Tamburlaine The Great In Two Parts

One of the smash hits of the late 1580s and 90s, Tamburlaine established blank verse as the poetic line of English Renaissance drama, Edward Alleyn as the first English star actor and Marlowe as one of the foremost playwrights of his time. The rise and fall of a Scythian peasant-warrior who conquers the Middle East and is struck down by illness after burning the books of the Koran is presented in two parts crammed with theatrical splendour and equally spectacular cruelty. Marlowe's original audiences were delighted with the blasphemous and ruthlessly ambitious hero; the introduction to this edition discusses the problems that such a character poses for modern audiences and highlights the undercurrents of the play that lead towards a more ironic interpretation.

This dramatic and influential play by Christopher Marlowe thrusts readers into the ambitious rise of a shepherd to a powerful warlord in the 14th century. This two-part play is renowned for its poetic grandeur and the depiction of its ruthless yet charismatic protagonist, Tamburlaine. Marlowe, a contemporary of Shakespeare, revolutionized Elizabethan drama with his use of blank verse and complex characters. Set against the vast backdrop of the Middle Eastern and Central Asian empires, the narrative explores themes of power, ambition, and the human cost of relentless conquest. Marlowe's Tamburlaine is not just a conqueror but also a poet and a visionary, embodying the Renaissance fascination with the 'overreacher' who challenges the heavens. This work is pivotal in the development of English drama, marking a departure from medieval morality plays to a more secular and humanistic approach, encapsulating the transformative spirit of the Elizabethan age.

Tamburlaine the Great is a play in two parts by Christopher Marlowe. It is loosely based on the life of the Central Asian emperor, Timur "the lame". Written in 1587 or 1588, the play is a milestone in Elizabethan public drama; it marks a turning away from the clumsy language and loose plotting of the earlier Tudor dramatists, and a new interest in fresh and vivid language, memorable action, and intellectual complexity. Along with Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, it may be considered the first popular success of London's public stage.Christopher Marlowe (26 February 1564 – 30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe was the foremost Elizabethan tragedian of his day. He greatly influenced William Shakespeare, who was born in the same year as Marlowe and who rose to become the pre-eminent Elizabethan playwright after Marlowe's mysterious early death.

"Arguably the single-most important play of the Elizabethan era, Tamburlaine did more than any other to transform an insignificant form of public entertainment, barely distinguishable from the juggling, fencing, and animal-baiting with which it shared its performance space, into an art of national importance. . . . Tamburlaine cranks the excitements of language and spectacle to an unprecedented pitch, not simply to indulge the fantasies of the audience but as an exemplary demonstration of poetry's dangerous potency."-The New York Review of Books. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) has been called the founder of English drama and the perfecter of dramatic blank verse. He is known as a poet and translator of Lucan and Ovid, and as a guide and leader for Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan poets and dramatists. Tamburlaine the Great was his most ambitious work and the first play written in English blank verse. John Davies Jump was professor of English at the University of Manchester.