How does Marlowe's Doctor Faustus illustrate the fusion of medieval and Renaissance

elements?

Written near the close of the sixteenth century, Christopher Marlowe'sDoctor

Faustus reflects the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance characteristic of this
period in Northern Europe. While writers such as Copernicus and Harvey were proposing
new views of the universe and the human body respectively, other writers of the same
period clung quite tenaciously to medieval perspectives. Tycho Brahe, a Danish
astronomer at the close of the sixteenth century, actually adhered to a geocentric view of
the cosmos in spite of the general trend to the contrary.
In Doctor Faustus, these conflicting views surface in the title character himself. At the
opening of the play, Doctor Faustus studies an array of subjects most of his time considered
the sources of wisdom. From theology, to medicine, to astronomy, to law, Doctor Faustus
examines the current state of knowledge and finds it lacking. He ultimately determines that
an older, medieval, "science" can provide the answers he seeks. Magic, particularly the
magic that would allow him to manipulate the world and those around him for his own gain,
proves the most enticing for him. Unlike science which governs much of Renaissance
thought, and religion which dominated the Middle Ages, magic rides the fence between
them. Rather than relying on empiricism as science does, or a passive approach such as
revelation characteristic of religion, magic incorporates elements of both. The "magician"
must actively involve himself in the process of conjuring, but he must also look/appeal to a
power greater than his to accomplish his goal. The choice of magic perfectly represents the
fusion of medieval and Renaissance elements, because it incorporates aspects of both.

Differences between the middle ages and the so-called Renaissance can easily be
exaggerated. Both, after all, were eras in which Christianity was taken extremely seriously,
although by the middle of the sixteenth century any hope of a reunified Christendom must
have seemed impossible to most thinking people. Nevertheless, Christopher Marlowes
play Doctor Faustus reveals aspects of both the middle ages and the Renaissance,
especially in its apparent purpose of teaching Christian lessons.
Consider, for example, the following points:

The mere fact that the play is a drama written for an established public theater is
itself important. Such permanent theaters did not exist in the middle ages in England.
Marlowe was one of the very first writers to contribute to a totally new kind of English
institution an institution characteristic of the Renaissance, not the middle ages.

The play opens by emphasizing Faustuss impressive education. Education,

especially at universities, was becoming increasingly more widespread and widely expected
during the Renaissance than it had been during the middle ages. More and more schools of
all kinds were being established, and Faustus is obviously a beneficiary of this increasing
emphasis on higher education.

Faustuss parents are described as base of stock. In other words, their social status
was not high. Nevertheless, their son has been able to attend and profit from a fine
university an indication of the kind of social mobility that was far more common in the
Renaissance than during the middle ages.

Interestingly enough, Faustus attended college in the German town of Wittenberg, a

town associated with the Protestant Reformation, since it was there that Martin Luther had
made his public break with the Roman Catholic Church. The reference to Wittenberg
reminds us that this play was written during a time when that town had become famous
because of its association with the schism in the Christian church
However, if the opening of the play seems mainly to reflect the Renaissance, aspects of the
closing scene could easily have been included in any medieval work. That scene, for
instance, emphasizes the common medieval themes of mutability (the instability and
unreliability of earthly existence); the great chain of being (as when Faustus wishes he
were an animal rather than a human); contemptus mundi (contempt for the ephemeral
world, especially in comparison with the eternal pleasures of heaven); and the sin
of pride (as in Faustuss attempt to blame his parents for his predicament):
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
Faustus is designed to teach moral lessons, in much the manner of a medieval morality play
such as Everyman, and it even ends with a speech by a Chorus who explicitly spells out the
message in case we missed it, much as the Doctor does the same thing at the very end
of Everyman. The play, in other words, reflects aspects of both the middle ages and the
Renaissance, mainly because Christianity is so important to the meaning of the play, just as
Christianity was so crucially important in both of those historical eras.