Death Or Rebirth

Christopher Marlowe is a distinguished English poet and dramatist. During his literary career, Marlowe created six plays and five poems and The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is widely acknowledged to be the most outstanding one. Besides his literary works, Marlowe is also the first person who produced a first-rate tragedy and became known for the thundering “blank verse”. However, in spite of such outstanding achievements in English literature, Marlowe's research hasn't boomed until 1960 s.Since the publication of The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, the work has drawn many critics' attention, especially on the authenticity of two versions of the work. And studies of the work have been mainly made with critical approaches such as New Criticism and Historicism.This thesis purports to make a tentative study of Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus from the perspective of Bakhtinian theory of Carnivalization by focusing upon carnival language, carnival symbols and carnival characters. In so doing, it intends to conclude the carnival spirits prevalent in this work, embody the zeitgeist of the early Renaissance England: humanism and humanists' infinite search for knowledge.Structurally, this thesis falls into three parts, the introduction, the body and the conclusion. The introductory part provides information about Christopher Marlowe, a sufficient and comprehensive literature review of The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, and a brief introduction to Bakhtinian theory of Carnivalization. The second part, as the body part, is composed of four chapters, which respectively focus on the four aspects of Carnivalesqueness in The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, namely, carnival language, carnival symbols and carnival characters. And all those carnival factors embody the sense of relativity and the spirit of subversion and the alteration of death and rebirth. Finally, on the basis of previous analyses, it intends to conclude that the carnivalesque elements in The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus mirror the spirits of early Renaissance England.