Comment on the presence of Renaissance and Reformation ideology and belief in Elizabethan tragedies like Hamlet and Dr.Faustus.

[Posted intwo parts: Part I]

The Renaissance period has a date generally agreed upon as commencing circa 1450 and ending circa 1600. The Northern Renaissance, in which England is classed, has later dates as its Renaissance followed Italy and then France, the dates begin circa 1500 to circa 1615. The Reformation era, beginning with Martin Luther's religious epiphany, began in 1517 when Luther redefined the doctrines of Christian salvation, divine revelation and priesthood.

The Elizabethan era, that denoting the period of time of the rule of Queen Elizabeth I, was from her ascension in 1558 to 1603. Her rule spanned the end of the Northern Renaissance. Plays written during her reign are duly classed as Elizabethan plays. One playwright of such plays was Christopher Marlowe who wrote Dr. Faustus. The premier playwright of the Elizabethan era--within the Renaissance period and following the Reformation movement--was William Shakespeare who wrote, among other things, Hamlet.

Having a properly aligned perspective of the times addressed in the question asked here shows that undoubtedly Renaissance thought and Reformation belief would be evident in the tragedies of Elizabethan playwrights. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that the word "playwright" stems from the fact that in Elizabethan times, the English theatre was still organized according to the guild system and "wright," from before 900 A.D. Middle English taken from the earlier Old English "wryhta," means "worker," hence, playwright, or "playworker," in accord with English guild nomenclature, e.g., wheelwright.

In Italy and to a similar though slightly different extent in England, the Renaissance emphasized the revival of classic literature and ideas that were associated with Italian Humanists. Actually, as Richard Hooker of Washington State University points out, they were the "umanista" group of teachers who emphasized "studia humanitatis," or studies not including mathematics and such. The umanista, or humanist, opposed the specific logic of Scholasticism even though they improved the general science of logic. The Northern Renaissance built on the classicism and humanism the Italian Renaissance but differed in that after 1517 it gradually added an emphasis in Protestant religious interest and a revival of New Testament first century Christianity.

This is a particularly important point when considering Elizabethan plays in general and Hamlet and Dr. Faustus specifically. The Latin Roman classics were closely associated with the Papal seat and, therefore, Catholicism. Remembering that England, beginning with Henry VIII, had been through political upheaval during which England's allegiance to Papal Rome was severed then restored then severed then restored under Queen Mary then severed again under Queen Elizabeth I, and remembering that severe laws, persecutions and punishments accompanied these various switches, it is readily discernible that an Elizabethan playwright advocating or seeming to advocate a Catholic perspective or allegiance with the Pope would actually be in a life or death situation due to an accusation of heresy, as explained by Professor Steven Fernandez of IPAG.