Tamburlaine

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.