Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Essay -- Doctor Faustus Christop

recompense Faustus by Christopher MarloweElizabeth I came to the throne of England during a quantify of intense religious turmoil and governmental uncertainty. By the end of her reign, England stood as the first officially Protestant nation in Europe however, tensions amid Protestants and the repressed Catholic minority continued to plague the nation. Much of the literary productions produced during the time of her reign reflected sensitivities to religion and resulting political intrigues. In his play Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe places the title character in a power struggle convertible in form to those conflicts dominating Elizabethan life. Yet rather than a battle among courtiers for royal favor, the battle in Doctor Faustus pits god against the discommode in a struggle for the possession of a patchs soul. Reflecting the cultural and religious context of the sixteenth century, Marlowes Doctor Faustus comments on prideful ambition, which leads to a loss of sal vation for human pawns in the cosmic power-struggle for souls. In a conflict similar to that existing between side of meat Protestants and Catholics, Faustus must choose between deity and the Devil, risking his eternal life in anticipating which will be the winning side. When Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church and established the monarch as the head of a new-sprung(prenominal) English Protestant Church, he make religion largely certified on politics. In reference to Marlowes treatment of religion in Dr. Faustus, John Cox writes, Marlowes implicit reduction of the Reformation to a struggle for power is an acute response to the secularization introduced by the Tudors. . . . Protestants made religion a matter of crown policy, and thus comparatively a matter of mere power (114). When Ma... ...he struggle for power between immortal and Lucifer reflects the religiously-based political struggles under the reign of Elizabeth I. The horrors of the struggle for a mans sou l in which the need for power outweigh the gifts of Gods grace reflect on the consequences of a secularized state in which religious devotion is largely reduced to a matter of political supremacy.Works CitedBowman, Glen. Elizabethan Catholics and Romans 13 A Chapter in the History of policy-making Polemic. Journal of Church and State 47.3 (2005) 531-44.Cox, John D. The devils of Doctor Faustus. The Devil and the set apart in English Drama, 1350-1642. Cambridge Cambridge UP, 2000. 107-126.Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1B. Edited by M.H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt. new-sprung(prenominal) York W. W. Norton and Co. 2000. 991-1023.