CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

Biography

MISTERY OF MARLOWE'S DEATH

En Tamburlaine Marlowe usó el pentámetro Yámbico:

Pentámetro yámbico es un tipo de verso de cinco pies, cada uno de los cuales suele estar compuesto de dos sílabas, no acentuada y acentuada, con una sílaba opcional no acentuada al final. No hay rima.

Escritores ingleses como William Shakespeare o Christopher Marlowe y el norteamericano Allen Ginsberg compusieron gran parte de su obra dramática con esta métrica.

Ejemplos

Un pie yámbico es una sílaba no acentuada seguida de una acentuada. Su rítmo se puede describir de la siguiente forma:

da

DUM

Una línea de pentámetro yámbico son cinco pies yámbicos en un mismo verso:

da

DUM

da

DUM

da

DUM

da

DUM

da

DUM

En la métrica inglesa suele representarse este rítmo con una 'x' para la sílaba átona y con una '/' para la sílaba tónica. Siguiendo este criterio, el pentámetro yámbico se representa de la siguiente forma:

x

/

x

/

x

/

x

/

x

/

La línea 39 de la segunda escena del primer acto en La Tempestad es un ejemplo de pentámetro yámbico.

A time before we came unto this cell?

Podemos marcar la métrica de esta línea como sigue:

x	/	x	/	x	/	x	/	x	/
A	time	be-	fore	we	came	un-	to	this	cell?

Marcamos la división entre los pies con una |.

x

/

x

/

x

/

x

/

x

/

A

time

|

be

fore

|

we

came

|

un

to

|

this

cell

"Tamburlaine the Great" is a play in two parts by Christopher Marlowe. It is loosely based on the life of the Central Asian emperor, Timur "the lame". Written in 1587 or 1588, the play is a milestone in Elizabethan public drama; it marks a turning away from the clumsy language and loose plotting of the earlier Tudor dramatists, and a new interest in fresh and vivid language, memorable action, and intellectual complexity. Along with Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, it may be considered the first popular success of London's public stage.

    Marlowe, generally considered the greatest of the University Wits, influenced playwrights well into the Jacobean period, and echoes of Tamburlaine's bombast and ambition can be found in English plays all the way to the Puritan closing of the theatres in 1642. While Tamburlaine is considered inferior to the great tragedies of the late-Elizabethan and early-Jacobean period, its significance in creating a stock of themes and, especially, in demonstrating the potential of blank verse in drama, are still acknowledged.

Plot

Part 1 opens in Persepolis. The Persian emperor, Mycetes, dispatches troops to dispose of Tamburlaine, a Scythian shepherd and at that point a nomadic bandit. In the same scene, Mycetes' brother Cosroe plots to overthrow Mycetes and assume the throne.

    The scene shifts to Scythia, where Tamburlaine is shown wooing, capturing, and winning Zenocrate, the daughter of the Egyptian king. Confronted by Mycetes' soldiers, he persuades first the soldiers and then Cosroe to join him in a fight against Mycetes. Although he promises Cosroe the Persian throne, Tamburlaine reneges on this promise and, after defeating Mycetes, takes personal control of the Persian Empire.

    Now a powerful figure, Tamburlaine now turns his attention to Bajazeth, Emperor of the Turks. He defeats Bajazeth and his tributary kings, capturing the Emperor and his wife Zabina. The victorious Tamburlaine keeps the defeated ruler in a cage and feeds him scraps from his table, releasing Bajazeth only to use him as a footstool. Bajazeth later kills himself onstage by bashing his head against the bars upon hearing of Tamburlaine's next victory, and upon finding his body Zabina does likewise.

    After conquering Africa and naming himself emperor of that continent, Tamburlaine sets his eyes on Damascus; this target places the Egyptian Sultan, his father-in-law, directly in his path. Zenocrate pleads with her husband to spare her father. He complies, instead making the Sultan a tributary king. The play ends with the wedding of Zenocrate and Tamburlaine, and the crowning of the former as Empress of Persia.

In Part 2, Tamburlaine grooms his sons to be conquerors in his wake as he continues to conquer his neighbouring kingdoms. His oldest son, Calyphas, preferring to stay by his mother's side and not risk death, incurs Tamburlaine's wrath. Meanwhile, the son of Bajazeth, Callapine, escapes from Tamburlaine's jail and gathers a group of tributary kings to his side, planning to avenge his father. Callapine and Tamburlaine meet in battle, where Tamburlaine is victorious. But finding Calyphas remained in his tent during the battle, Tamburlaine kills him in anger. Tamburlaine then forces the defeated kings to pull his chariot to his next battlefield, declaring,

Holla ye pampered jades of Asia!

What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day?

    Upon reaching Babylon, which holds out against him, Tamburlaine displays further acts of extravagant savagery. When the Governor of the city attempts to save his life in return for revealing the city treasury, Tamburlaine has him hung from the city walls and orders his men to shoot him to death. He orders the inhabitants -- men, women, and children -- bound and thrown into a nearby lake. Lastly, Tamburlaine scornfully burns a copy of the Qur'an and claims to be greater than God. In the final act, he is struck ill but manages to defeat one more foe before he dies. He bids his remaining sons to conquer the remainder of the earth as he departs life.

Themes: The play is often linked to Renaissance humanism which idealises the potential of human beings. Tamburlaine's aspiration to immense power raises profound religious questions as he arrogates for himself a role as the "scourge of God" (an epithet originally applied to Attila the Hun). Some readers have linked this stance with the fact that Marlowe was accused of atheism. Others have been more concerned with a supposed anti-Muslim thread of the play, highlighted in a scene in which the main character burns the Qur'an.

    Jeff Dailey notes in his article "Christian Underscoring in Tamburlaine the Great, Part II" that Marlowe's work is a direct successor to the traditional medieval morality plays, and that, whether or not he is an atheist, he has inherited religious elements of content and allegorical methods of presentation.