical commentaries and reviews from Dr. S. Sen Christopher Marlowe Doctor Fasutus and Exemplar Essays Pearson Edexcel UK