CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVESITY

A PROJECT ON:-

ELEMENT OF CONTRACT IN CHRISTOPHER

MARLOWES DR. FAUSTUS

SUBMITTED TO-

SUBMITTED BY-

DR. PRATYUSH KAUSHIK

DIKSHA
SEMESTER-II
ROLL NO.-1322
B.A. LLB. (hons.)

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind
support and help of many known and unknown hands . I would like to extend my sincere thanks
to all of them.

I thank my god for providing me with everything that I required in completing this project.

I am highly indebted to the teacher in charge Dr. Pratyush Kaushik for his guidance and constant
supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding the project & also for his
support in completing the project.

I would like to express my gratitude towards my parents for their kind co-operation and
encouragement which helped me in the completion of this project.

I would like to express my special gratitude and thanks to seniors for guidelines and instructions
they provided me with.

THANK YOU

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TABLE OF CONTENT

Acknowledgement

02

1. Introdoction
2. Ranaissance vs Reformation Controversy
3. Role of Chorus
4. Style
5. Conclusion

05
10
12
14
16

Bibliography

18

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AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The resercher aims to find :-

1.
2.
3.
4.

The nature of contract between Doctror Faustus and the devil.

The renaissance vs. reformation controversy in the play of Dr. Faustus.
The role of chorus in the play of Dr. Faustus.
The style of Cristopher Marlowe .

RESEARCH MEHTHODOLOGY:The researcher has used both primary and secondary sources of data collection for this
research work.

The researcher has relied on internet , libraray books , articles , journals , online articles ,
websites , research paper for the completion of this research work.

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1. INTODUCTION

LIFE OF CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE(1564-1593)

Marlowe who was the son of a shoemaker, was born in Canterbury less than three months before
the birth of Shakespeare. He was educated at Kings School, Canterbury, and Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, where he acquired heterodox views on religion. After going down from
Cambridge, he became a secret-service agent of some kind, and travelled abroad in this capacity.
He settled in London in 1586, and soon joined the Lord Admirals Company of Players. His
career as a dramatist must have begun soon after his career as an actor. On the 30th May, 1593,
he was stabbed in an inn at Deptford by a shady secret-service agent by the name of Frizer and
died at the age of twenty-nine years and three months.1

WORKS OF CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

The period of Marlowes dramatic activity comprises six brief years, from 1587 to 1593. Yet
during those six years he wrote six splendid playsall reflecting his essential spirit and nature,
all full of passion, poetry. Each drama centres round some overmastering passionwild,
intemperate passion that grows and develops till it destroys itself. The lust for empire, the lust for
lucre, the lust or knowledge and the lust for beautythese form the background as well as the
mainspring of each play. In all these, Marlowe reveals himself as the greatest discoverer, the
most daring and inspired pioneer, in all our poetic literature, as the writer of genuine tragedy
and genuine blank verse, as one who prepared the path and made the way for the advent of
Shakespeare. In all these are evident qualities of terror and splendour, intensity of purpose and
sublimity of note, imaginative daring and lyrical magnificence. In all these is illustrated his
individualistic conception of tragedy, the classical Greek conception modified by the
Renaissance spirit, the conception which portrays the struggle between the overweening soul,
typically Renaissance in its insatiable ambition, and the limitations which it seeks to overcome.
The following are the important works of Marlowe:
1 http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.in/2010/09/introduction-to-christopher-marlowe.html.
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1. TAMBURLAINE
It was Marlowes first powerful trumpet-blast. The general chorus of warm welcome which
greeted the play on its first presentation on the stage in 1587 encouraged Marlowe to pen his
Second Part. The very subject-matter and style of Tamburlaine sounded a new and striking note
compelling public attention and admiration.
Tamburlaine is the story of a Scythian shepherd who dreams of world conquest and achieves his
aspiration magnificently. As a drama it has many drawbacksthe plot is weak and loosely knit;
the scheme seems to be inartistic, nay, absurd; the effects are grim and bloody. Yet who can
refrain from appraising the play as a first-rate one, taking into account its attractive exaggeration
of thought and expression, its burning passages of eloquent poetry, its glare and horror, its
vehemence and intoxication, its titanic truculence and luminous colouring? In the forefront of all
these, and towering high above them all stands the high-tempered hero, full of indomitable
strength and passionate speech. Tamburlaine is the symbol of invincible human will, the
embodiment of a fearless vision, filled with fretting and fuming aspirations and with the
rapturous glory of which youthful poets dream on summer eves by haunted stream. In
Tamburlaine is enshrined and illustrated
Mans desire and valiance that range,
All circumstance and come to port unspent.
Still climbing after knowledge infiniteTamburlaine bestrides the world like a medieval
Napoleon. In tune with the Titanic strides and triumphs of this superman are the Indian hunter
who thundersI throw my mind across the chasm and my house follows, and also the Scythian
horses which sweep wide spaces of uncivilized splendour with their swift and sparkling
movement. On the whole, Tamburlaine is the most resplendent of Marlowes plays in which the
morning stars of his poetry sing together.
admiration.
2. THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS

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The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus which followed in the wake of Tamburlaine is
acclaimed by all as Marlowes best play in which the leaven of fertile poetry and fearless
imagination works wonders. The story is that of Faustus, a scholar who sells his soul to the devil
in his eagerness for the acquisition of universal knowledge. Faustus is as insatiable and mighty as
Tamburlaine. If Tamburlaine thunders
I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains,
And with my hand turn Fortunes wheel about,
And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere
That Tamburlaine be slain or overcome;
Faustus declares with vibrant passion
All things that move between the quiet poles,
Shall be at my command: emperors and kings,
Are but obeyed in their several provinces,
Nor can they raise the wind or rend the clouds:
.. A sound magician is a mighty God.
Out of the dry bones of the old German legend Marlowe has fashioned a work of art, a noble
drama of a scholars soul in the grip of intense agony. It is a play of vast conflict, fearful failure,
intense feeling, stirring emotion; it is a play whose central idea is that of loss; a play in which sin
is presented with its inescapable reward; a matchless spiritual tragedy in which the mighty
protagonist is man and the mysterious powers that surround him; a play whose symbolism has an
irresistible appeal.

3. THE JEW OF MALTA

This proved to be, in its own day, the most popular of Marlowes plays. Barabas, the
Mediterranean money-lender, with his avaricious dreams of wealth, fore-shadows Shakespeares
Shylock. Dedicated to the spirit of Machiavelli, the play opens a new phase in Marlowes work.
It is a picture of the Elizabethan world of policy in which men were unscrupulous, bold,
implacable, cruel in power and sometimes heroic in defeat. Less passionate and less lyrical than

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Tamburlaine and Faustus, The Jew of Malta is, however, stronger and more bitter than its two
illustrious predecessors.

4. THE MASSACRE OF PARIS

It is generally regarded as Marlowes crudest work. As in other plays so in this, there are
brave and beautiful phrases, emotional and impassioned lines, memorable and magnificent
speeches, and grand and glorious tragic touches. But the material is weakly managed and the
characters are poorly drawn. Indeed, the impression left by this play is that there is not much of
Marlowes hand in it.

5. EDWARD II
It is an undisputed masterpiece of Marlowein which he touches his highest point of
excellence. It is a great historical and political play anticipating Shakespeares Richard II. There
is here none of the beauty and pathos of the earlier plays, none of their splendour and poetry. The
whole is subdued, the style is restrained and temperate, and the characters are boldly and clearly
drawn. The plot is controlled and well adapted, and the treatment of the characters and the details
of description exhibit a growing maturity in the art of Marlowe. Splendid instances of deepening
gloom and swelling pathos are there as in the dungeon scene at Berkeley Castle and in the
abdication scene. And the play touches our imagination and thrills our emotion in the same way
as do the great tragedies of Shakespeare. With something Greek about it as far as the stern
presentment of human misery and anguish is concerned, Edward II is an artistic play that moves
us by its very simplicity and humanity. It is Marlowes ripest play and lasting legacy.

6. DIDO QUEEN OF CARTHAGE

Dido Queen of Carthagefor which Marlowe borrowed material from Virgils Aeneid
was left unfinished. It was Nashe who completed and arranged it for the stage. What part was
done by Marlowe and how much of the play belongs to Nashe is a point not satisfactorily
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explained. But it is evident that Marlovian touches are there surely. The play differs from all its
predecessors in that it does not paint or portray any lust. The hapless love-tale of the great
Carthagenian Queen is treated poetically and dramatically. This is the only play of Marlowe
which has love as its theme and woman as its central figure. Marlowes fondness for rich
imagery and colourful description is present in plenty. His ships have golden cordage, crystal
anchors and ivory oars. Dido has silver arms and tears of pearl. Even the common soldiers wear
rich embroidered coats and have silver whistles to control the winds. It is thus that Marlowe
reveals his passion for describing the beautiful, his delight in luxurian outward and visible
loveliness. Who can miss the ravishing beauty of the lines where Dido expresses her thirsty love
for Aeneas
Ill make me bracelets of his golden hair,
His glistering eyes shall be my looking-glass;
His lips an altar, where Ill offer up
As many kisses as the sea hath sand;
Instead of music I will hear him speak;
His looks shall be my only library.

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2. RENAISSANCE VS. REFORMATION

CONTROVERSY
According to the medieval view of the universe, Man was placed in his position by God and
should remain content with his station in life. Any attempt or ambition to go beyond his assigned
place was considered a great sin of pride. For the medieval person, pride was one of the greatest
sins that one could commit. This concept was based upon the fact that Lucifer's fall was the
result of his pride when he tried to revolt against God. Thus, for the medieval person, aspiring
pride became one of the cardinal sins2.
According to the medieval view, Faustus has a desire for forbidden knowledge. In order to gain
more knowledge than he is entitled to, Faustus makes a contract with Lucifer, which brings about
his damnation. Faustus then learns at the end of the play that supernatural powers are reserved
for the gods and that the person who attempts to handle or deal in magical powers must face
eternal damnation. When we examine the drama from this standpoint, Faustus deserves his
punishment; then the play is not so much a tragedy as it is a morality play. The ending is an act
of justice, when the man who has transgressed against the natural laws of the universe is
justifiably punished. The chorus at the end of the drama re-emphasizes this position when it
admonishes the audience to learn from Faustus' damnation and not attempt to go beyond the
restrictions placed on humanity.
The character of Faustus can also be interpreted from the Renaissance point of view. At the time
of this play, there was a conflict in many people's minds, including Marlowe's, as to whether or
not to accept the medieval or the Renaissance view. The Renaissance had been disappointed in
the effectiveness of medieval knowledge because many scholastic disputations were merely
verbal nonsense. For example, arguments such as how many angels could stand on the head of a
pin dominated many medieval theses. The Renaissance scholars, however, revived an interest in
the classical knowledge of Greece and the humanism of the past. They became absorbed in the
great potential and possibility of humanity.
2 http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/d/doctor-faustus/critical-essays/faustus-8212-medieval-orrenaissance-hero.
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According to the Renaissance view, Faustus rebels against the limitations of medieval knowledge
and the restriction put upon humankind decreeing that he must accept his place in the universe
without challenging it. Because of his universal desire for enlightenment, Faustus makes a
contract for knowledge and power. His desire, according to the Renaissance, is to transcend the
limitations of humanity and rise to greater achievements and heights. In the purest sense, Faustus
wants to prove that he can become greater than he presently is. Because of his desire to go
beyond human limitations, Faustus is willing to chance damnation in order to achieve his goals.
The tragedy results when a person is condemned to damnation for noble attempts to go beyond
the petty limitations of humanity.
Doctor Faustus is not satisfied with the classical knowledge, he yearns for more. His proud
declarations, supreme thirst for more knowledge and power, inclination towards worldly
pleasures lead towards his tragic end. In his last soliloquy, Faustus blames his divine knowledge
for his downfall and even wishes to burn his books. He falls for lust and sensual desires also.
Even in his last days, he spends time indulging in debauchery. Hence Doctor Faustus is the
tragedy of Renaissance.3
Reanaissance was immediately followed by widespread Reformation and Protestantanism. The
Reformers and Protestants challenged the Church doctrine.
Marlowes Doctor Faustus embraces the spirit of Reformation. In the play, the Pope is shown to
be an unholy, greedy man. When Faustus plays tricks, the Pope and others think it is a ghost from
purgatory and try to use a bell and candle. This is a direct satire on Christian beliefs. Moreover,
Mephistopheles appears as a Friar, another attack on Catholicism. This was actually a popular
view of them during Reformation.

3 http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/dr-faustus-tragedy-renaissance-reformation-370491.
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3. ROLE OF CHORUS
The chorus announces that this play will not be concerned with war, love, or proud deeds.
Instead, it will present the good and bad fortunes of Dr. John Faustus, who is born of base stock
in Germany and who goes to the University of Wittenberg, where he studies philosophy and
divinity. He so excels in matters of theology that he eventually becomes swollen with pride,
which leads to his downfall. Ultimately, Faustus turns to a study of necromancy, or magic.4
The technique of the chorus is adapted from the traditions of classic Greek drama. The chorus
functions in several ways throughout the play. It stands outside the direct action of the play and
comments upon various parts of the drama. The chorus speaks directly to the audience and tells
the basic background history of Faustus and explains that the play is to concern his downfall. The
chorus is also used to express the author's views and to remind the audience of the proper moral
to be learned from the play itself. The opening speech of the chorus functions as a prologue to
define the scope of the play.
The chorus speaks in very formal, rhetorical language and explains that the subject of this play
will not be that which is usually depicted in dramas. Instead of a subject dealing with love or
war, the play will present the history of a scholar. The purpose of this explanation is that,
traditionally, tragedy had dealt with such grand subjects as the history of kings, great wars, or
powerful love affairs. Consequently, Marlowe is preparing the audience for a departure in subject
matter. Most frequently, tragedy is concerned with the downfall of kings, and Marlowe's tragedy
does not fit into this formula since this drama deals with the downfall of a man of common birth.
The Icarus image is used in the opening passage to characterize the fall of Faustus. Icarus was a
figure in classical mythology who because of his pride had soared too high in the sky, had melted
his wax wings, and subsequently had fallen to his death. This classical image of the fall of Icarus
reinforces the Christian images of the fall of Lucifer brought out in Scene 3. Both images set the
scene for the fall of Dr. Faustus during the course of the drama.

4 www.cliffsnotes.com Literature Notes Doctor Faustus.

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Another image used by the chorus to describe the situation of Faustus is that of glutting an
appetite by overindulgence. Throughout the play, Faustus is seen as a person of uncontrolled
appetites. His thirst for knowledge and power lead him to make the pact with the devil which
brings about his downfall. The chorus points out the dangers involved in resorting to magic. It
makes clear that Faustus is choosing magic at the danger of his own soul.5
The way that the Chorus introduces Faustus, the plays protagonist, is significant, since it reflects
a commitment to Renaissance values. The European Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries witnessed a rebirth of interest in classical learning and inaugurated a new emphasis on
the individual in painting and literature. In the medieval era that preceded the Renaissance, the
focus of scholarship was on God and theology; in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the focus
turned toward the study of humankind and the natural world, culminating in the birth of modern
science in the work of men like Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton

5 crossref-it.info/textguide/doctor-faustus/14/1695.
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4. STYLE
Before Marlowe, blank verse had not been the accepted verse form for drama. Many earlier plays
had used rhymed verse; there are a few examples, such as Gorboduc, which had used blank
verse, but the poetry in Gorboduc was stiff and formal. Marlowe was the first to free the drama
from the stiff traditions and prove that blank verse was an effective and expressive vehicle for
Elizabethan drama.6
One of Marlowe's accomplishments was to capture in blank verse the music inherent in the
English language. When Faustus sees Helen of Troy, he exclaims:
Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appeared to hapless Semele.
Earlier blank verse had been metrically precise and regular which, in long passages, could
become rhythmically boring. Marlowe alternated the regular stresses and created a more varied,
sincere, and beautiful verse. Shakespeare was later to follow Marlowe's example and use the
natural rhythm of blank verse.
Ofttimes, instead of using a rhyme, Marlowe uses other poetic techniques to give unity to a
passage. As in the ending of the first two lines of the above passage, the assonance of "air" and
"stars" imparts a controlled unity to the lines.
In one construction of his poetry, Marlowe did not end each line with a heavy and distinct pause.
He often varied the caesuras within a line, and he also continued a thought from one line to
another. Marlowe used the run-on line so as to give continuity to the poetry. For example,
observe Faustus' opening speech.
Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin to sound the depth of that thou will profess.

6 www.shmoop.com Literature Doctor Faustus Analysis.

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Frequently, Marlowe will use geographical names and classical names merely for the resonant
quality of the words themselves. In the following lines,
More lovely than the monarch of the sky in wanton Arethusa's azured arms,note the use of the
repetition of the "a" sound and the "r" sound. The reference to Arethusa, who was embraced by
Jupiter, also has a more specific relationship to Faustus' desire to embrace Helen of Troy. But
basically, the name does carry heavy alliterative and resonant qualities. Throughout the drama,
the student should be aware of the highly ornamental language that Marlowe uses. His speeches
are rich in allusions to classical myths. The style, however, has a musical quality about it which
appeals to the ear even when the listener does not know the exact nature of the allusions.7
The combination of the above qualities influenced the trend of blank verse in Elizabethan drama
and earned for Marlowe's verse the term "Marlowe's Mighty Line."

7 www.e-scoala.ro/referate/engleza_marlowe.html.
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5.

CONCLUSION

Understanding of Christopher Marlowe's Elizabethan tragedy, Dr. Faustus, can be framed in

terms of the Renaissance philosophy and the Elizabethan tragedy, which takes a different turn on
some points from the Aristotelian tragedy, for instance such as the Elizabethan tragedy's requisite
death of the tragic hero. Dr. Faustus demonstrates the Renaissance philosophy that pits the
dichotomy of good, angelic humanity against evil, depraved humanity. Marlowe's play also is a
model of the Elizabethan tragedy.
Marlowe constructed the character of Dr. Faustus to represent within himself both characteristics
of the Renaissance view of humanity as divinely good and hellishly evil. First, Dr. Faustus is
presented as a scholar of all things including divinity, the highest Renaissance scholarly
discipline. Then, Faustus is shown as dissatisfied with the limitations of humanity and grasping
for unlimited knowledge, which is a Biblical allusion to Adam and Eve who ate of the Tree of
Knowledge. Throughout the play, Faustus descends to lower and lower planes of knowledge in
his pursuit for the "power" and "omnipotence" that comes from knowledge. At the beginning,
Mephistopheles answers all Faustus' questions but draws the line on talk of the universe, which
can be seen to stand for astronomical and cosmological studies--the very studies that science is
deeply involved in today: CERN; Hubble; SoHo; etc). Faustus must be content with merely
mapping the universe instead of understanding it. Marlowe ultimately shows in Dr. Faustus the
futility of the quest for ultimate knowledge and the inevitable end result of abandoning morality
integrity for omnipotent knowledge.
Dr. Faustus also represents a Classic Elizabethan tragedy. First, the tragic hero has a flaw or
makes an error in judgment that leads to his own doom. It's hard to say whether Faustus had a
fatal flaw in his character or whether he was doomed by a faulty understanding that lead to a
fatally disastrous error in judgment. All along the way, Faustus has doubts and hesitations which
speak for an integrity of his moral character. If he has a fatal flaw, it might be that he did not
reckon the power of evil highly enough, that he thought that with omnipotent knowledge, he
could free himself from the chains of evil he wrapped so blithely around himself. Adam and Eve
also fell to the punishment from the lure of knowledge. Of course, quite often Faustus' fatal flaw
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is said to be greed and irreverent disregard for goodness. One clue to forming a literary stance on
the question lies in examining his hesitations and second thoughts.
The questions addressed in Marlowe's play are nobel universal questions pertaining to the
highest order of considerations: the meaning of life and death, the quest for knowledge, the
respective power of of good and evil. In further accord with elizabethan tragedy, the play Dr.
Faustus employs comedic relief through the presence of clowns that also acts as a means of
giving information about the characters and the action of the play. The clowns in Dr. Faustus are
Rafe and Robin. In Elizabethan tragedy, the clowns (rural, country simpletons who misuse
language accidentally) and fools (urban dwellers who play with language and "misuse" it
intentionally for wit) generally replace the Greek Chorus that carried the task of moving the story
along with information not performed on stage, but in Dr. Faustus, Marlowe employs both the
Greek-style

Chorus

and

Elizabethan

clowns.

Finally, in keeping with Elizabethan tragic form, Faustus gets himself in so deep, his tragic flaw
or error in judgement is so aggregious that it leads ultimately and necessarily to his death, thus
fulfilling the fate of an Elizabethan tragic hero. Since Faustus has overestimated what he can
attain from an arrangement with Lucifer and since he underestimated the power of Lucifer's evil,
his ultimate end must be and is death even though he recognizes his mistakes and pleads for
pardon.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.in/2010/09/introduction-to-christopher-marlowe.html.
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/d/doctor-faustus/critical-essays/faustus-8212-medieval-orrenaissance-hero.
http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/dr-faustus-tragedy-renaissance-reformation-370491.
www.cliffsnotes.com Literature Notes Doctor Faustus.
crossref-it.info/textguide/doctor-faustus/14/1695.
www.shmoop.com Literature Doctor Faustus Analysis.
www.e-scoala.ro/referate/engleza_marlowe.html.

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