Doctor Faustus

By Christopher Marlowe

The Renaissance

• The Renaissance was a cultural movement that affected European intellectual life in the early modern period.

• Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence was felt in literature, philosophy, art, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual enquiry.

The Renaissance cont.

• Renaissance thinkers sought out learning from ancient texts, typically written in Latin or ancient Greek

• They found a desire to improve and perfect their worldly knowledge

• An entirely different sentiment to the transcendental spirituality stressed by medieval Christianity.

The Renaissance cont.• They did not reject Christianity; quite the

contrary, many of the Renaissance's greatest works were devoted to it, and the Church patronized many works of Renaissance art.

• However, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life.

The Renaissance cont.

• The Renaissance could be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals to study and improve the secular and worldly, both through the revival of ideas from antiquity, and through novel approaches to thought.

The Renaissance cont.• Best known for its artistic aspect and the

contributions of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who have inspired the term "Renaissance Men"

• A “Renaissance Man” is related to terms that describe a person who is well educated, or who excels, in a wide variety of subjects or fields.

Raphael’s School of Athens

School of Athens

• It was painted between 1510 and 1511.

• Part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms that are now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

School of Athens

• The subject of the painting is an imagined convocation of famous Greek philosophers.

• Nearly every great Greek philosopher and scientist can be found within the painting

• Alexander the Great; Pythagoras; Socrates; Plato; Aristotle; Euclid; and Ptolemy

Michaelangelo’s Last Judgement

The Last Judgement

• A mural on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City.

• It took six years to complete.

• He began working on it three decades after finishing the ceiling of the chapel.

The Last Judgment

• A depiction of the second coming of Christ and the apocalypse.

• The souls of humans rise and descend to their fates, as judged by Christ and his Saintly entourage.

Signorelli’s The Damned be Plunged into Hell

The Damned…

• The infernal scenes are remarkable for their imaginative evocation of fiends and tortures of Hell.

DaVinci’s The Last Supper

The Last Supper

• a 15th century mural painting in Milan • The Last Supper specifically portrays the

reaction given by each apostle when Jesus said one of them would betray him.

• All twelve apostles have different reactions to the news, with various degrees of anger and shock.

Da Vinci’s Vetruvian Man

Vetruvian Man cont.

• Created by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1492

• It depicts a nude male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square.

• The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions

Vetruvian Man cont.• This image exemplifies the blend of art

and science during the Renaissance • This picture represents a cornerstone of

Leonardo's attempts to relate man to nature.

• It is also believed by some that Leonardo symbolized the material existence by the square and spiritual existence by the circle.

Vetruvian Man cont.• It may be noticed by examining the

drawing that the combination of arm and leg positions actually creates sixteen different poses

• The pose with the arms straight out and the feet together is seen to be inscribed in the superimposed square

• the "spread-eagle" pose is seen to be inscribed in the superimposed circle

Marlowe cont.

• English dramatist, the father of English tragedy, and inventor of dramatic blank verse

• He was christened at St George's Church, Canterbury, on the 26th of February, 1563/4, some two months before Shakespeare's baptism at Stratford-on-Avon.

Marlowe cont.

• The dramatist received the rudiments of his education at the King's School, Canterbury

• He went to Cambridge as one of Archbishop Parker's scholars from the King's School, and matriculated at Benet (Corpus Christi) College, on the 17th of March 1571, taking his B.A. degree in 1584, and that of M.A. three or four years later.

Marlowe cont.

• Of Marlowe's career in London, apart from his four great theatrical successes, we know hardly anything

• He seems at any rate to have been associated with what was denounced as Sir Walter Raleigh's school of atheism, and to have dallied with opinions which were then regarded as putting a man outside the pale of civilized humanity.

Marlowe cont.• We really do not know the circumstances of Marlowe's

death.• The probability is he was killed in a brawl.• A few months before the end of his life there is reason to

believe that he transferred his services from the Lord Admiral's to Lord Strange's Company, and may have thus been brought into communication with Shakespeare, who in such plays as Richard II and Richard III owed not a little to the influence of his romantic predecessor.

Marlowe cont.

• Marlowe's career as a dramatist lies between the years 1587 and 1593

• The four great plays : Tamburlaine the Great (1587); Dr Faustus (1588); The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta (1592); and Edward the Second (1593)