Marlowe’s attempts to condemn the Questioning of Religious Authority
Religion’s role in shaping Western civilization is crucial in understanding the evolution of mankind. Firstly, religion was the primary agent of social construction in the early developments of today’s modern states since it used to provide all of the answers to men. Consequently, the studies of theology and the principal role of the church in states was a common trend among western nations. States enforced the study of religion and played an active role in protecting it from possible threats, as seen by the Inquisition and the banning of texts during the sixteenth century. Once scientific thought began to gain popularity in these nations, society found itself questioning the role of the church as a legitimate source of information and power. Moreover, these social conflicts influenced writers such as Christopher Marlowe in depicting social struggles with these new realities. In his play, Doctor Faustus, Marlowe physically represents the struggles of Elizabethan society with religion and science. This paper argues that Faustus’ attempts to advance his knowledge links and embodies Elizabethan society’s choice of religion over science.
Changes in the concept of knowledge are crucial to the development of Faustus. Historically, the Middle Ages supported tenants involving God and religion as the primary sources of knowledge using the Great Chain of Being. This outlines a social and power hierarchy based o religion that organizes all aspects of life and places God at the top (“The Great Chain of Being”). The article “The Great Chain of Being” discusses how “all existing things have their precise place and function in the universe, and to depart from one’s proper pla...
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...have crucial impacts for the broader domain of understanding the transformation of the religious institution in Western civilizations. However, this contradicts those who used to think that Marlowe is arguing against religion. Instead, this opens the debate to how theater was used to reinforce the values of its patronizing state.
Works Cited
Catherall, Paul. “Does Doctor Faustus confront the gap between human aspiration for life and the reality of actual living?” Draigweb.co.uk. N.p, 5 July 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2014
Larson, John. “Doctor Faustus- Selling His Soul to Make a Point.” Luminarium.org University of Oregon, 2010. Web. 23 Apr. 2014
Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. New York: Signet Classics, 2010. Print
Keefer, Michael H. “History and the Canon: The Case of Doctor Faustus.” PDF File.
“The Great Chain of Being.” Faculty.up.edu. N.p, n.d, 22 Apr. 2014
Carus, Paul. "The Philosophical Problem of Good and Evil." The History of the Devil: With 350
The period of the Renaissance was an important era of development in the world religiously, artistically, and scientifically. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, important technologies such as the printing press contributed greatly in helping advance the intelligence of all humans. A broad humanistic sense began to expand throughout Europe, giving a new vision of the human being as the center of the universe and not as something mystical or divine. With a combination of the technological and social changes taking place at the same time, the Renaissance’s advancements placed the driving force for the protestant reformation to occur. The Protestant reformation was a new era of religious revolution that brought radical changes in the vision that society had of the Catholic Church. During this period, not only did the religion change, other areas such as the economy and the development of social interactions were reformed and
The role of religion in early-modern Europe (from about 1400 to 1700) religion remained an essential ‘lens’ through which members of this period viewed their lives and the world around them. The influence of religious outlooks was always important during this time period. This can be seen through Cabeza de Vaca’s Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America, Michel de Montaigne’s On Cannibals, and the political works of philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. These authors’ works can only be understood and put into proper context with an understanding of the religious lens through which they wrote.
In the early 16th century, Thomas More wrote a novel about a fictional society in which humanist ideas were dominant. During this time, European noble power was anything but a Humanist utopia. Europe was not only a mess, but a genocidal mess. Between the reigns of the Tudor Dynasty, and eventually under power of Queen Mary I, English citizens lived in constant fear of their religious rights and their lives. On top of the religious civil wars, the Catholic Church and other clergymen were progressively straying from ‘purity ideas’.
This essay will focus on discussing the way people used to live and the beliefs they had about God being the creator and controller of the universe during the middle ages or the pre modern times by first describing what pre modernity is then following with the dynamics of that time. This essay will then discuss Descartes the father of modernity together with some other contributing philosophers, and how he changed the beliefs of the middle ages prior to the way in which people now see themselves as subjects which can give meaning to objects and are free to choose whatever meaning they want to give to themselves and their surroundings.
"Elizabethan Theatre Audiences." Elizabethan Theatre Audiences. Strayer University, 16 May 2012. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Scientific and philosophical innovations during the 18th century brought about a new breed of thinkers. Their driving forces of rational and reason shifted the religious temperament of the elite from “enthusiasts” to intellectuals. “They argued that there was no divine standard of morality, no afterlife to divert humanity from worldly concerns” (The Western Experience, pg. 657). They were radicals who sought to displace the authority of religion. Driven by reason, enlightenment thinkers naturally opposed superstition and attempted to replace religious mysticism with philosophical standards and scientific formulations. Their shift of focus highlighted reverence for the Creator and moral teachings of the Bible. By eliminating superstition they hoped to bolster the Christian religion (The Western Experience, pg. 660). Two philosophies of the new enlightened view of religion were toleration and deism, both of which sustained the faith of the educated elite. However, these philosophies displaced the authority of religion in society (The Western Experience, pg. 660). Never again would the teachings of Christianity be so readily accepted. French critic Pierre Bayle put forth the concept of religious tolerance in his Critical and Historical Dictionary. Typical of an enlightenment thinker, Bayle put the claims of religion to the test of critical reason. He concluded that many of Christianity’s sacred traditions were myth and its history noth...
The play, set in the 1600’s during the witch hunt that sought to rid villages of presumed followers and bidders of the devil is a parallel story to the situation in the US in the 1950’s: McCarthyism, seeking the riddance of communist ideologists. Miller sets this story more particularly in a village called Salem, where the theocratic power governed by strict puritan rules require the people to be strong believers and forbid them to sin at risk of ending up in hell. However, the audience notices that despite this strong superficial belief in God, faith is not what truly motivates them, but it is rather money and reputation.
Imagine a world with limited diversity and a forced belief system with no encouragement of curiosity or discovery. Many of the philosophers and past scientist lived in this culture and were often being condemned for their findings, opinions and discoveries. Voltaire’s works showed his views on religion through witty writing, he brought to life the topics of fanaticism, nature, the impious, God and several others. While religious chaos remains present, Voltaire seemed to depict the topic of religion and tolerance perfectly. Throughout history the impact of religious intolerance can be viewed and there are still examples of religious intolerance today. Voltaire outlined his views of religion in the “Philosophical Dictionary”, in 1764. In his writing, Voltaire, appears to have viewed the selfishness of man and the need to have power to prevent the assumed chaos, had shifted the view of believing in one god by faith to become clouded by false truths, deception and propaganda; man, is no longer following the will of god through faith, but the will of man through loyalty.
“I have a point to argue, which is that mankind’s quest for the good has been a struggle between humanism, on the one hand, and religious conceptions of the world, on the other hand. The latter have proved resistant in the face of efforts by the former to free not just the imagination but the very life of man from the authority of religious world views, whether in the classical epoch, the Renaissance, or the eighteenth century and since. The durability of religious views might be variously explained, but one main historical reason is that most people are naturally superstitious
In the midst of the many events of the sixteenth century, a schism of the Catholic Church was due to the political, social, and economic aspects of life. Religion was ultimately the cause of the schism and was also greatly affected by the aftermath. To see this, one can observe the opposition to the Church at the time, the lack of a secular state, and the Church’s “need” for funds obtained via indulgences. Around this time, life was forever impacted by the many ideas differing from the Catholic Church.
Bevington, David M; Rasmussen, Eric. “Doctor Faustus A- and B- texts (1604, 1616): Christopher Marlowe and his collaborator and revisers.” Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. (1962). Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Dec. 2013 (Bevington)
It makes sense to me to see in this Shakespeare's sense of his own art--both what it can achieve and what it cannot. The theatre--that magical world of poetry, song, illusion, pleasing and threatening apparitions--can, like Prospero's magic, educate us into a better sense of ourselves, into a final acceptance of the world, a state in which we forgive and forget in the interests of the greater human community. The theatre, that is, can reconcile us to the joys of the human community so that we do not destroy our families in a search for righting past evils in a spirit of personal revenge or as crude assertions of our own egos. It can, in a very real sense, help us fully to understand the central Christian commitment to charity, to loving our neighbour as ourselves. The magic here brings about a total reconciliation of all levels of society from sophisticated rulers to semi-human brutes, momentarily holding off Machiavellian deceit, drunken foolishness, and animalistic rebellion--each person, no matter how he has lived, has a place in the magic circle at the end. And no one is asking any awkward questions.
...n for the means by which the ends are realized, even if those ends involve killing ones own daughter. It is also clear in the way that Barabas keeps everyone at a distance, in the same way that Machiavelli’s philosoophy prescribed. It was only the auduence, through Marlowe’s extensive use of soliloquy that was ever allowed close and knew the true thoughts going through Barabas’ head. It is for this reason that he both became our hero in the play and was also a true outsider. So it is painfully clear that there are strong parallels between the protagonist and the philosopher, the only problem Marlowe presented was that Barabas’ ends were not achieved, raising the question, if Barabas means were not achieved and he failed in his quest to deceive and kill the Turks and Christians, then not only were his actions not justifiable, but he a truly Machiavellan outsider?
Snow, Edward A. "Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and the Ends of Desire." Two Renaissance Mythmakers: Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson. Ed. Alvin Kernan. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Print.