How does Marlowe's Doctor Faustus relate to Dante and Everyman?

Marlowe's Doctor Faustus does relate to the concept of Everyman as seen in Dante's Divine Comedy because, at least in part, both have strong central thematic elements foregrounding God's salvation—even for ordinary humans in a sinful condition—attained through repentance and calling upon God's name, a dominant theme in Everyman (The Summoning of Everyman, 15th century), the play most connected with the Everyman character type. Both plays also examine the idea of the heroic...

Marlowe's Doctor Faustus does relate to the concept of Everyman as seen in Dante's Divine Comedy because, at least in part, both have strong central thematic elements foregrounding God's salvation—even for ordinary humans in a sinful condition—attained through repentance and calling upon God's name, a dominant theme in Everyman (The Summoning of Everyman, 15th century), the play most connected with the Everyman character type. Both plays also examine the idea of the heroic nature of the ordinary, undistinguished Everyman.

Everyman characters are ordinary individuals with no distinguishing talents or abilities who find themselves in situations that require something heroic of them. Dante emerges from the nine celestial spheres into the light of Beatrice's love, his metaphoric salvation. Faustus fails to find a way to ask for salvation, even though signs and opportunities appear before him, and he is overcome by demons.

One presentation of the theme of salvation from sin is represented by Dante, who is saved, and its opposite is represented by Faustus, who is not saved. One representation of Dante's Everyman character is that his journey quest caused heroic traits to ultimately triumph, for himself and for Beatrice. The oppositional representation of a heroic Everyman character is Faustus, who scorns the ordinary, the commonplace, the undistinguished in his pursuit of privileged, elitist knowledge: Faustus feels himself removed from the realm of the uninspired, ordinary Everyman who rises above his circumstances in heroic ways.