Arden Early Modern Drama Guides offer students and academics practical and accessible introductions to the critical and performance contexts of key Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Essays from leading international scholars give invaluable insight into the text by presenting a range of critical perspectives, making the books ideal companions for study and research. Key features include: Essays on the plays' critical and performance history A keynote essay on current research and thinking about the play A selection of new essays by leading scholars A survey of resources to direct students' further reading about the play in print and online The blockbuster Tamburlaine plays (1587) instantly established Marlowe's reputation for experimenting with subversive, outrageous and immoral material. The plays follow the meteoric rise of a Scythian shepherd-turned-warlord, whose conquests of eastern emperors soon sees him established as the most powerful man in the world. The visual tableaux featured in the plays are iconic. He uses his enemy Bajazeth as a footstool, and has other emperors pull his chariot like horses. He burns the Qur'an on stage. The plays were memorable, too, for how they sounded: they showcased the power and variability of iambic pentameter, the meter that Shakespeare would go on to perfect. No history of Shakespeare's theatre is complete without understanding the influence and significance of Marlowe's Tamburlaine plays. Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader offers the definitive introduction to these plays and new perspectives on these seminal works. It provides an overview of their reception on stage and by critics, and offers fresh insights into the teaching of these plays in the classroom.

Arden Early Modern Drama Guides offer students and academics practical and accessible introductions to the critical and performance contexts of key Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Essays from leading international scholars give invaluable insight into the text by presenting a range of critical perspectives, making the books ideal companions for study and research. Key features include: Essays on the plays' critical and performance history A keynote essay on current research and thinking about the play A selection of new essays by leading scholars A survey of resources to direct students' further reading about the play in print and online The blockbuster Tamburlaine plays (1587) instantly established Marlowe's reputation for experimenting with subversive, outrageous and immoral material. The plays follow the meteoric rise of a Scythian shepherd-turned-warlord, whose conquests of eastern emperors soon sees him established as the most powerful man in the world. The visual tableaux featured in the plays are iconic. He uses his enemy Bajazeth as a footstool, and has other emperors pull his chariot like horses. He burns the Qur'an on stage. The plays were memorable, too, for how they sounded: they showcased the power and variability of iambic pentameter, the meter that Shakespeare would go on to perfect. No history of Shakespeare's theatre is complete without understanding the influence and significance of Marlowe's Tamburlaine plays. Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader offers the definitive introduction to these plays and new perspectives on these seminal works. It provides an overview of their reception on stage and by critics, and offers fresh insights into the teaching of these plays in the classroom.

Separated into two parts, Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great follows the conquests of an outlaw who slowly rises to power through extreme displays of aggression. When Mycetes, the king of Persia, complains to his brother, Cosroe, about a group of outlaws that were causing trouble, Cosroe claimed that Mycetes was weak, and that a king shouldn’t have such a problem. In response, Mycetes sends out a powerful soldier to kill the leader of the outlaws, Tamburlaine. Though the soldier’s army was twice the size of Tamburlaine’s, the outlaw was hardly discouraged. Using his wit and charm, Tamburlaine attempts to convince the soldier to convert to his side, merging the two armies. As Tamburlaine grows stronger, he gains new allies, such as his clever wife, Zenocrate. Though he seemed to be just a petty outlaw at first, the leaders of prominent Eurasian countries become increasingly concerned as Tamburlaine slowly overcomes armies and nations with force, manipulation, and unlikely alliances. As his makeshift armies continue to challenge elite armed forces, countless lives are at stake as Tamburlaine’s bloody ambition only grows. When first released, Tamburlaine the Great both fascinated and disgusted the 16th century audience. Gaining a mix of fame and infamy, Tamburlaine the Great is praised for its masterful imagery and language, enchanting audiences with its drama. However, Marlowe still received criticism for the play’s suspected atheist undertones and the violence associated with the play, both real and depicted. With strong themes of humanism, Tamburlaine the Great celebrates the accomplishments of Tamburlaine with little regard to the character’s cruelty and aggression, creating a thought-provoking narrative that stays with readers long after the play’s conclusion. Often referenced in prominent literary works, Tamburlaine the Great remains relevant with radio and film adaptations, and is still performed in theatres around the world. This edition of Tamburlaine the Great by Christopher Marlowe is now presented in an easy-to-read font and features a striking new cover decision, creating an accessible reading experience. With these accommodations, Tamburlaine the Great is restored to modern standards while the original genius and vivid imagery of Marlowe’s poetry is preserved.

Essays considering the representation and perception of hell in a variety of texts.

​This book is a study of the representation of the Persian empire in English drama across the early modern period, from the 1530s to the 1690s. The wide focus of this book, encompassing thirteen dramatic entertainments, both canonical and little-known, allow it to trace the changes and developments in the dramatic use of Persia and its people across one and a half centuries. It explores what Persia signified to English playwrights and audiences in this period; the ideas and associations conjured up by mention of ‘Persia’; and where information about Persia came from. It also considers how ideas about Persia changed with the development of global travel and trade, as English people came into people with Persians for the first time. In addressing these issues, this book provides an examination not only of the representation of Persia in dramatic material, but of the broader relationship between travel, politics and the theatre in early modern England.

Edward II: A Critical Reader gives students, teachers and scholars alike an overview of the play's reception both in the theatre and among artists and critics, from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 21st. The volume also offers a series of new perspectives on the play by leading experts in the field of early modern history and culture. Bolstered with a timeline tracking Marlowe's life and work, an up-to-date bibliography and an extensive index, this collection is an ideal and definitive guide to Edward II.

Shakespeare's plays are fascinated by the problems of speed and flight. They are repeatedly interested in humans, spirits, and objects that move very fast; become airborne; and in some cases even travel into space. In Speed and Flight in Shakespeare, the first study of any kind on the subject, Steggle looks at how Shakespeare’s language explores ideas of speed and flight, and what theatrical resources his plays use to represent these states. Shakespeare has, this book argues, an aesthetic of speed and flight. Featuring chapters on The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Macbeth and The Tempest, this study opens up a new field around the ‘historical phenomenology’ of early modern speed.