Christopher Marlowes Modernity in His Religion Poetry and Drama

Abstract

Christopher Marlowe s Modernity in His Religion, Poetry and Drama Abstract newline The main objective of this thesis is to show Marloweand#8223;s Modernity in his Religion, Poetry and Drama . Christopher Marlowe was the most important dramatist before Shakespeare among the University Wits. He left behind powerful tragedies (a) Tamburlaine, newline (b) Doctor Faustus, (c) The Jew of Malta, (d) Edward II. Each one of these tragedies manifests the Renaissance spirit and moves around the central personality consumed with lust for power. It is one man type of tragedy in which there is one dominating character, drafting the other characters by his outstanding personality. The hero of his Tamburlaine the Great, with his faith in the ecstasies of earthly glory, including those of love and power, and his readiness to challenge God and Death in their accomplishment marks the zenith in the Renaissance glorification of man and coincided with a peak of national enthusiasm for real-life heroes like Sir Francis Drake. In Tamburlaine the Great, the dramatist focuses his attention on the meteoric career of Timur, the Tarter, who began his life as a shepherd, swept over Persia and ran the whole East with the tremendous passion of establishing his authority all over the East. Sitting on his chariot drawn by captive Kings, with a caged emperor, he is boastful of his overriding power. Then afflicted with disease, he talks wildly and angrily against the gods and would overthrow them as he has done earthly rulers. Tamburlaine reads like an epic, but anybody can understand its instant success with a people only half-civilized, fond of military glory and the instant adoption of its mighty lineand#8223; as the vehicle of his drama. newline newlineOne of Marloweand#8223;s greatest services to the English Theatre was to produce a type of drama in which popular tastes and traditions finally joined forces with those of the Renaissance. Thus The Life and Death of Dr. Faustus (1588), the first great tragedy on humanism, was derived from a popular pamphlet and a ballad on the same subject