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. 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.
An anonymous portrait, often believed to show Christopher Marlowe. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Sultan Bajazeth prisoned by Tamburlaine (1878) by Stanisław Chlebowski
Tamburlaine and Bajazeth (ca. 1700) by Andrea Celesti
Bajazeth is encaged, while his captive wife is treated as a slave (1860) by Peter Johann Nepomuk Geiger
Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon the "many imitations" of his play Tamburlaine, modern scholars consider him to have been the foremost dramatist in London in the years just before his mysterious early death. Some scholars also believe that he greatly influenced William Shakespeare, who was baptised in the same year as Marlowe and later succeeded him as the preeminent Elizabethan playwright. Marlowe was the first to achieve critical reputation for his use of blank verse, which became the standard for the era. His plays are distinguished by their overreaching protagonists. Themes found within Marlowe's literary works have been noted as humanistic with realistic emotions, which some scholars find difficult to reconcile with Marlowe's "anti-intellectualism" and his catering to the prurient tastes of his Elizabethan audiences for generous displays of extreme physical violence, cruelty, and bloodshed.
Anonymous portrait, possibly of Marlowe, at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Marlowe was christened at St George's Church, Canterbury. The tower, shown here, is all that survived destruction during the Baedeker air raids of 1942.
The corner of Old Court of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where Marlowe stayed while a Cambridge student and, possibly, during the time he was recruited as a spy
Portrait of alleged "spymaster" Sir Francis Walsingham c. 1585; attributed to John de Critz