`A World of Ground': Terrestrial Space in Marlowe's Tamburlaine plays

Author: Jones, Emrys

Source: The Yearbook of English Studies, Volume 38, Numbers 1-2, 1 July 2008 , pp. 168-182(15)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

In the Tamburlaine plays Marlowe adapted for dramatic purposes what Jorge Luis Borges termed `the vast geographies of Ariosto'. These purposes brought the English drama into a close relation with the new cosmography of Ortelius and others. Marlowe was exploiting the growing awareness of the world's full spatial context — an awareness peculiar to Western Europe in his time. In Part One of Tamburlaine he focuses on the establishment of his hero's imperial power: first Emperor of Asia, then Emperor of Africa. This symbolically balanced shaping of his military career is Marlowe's own interpretation. Among other spatially sensitive features, Part Two presents spectacular map-based journeys of a kind prominently exemplified in Ariosto's Orlando furioso.

Document Type: Research article

Publication date: 2008-07-01

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A supplement to the Modern Language Review, this journal includes articles and reviews on the language and literature of the English-speaking world. Most of the volumes published so far are 'Special Numbers', collections of between fifteen and eighteen commissioned articles on particular topics, such as the impact of the French Revolution on English writers; literature in the modern media; and colonial and imperial themes in literature.