Oishik Karmakar¹

This research paper examines the evolution of the Renaissance overreacher archetype across the English literary canon and its wider influence on Western literature. Originating in Renaissance humanism and dramatized most memorably in Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine the Great, the archetype embodies the category of individual who seeks to transcend natural, political, moral or divine limits. Through a comparative analysis of Faustus, Tamburlaine, Macbeth, Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Victor Frankenstein, Fernand Mondego in Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo and Jay Gatsby, the study argues that these figures specifically share a common impulse: the desire to replace existing structures of authority and elevate themselves to a godlike position. Their trajectories echo the Luciferian pattern of ascent, rebellion and downfall. Employing a comparative literary and archetypal methodology enriched by scholars and critics like Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom, Stephen Greenblatt, A. C. Bradley and Cleanth Brooks, the paper explores both the shared features and distinctive qualities of these overreachers. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that hubris, or what Shakespeare calls “vaulting ambition,” remains the defining flaw that transforms aspiration into catastrophe.