When Tamburlaine the Great was first performed around 1587, it transformed English drama overnight. Marlowe’s hero — a Scythian shepherd who rises to conquer half the known world through sheer force of will — delivered a new kind of dramatic verse: the ‘mighty line’ of blank pentameter that Shakespeare would inherit and perfect. The play is a sustained meditation on power and the will to dominate.
Part 1 charts Tamburlaine’s unstoppable rise. Marlowe’s most exuberant work, it remains essential reading in Elizabethan drama. This free EPUB is formatted for any e-reader.