Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1

“Tamburlaine the Great.

Who, from a Scythian Shepherd

by his rare and wonderful Conquests

became a most puissant and mightye Monarque,

And (for his tyranny, and terrour in Warre) was termed

The Scourge of God.”

So reads the 1590 title page of the printed version of recent smash hits on the Elizabethan stage, the two parts of Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine. Nothing was to be the same again. As Professor Stephen Greenblatt has written in his recent monograph on Marlowe (Dark Renaissance, 2025), “Virtually everything in the Elizabethan theatre is pre- and post-Tamburlaine. Most literary innovation is incremental; it is rare for a work of art to change everything so quickly and decisively. But Tamburlaine is one of those rare instances.”

The plays plot the career of Tamburlaine, who from his origins as a humble shepherd conquers the mighty empires of Persia and Turkey and makes inroads into Europe, a trajectory encompassing the most horrific acts of cruelty and barbarity, yet all done to the accompaniment of the most extraordinary language.

Tamburlaine established unrhymed iambic pentameter (what we now call blank verse) as the dominant form for English drama, a form adopted and developed by Marlowe’s contemporary Shakespeare. Here was a fresh verbal music to ravish the ears of Elizabethan audiences, with its “high astounding terms” and pyrotechnical rhetorical flourishes, but also a form capable of expressing tender intimacy and labyrinthine inward reflection. The language of Tamburlaine is exotic and intoxicating, incorporating spellbinding repetitions of words and names – Zenocrate, Usumcasane, Persepolis – it is a thrill to read aloud, and there will be plenty of opportunities to do this during the study.

Marlowe’s Tamburlaine is a character who provokes varied reactions and questions. Is he a conquering hero or a bloodthirsty tyrant? Are we meant to respond to him with horrified revulsion or vicarious pleasure, ravished by his language and superhuman energy and daring? Here is a man of unlimited aspiration, unconstrained power and an inhuman consistency of purpose, a progenitor of Shakespeare’s Richard III, Milton’s Satan and Melville’s Ahab, an analogue for many real-life political leaders, even in our own times.

In this study we will read through Part 1 of Tamburlaine. If there is interest, we will follow with the sequel, in which “Tamburlaine the scourge of God must die”.

JOINING DETAILS:

• Five meeting study, live on Zoom, led by Tim Swinglehurst
• Wednesdays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK time), 16, 23, 30 September & 7, 14 October 2026
• Recommended edition: Tamburlaine, Parts One and Two by Christopher Marlowe, edited by Anthony B. Dawson, Methuen Drama (UK), 2003. ISBN: 978-0-7136-6814-8.
• £175.00 for five meetings, including background notes and resources.

REDUCED COSTS:  We are committed to making our studies as affordable as possible. We can’t promise to help but please email us if you would like to be considered for a reduced-fee place (your details will be treated as confidential).