Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Arden Early Modern Drama Guides offer students and academics practical and accessible introductions to the critical and performance contexts of key Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Essays from leading international scholars give invaluable insight into the text by presenting a range of critical perspectives, making the books ideal companions for study and research. Key features include: Essays on the plays critical and performance history A keynote essay on current research and thinking about the play A selection of new essays by leading scholars A survey of resources to direct students further reading about the play in print and online The blockbuster Tamburlaine plays (1587) instantly established Marlowes reputation for experimenting with subversive, outrageous and immoral material. The plays follow the meteoric rise of a Scythian shepherd-turned-warlord, whose conquests of eastern emperors soon sees him established as the most powerful man in the world. The visual tableaux featured in the plays are iconic. He uses his enemy Bajazeth as a footstool, and has other emperors pull his chariot like horses. He burns the Quran on stage. The plays were memorable, too, for how they sounded: they showcased the power and variability of iambic pentameter, the meter that Shakespeare would go on to perfect. No history of Shakespeares theatre is complete without understanding the influence and significance of Marlowes Tamburlaine plays. Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader offers the definitive introduction to these plays and new perspectives on these seminal works. It provides an overview of their reception on stage and by critics, and offers fresh insights into the teaching of these plays in the classroom.

Reviews

The true genius of this collection is in its Janusian perspective ... Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader serves as a concise but impressive review of Tamburlaines history in past decades, a time capsule recording the current state of the field, and an optimistic forecast of what we may see in decades to come. * Marlowe Society of America *

Author Bio

David McInnis is Associate Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Contributors include Claire M. L. Bourne (Pennsylvania State University, USA), Matthew Dimmock (University of Sussex, UK), Peter Kirwan (University of Nottingham, UK), Tom Rutter (University of Sheffield, UK), Liam E. Semler (University of Sydney, Australia), M. L. Stapleton (Purdue University, USA), Sydnee Wagner (City University of New York, USA) and Sarah Wall-Randell (Wellesley College, USA).