Ans from Study Guide:

The Renaissance was a period of fundamental change. The Renaissance means the revival of learning and knowledge, marking the end of the “Dark Age” and the beginning of the modern world. The Renaissance gave impetus to new discoveries and brought a change in human outlook which was dominated by religious dogma (মতবাদ) and Christian theology.

Christopher Marlowe was the product of the Renaissance and his Doctor Faustus represents the spirit of the Renaissance who shows a great yearning (আকুলতা) for unlimited knowledge, power, and glory. His craving (লালসা) for earthly (পার্থিব) power also shows a spirit of revolt (বিদ্রোহের চেতনা) against conventional religious doctrine. Here we find him declaring:

“Philosophy is odious and obscure, 
Both law and physic are for petty wits; 
Divinity is basest of the three,
Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile;
‘Tis magic, magic, that hath ravished me.”

Doctor Faustus took a dangerous step to fulfill his aspiration, to gain superhuman power. For a voluptuous (স্বেচ্ছাচারী) life of 24 years, he sells his soul to Lucifer to exercise the black art of necromancy (জাদুবিদ্যা). Hence Faustus discards (পরিত্যাগ করে) God and defiles (অপবিত্র) all religious and moral principles.

Faustus’s love for beauty is a Renaissance quality. To Faustus knowledge means power and it is the power, which will enable him to gratify (সন্তুষ্ট করা) the sensual pleasures of life. He requests Mephistopheles to bring Helen, the destructive Greek beauty, as his paramour (উপপত্নী). The magnificent apostrophe to Helen is the most inspired and lyrical passage of the play wonderfully illustrates the Renaissance spirit of love and adoration (আরাধনা) for classical beauty:

“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless powers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss —
Her lips suck forth my soul.”

To conclude Marlowe himself was a child of the Renaissance and he invariably (অবিচ্ছিন্নভাবে) projected his personality into the mighty characters of his towering heroes. “To know everything to possess everything” – is the motto (নীতিবাক্য) of Marlowe’s heroes. Dr. Faustus is the embodiment of passion. The high ambition of the Renaissance to conquer (জয়) everything is reflected through the character of Faustus.

Hand Notes:

“Doctor Faustus” is one of the most outstanding tragedies of Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) who is often called the bridegroom of Renaissance in the history of English drama. In this very tragedy, Marlowe has presented the Renaissance spirit through the protagonist of the tragedy, “Doctor Faustus” which is the best way. In fact, Marlowe himself was the product of the Renaissance and he was saturated with the spirit of the Renaissance with its great yearning for limitless knowledge, with its hankering after sensual pleasures of life, with its intemperate ambition and supreme lust for power and pelf and finally with its spirit of revolt against the medieval pattern of living, its orthodox religion, and conventional morality. All these features of the Renaissance have been shown through Faustus. A critical analysis of the play is needed to trace the Renaissance spirit in the play.

One of the most significant characteristics of the Renaissance was individualism which led to the spirit of revolt to free the human mind from the shackles and dogmas of the church and feudalism. Doctor Faustus with all his erudition and scholarship with his abnormal pride and presumption discusses in the first scene the merits and demerits of all the important branches of study and has the great audacity to take his own decision and to declare without the least hesitation: 

“Philosophy is odious and obscure;
Both law and physic are for petty wits;
Divinity is basest of the three,
Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile.
‘Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.”

Here, we find that Faustus boldly asserts his individualism and raises the standard of revolt against the medieval restriction on the mind of man.

Doctor Faustus as the true embodiment of the Renaissance spirit starts dreaming of gaining superhuman powers and of performing miraculous deeds. He wants to take control over the whole earth, winds, and clouds. All these factors intensify his ardent curiosity and desire for unlimited wealth. Such qualities or skills have unmistakably a man of the Renaissance. His craving for power leads him to choose magic because he will be able to gain limitless knowledge. The necromantic books become heavenly to him. Hence, he turns a deaf ear to the earnest appeals of the Good Angel ‘to lay that damned book aside’ and does not make any delay to make up / consolidate his mind when the Evil Angel whispers to him: 

“Be thou on earth as Jove in the sky,
Lord and commander of these elements”

All these proud assertions clearly reveal Faustus’s Renaissance spirit of adventure and supreme craze for knowledge and power without any limits. Faustus also expresses his earnest desire to have materialistic prosperity. He craves gold from the East Indies and longs for peals from the depth of the ocean. He wants to have pleasant fruits and princely delicates from the USA. He says — 

And search all corners of the new-found world
For pleasant fruits and princely delicates.

Love for classical beauty is one of the traits of the Renaissance spirit. This trait of the Renaissance spirit has been shown when Faustus longs to have Helen, ‘that peerless dame of Greece’ as his paramour. He desires to find heaven in her lips and this desire reveals his supreme love of beauty and yearning for sensuous pleasures. He requests Mephistopheles to bring Helen, the destructive Greek beauty. The magnificent apostrophe to Helen is the most inspired and lyrical passage of the play wonderfully showing the Renaissance spirit of love and adoration for classical beauty as well as the urge for romance and mighty adventures. Faustus expresses his love for classical beauty through the following lines: 

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss:
Her lips suck forth my soul, see where it flies!

In the light of the above discussion, we can say that Faustus, the protagonist of the tragedy “Doctor Faustus” has been endowed with Renaissance spirit by Christopher Marlowe. In the tragedy, Faustus represents the spirit of the Renaissance very profoundly. In a word, Faustus is a martyr to everything that the Renaissance valued power, curious knowledge, enterprise, wealth, and beauty. 

So undoubtedly, it can be declared that Doctor Faustus is a true embodiment of the spirit of the Renaissance.