Tamburlaine kickstarted the golden age of Elizabethan drama (so named for Queen Elizabeth I, England’s ruler at the time). The play’s influence on English theatrical works in the two decades that immediately followed it is immeasurable, not least in the plays of Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s early tragedy
Titus Andronicus similarly capitalizes on the violence and bombast that made Marlowe’s play such a sensation, while his history plays like
Richard III and
Henry IV explore similar themes of power and political ambition. Marlowe’s own fascination with political ruthlessness, on display in
Tamburlaine, sprang from his reading of Machiavelli’s 1532 treatise
The Prince, which advocates a cynical and cold-blooded approach to ruling (and thus inspired the term “Machiavellian”). Marlowe’s later plays explore themes raised in
Tamburlaine with arguably greater depth and subtlety:
The Jew of Malta again takes up the clash of religions that dominates Part Two of
Tamburlaine, and his masterpiece
Doctor Faustus focuses on blasphemy and the price of unrelenting ambition. The poetic language used in
Tamburlaine owes much to Marlowe’s intensive study of the Greek and Latin classics, such as Homer’s
Iliad and Virgil’s
Aeneid, two poems of war and conquest. The Roman writer Ovid, explicitly mentioned in
Tamburlaine, likewise exerts a persistent influence on Marlowe’s diction. Marlowe himself produced a highly accomplished translation of Ovid’s love elegies, the
Amores. Tamburlaine the man was a real historical figure who has been the subject of many books. A recent non-fiction account is Justin Marozzi’s
Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World.