Christopher Marlowe: vita, opere e Doctor Faustus

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE: VITA, OPERE E DOCTOR FAUSTUS

Christopher Marlowe.

Life. Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564, the same years of Shakespeare. ln L580 he went to Cambridge University where he established a reputation for free thinking and atheism. Due to frequent absence the university authorities refused him his degree, but the Queen' Council intervened saying that he had been in Her Majesty's service. After Marlowe move to London where established himself as the most important playwriting of the period. His death is still shrouded in mystery.

La tragica storia del Dottor Faust di Christopher Marlowe: commento

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE: OPERE

MAIN WORKS - During his short life we wrote five dramatic works: Tamburlaine the great, doctor Faustus, the Jew of Malta, dido queen of Carthage and Edward ll. His works contained the true spirit of the Renaissance. The most important themes of these works are: the lust of play and the desire to break free from the restrictions of the Church. Marlowe's works also represent a departure from the didactic spirit of the Morality Play. Two of the play are concerned with the God: Tamburlaine the great and Doctor Faustus that are designed as the works of an atheist in the modern sense of the word. Tamburlaine the great is the play in which Marlowe shows the most consistent intensity. Tamburlaine was the famous conqueror Timor who ruled subduing Persians and Syrians. Tamburlaine himself seem to carry a religious force: for his vigour is the god within him.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE DOCTOR FAUSTUS: RIASSUNTO

THE PLOT - ln contrast to Tamburlaine the great, who staves for material power, Doctor Faustus seeks the power
coming from knowledge. The play is the poetic re-working of the story of a men who sold his life to the
devil in order to have power in this life, so the devil rnust serve him and give him wath he wants; at the end of that period the devil takes Faustus's soul to Hell.
A MORALITY PLAY? Doctor Faustus is regarded as a morality play, it is different from the medieval play Everyman, where Death is a character and God is vindictíve. Faustus doesn't believe in predestínation and in lífe after death. Faustus views his pact with Lucifer as the only means to fulfil his ambitions.
A SELF-MADE MAN - Faustus reflects the ambition of the Renaissance man, who in still linked to medieval culture but wants to be marked of his own destiny. ln the first act Doctor Faustus is presented as a well proclaimed and
respected scholar. However, that wasn't enough for Faustus who wanted to govern the Nature and Death
through the power of necromancy. The moraI of this ptay is that ambition and dissatisfaction with what
God had given man is a terrible sin that could only lead to damnation.