Anna Fedorova 
The Influence of the Morality Play on Marlowe’s ‘Doctor Faustus’ 

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies – Literature, grade: 1, 0, University of Hannover, course: Christopher Marlowe ‘Doctor Faustus’, language: English, abstract: Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus was published in 1592 and appears to be an example of a Renaissance tragedy. However, many critics argue that Marlowe’s Dr. Faustusowes a lot to the medieval dramatic tradition, to be precise, to the morality play tradition. Describing different types of the medieval plays, Philip Tilling claims that “themorality playas a kind of medieval religious play arose alongside the mystery play and was to continue, in modified form, throughout the Elizabethan period, culminating in Marlowe’s Faustus.”1So, Tilling considers Dr. Faustusto be “a morality play in a modified form“. In my paper I see Dr. Faustusas a Renaissance tragedy which was to a certain degree influenced by the medieval dramatic tradition and has some characteristic features of the morality play. Proceeding on this assumption, I am going to concentrate on the play, pursuing three following issues:
– to describe the characteristic features of the morality play in Dr. Faustus- to point out the features which lead me to interpret it as a Renaissance tragedy – to describe the purpose of the morality play structure in Dr. Faustus.Pursuing these objectives, I am, first of all, going to summarise the main characteristics of the morality play in order to see, how to apply them to Marlowe’s play. Then I will concentrate on the differences and similarities between Dr. Faustusand the morality play on structural and thematic levels. In the last chapter of the paper I will focus on the issue of the function of the morality play structure in Dr. Faustus.In conclusion I will summarize my arguments which support the thesis that the play should rather be seen as tragedy than as a morality play.