Hi, need to submit a 2750 words essay on the topic Analysis Analyse Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde & The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus Christopher Marlowe and say how the wrighters use theme, language, for

Hi, need to submit a 2750 words essay on the topic Analysis Analyse Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde & The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus Christopher Marlowe and say how the wrighters use theme, language, form & structure to explore the theme Redemption and Salvation.

Critics have different views as to when Marlowe wrote Dr. Faustus. Most stress that it was written after 1592 as it displays a certain maturity in Marlowe's skills. The immediate source for the play is the appearance of an English translation of a German prose narrative called Historia von D. Johann Fausten. This translation by an English translator known only by his initials P.F was titled The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus. Where this English Faust-book served as a cautionary tale to erring Christians, Marlowe's play has a greater depth and force which brings out the dilemma of being a man and a product of the Renaissance. There was also a historical Dr. Faustus who appears to have been the contemporary of Luther as well as Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa. The historical Dr. Faustus was both a physician and astrologer. There are two versions of the account of his death. In one he dies an old man while the latter version has him die with a broken and twisted neck, a commonly attributed manner of death due to devils. Such accounts fed into the Faust legend of an overreaching man who meets his just retribution for blasphemy against God. Marlowe also added elements from morality plays such as the Good and Bad Angels who caution and tempt Faustus respectively. Marlowe also added comic interludes which parody the main play.

It is difficult for a reader in prese...

that history cannot be rigidly divided into different ages, codified, named and thereby to be assumed that historical thought is a structure and not a continuous interflow of different streams of thought, there is however a single idea which divides the medieval ages from its subsequent times. It is the idea of the value of being born a man. Ernst Cassirer in his work, The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, analyses the subtle yet significant changes which appeared in Renaissance philosophy that gives a unique status to man. We have only to look at Pico Dela Mirandola's iconic work, "On the Dignity of Man". In this oration, Pico says that of all the creatures given life by God it is man who is the most unique. Everything else, animals, angels have a fixed nature which they cannot transcend. Pico traces the origin of the creation of man to an urge in God to create a being who could appreciate and value the beauty of His creation.

We have given you, Adam, no definite place, no form proper only to you, no special

inheritance, so that you may have as your own whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts

you may choose, according to your wish and your judgment. All other beings have received a

rigidly determined nature, and will be compelled by us to follow strictly determined laws. You

alone are bound by no limit, unless it be one prescribed by your will, which I have given you.

(Cassirer, 85)

The point to be made here is that these ideas about the significance of being born a man did not remain confined in the works of these philosophers. It seeped down and percolated among men in the Renaissance. In conjunction with this has to be seen the influence of Calvin and Luther in the thought of sixteenth century England.