In “Paradise Lost” and “Doctor Faustus,” the authors draw on the ideas of responsibility, free will, and blame. Marlowe, in "Doctor Faustus", merges the conventional religious ideology of the Middle Ages with the relatively new thinking of the Renaissance and Reformation, creating an effective contrast and an element of ambiguity as to who exactly caused the fall of the protagonist: is this Faustus’ pride? , Mephistopheles or God? Milton's “Paradise Lost,” in comparison, draws on the radicalism of the English Republic and Old Testament fables to present the enigmatic question of who is responsible for the fall of man; Some critics go so far as to suggest that Milton believes God is to blame because he gave free will to Adam and Eve. In the words of Milton's almost human Satan: "Whom or what have you then accused, / But heaven's free love spoke equally to all?" / Let his love therefore be cursed, from love or hate, / For me too it causes eternal woe. This questioning embodies the enigmatic inference, morality and theology employed by Milton in his masterpiece. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Early on, through his use of the classical refrain, Marlowe draws inspiration from early medieval "Mummings" and morality plays in his use of images that are almost too poetic, bardesque: "His waxen wings rose to the -above his reach,/And the melting heavens conspired for his overthrow. " A statement like this only adds to the ambiguity of blame in "Doctor Faustus": the first line of the extract clearly indicates an active attempt by Faustus to "rise above his reach"; however, a contradiction then arises, with an Old Testament picture of a "conspiring" and vengeful God being drawn. Moreover, even in quotes as short as the one above, the audience is confronted with a very contemporary idea: in the plays of the early and late Tudor period, theater was used as a powerful tool of propaganda against the waning influence of the “Machiavellian” papacy on English. and religious affairs. In extracts like this, Marlowe, contemporary references aside, creates confusion: why does God “conspire” against Faustus? The playwright offers a kind of explanation of such feelings as: “Be a doctor, Faustus; accumulate gold. Greed such as this is strongly reminiscent of Chaucer's “The Pardoner's Tale,” with the character of the old man, an entity borrowed by Marlowe later in the play, resembling Faustus in this case: “So seyde this old man; And every one of these riotours ran/Until he came to that tree, and there they founded/Of floryns fyne d'or ycoyned rounde. However, although this similarity diminishes the moral status of Marlowe's protagonist, it is only a temporary diminution: “Yet thou art still but Faustus and a man. » Such Saint Antonian humility, through apparently sincere assertions, once again has the effect of arousing a feeling of confusion within the public: could not a man as erudite as Faust be capable of such immoral behavior? , of such belonging to the devil and such self-destruction? In fact, it is precisely Faustus' “new learning” that leads him to the pact with Mephistopheles: “Which God can harm you, Faustus? You are safe" turns out to be almost exactly the feelings and "delusions" that Satan expresses while tempting Eve in "Paradise Lost", the latter.