Themes of Religion, Morality, and Avarice in The Summoning of Everyman and Doctor Faustus Anonymous College

In both the medieval morality play The Summoning of Everyman, first performed in 1510, and Christopher Marlowe’s Renaissance Drama Doctor Faustus, the search for progress arises through the themes of religion, morality and avarice. In Everyman, progress is projected onto a linear pathway, whereas Marlowe allows his protagonist to blur the lines of the journey towards salvation for the typical Renaissance Man. Everyman, being based on the Dutch play Elckerlijc, is rooted in the religious doctrine of the late medieval period. Doctor Faustus, on the other hand, is a play characteristic of the post-Reformation era, and therefore describes progress in a world of religious dissonance. I would argue that the audience is presented with two plays that offer similarly bleak views on the state of humanity’s ability to overcome adversity.

In Everyman, the protagonist is able to engage in clear religious progress due to the allegorical requirement of the morality play to maintain universal appeal. C. Spivak argues that Everyman’s ‘recovery from sin to grace through the standard penitential procedures traces a path available to all of humankind’, and this pathway is structurally indicated by the iconography of the visually poignant messenger...