“Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight
And burned is Apollo’s laurel bough
That sometime grew within this learned man.
Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practice more than heavenly power permits.”
(Marlowe’s Dr. Fsutus. Chorus. Act V, scene iii, agregar número de línea)
A tragic hero has the potential for greatness but is doomed to failure. Such is the spirit that pervades a high-status person, who, because of a poignant flaw, or error in judgment, which dooms him, will inevitably fall. Such flaw is referred to as hamartia. One common form of hamartia in tragedies is hybris, that pride or excessive self-confidence which leads the protagonist to his downfall. In Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus”, there is enough evidence to prove that Dr. Faustus, the main character in the play, is a tragic hero, a great man undone because his “aspiring pride and insolence” ( Marlowe: I, iii, 66) led him astray from God, and, consequently, into a process of dehumanization which parallels the fall of tragic heroes- explain what this fall is.
Before plunging into the steps of Dr. Faustus’ dehumanization, it is necessary to draw an accurate portrait of Dr. Faustus’ grandeur, which makes his tragic finale all the more terrible. He was a versed man in all the sciences the ideal Renaissance man could seek to master. Faustus was thus a doctor, a theologist, a lawyer and a philosopher. He remained a renowned scholar at Wittenberg for thirty years, who, among other things, had banned the plague from whole cities. However, he was not satisfied. He sought the ultimate wisdom, and with it, the ultimate power. In order to find both, he turned to necromancy. Once a master of it, Faustus hoped to win a “world of profit and delight, of power, of honor and omnipotence” (I,i,51-52) as well as a command of “[a]ll the things that move between...