Doctor Faustus` Death Essays - Works Based On The Faust Legend

Doctor Faustus` Death 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