Question

What does the character of Dr. Faustus suggest about the idea of the Renaissance Man? Is this play a critique of the idea, or is it supportive of it? Your answer should be at least 250 words.

Answer 1

In a way, Marlowe's Dr. Faustus is both an epitome and a subversion of the Renaissance Man. Having broken free of the medieval rule of theology, he unleashed curiosity and wanted to learn more about the world. Dogma is still strong, but the urges and impulses to challenge it are even stronger. Just like protestants challenged traditional Catholic dogma, and Calvinists challenged Lutherans with the idea of predestination, Dr. Faustus challenges traditional human aspiration to be good, do good, and end up in heaven as a reward. He turns this notion upside down, presuming that there is no way he would be able to end up in heaven.

So, Dr. Faustus is an embodiment of curiosity gone wild. His blase attitude towards humanistic science is, however, some kind of a scientific decadence: he casts away philosophy and law, to embrace magic, as a relic of medieval obsession over mysticism. In this regard, he is a subversion of the Renaissance Man. He thinks he has already learned all there was to learn about this world, so now he yearns for another kind of knowledge - esoteric, otherworldly, knowledge that isn't exactly a knowledge because you don't have to study long and hard for it, you just have to sell your soul to Lucifer.

The Renaissance was torn between two concepts: of a scholar, turned to nature, the globe, the world, and of a religious person who still can't come to terms with the God and the church. Dr. Faustus transcends both of these concepts: he is a scholar who betrays his profession, and a religious person who devotes to Satan, believing (not knowing!) that he has no chance whatsoever to be forgiven for his sins.

In this regard, the play doesn't criticize or support the idea of the Renaissance Man. It simply tries to come to term with the philosophical issues and conflicts of its own time.