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The Critical Backstory:
Tamburlaine, 1587â2000
â A Reception History
M. L. Stapleton
I. Beginnings to 1900
As with most medieval and early modern literary texts, the reception of Tamburlaine begins with an amalgam of anecdotes, allusions, play references, and offhand comments. Though little of this material amounts to criticism, virtually all editions and commentary have used it and cemented its importance in the playâs history. Its first mention seems to have been in Robert Greeneâs preface to Perimedes (1588): âlatelye two Gentlemen Poets ⌠had it in derision, for that I could not make my verses iet vpon the stage in tragicall buskins, euerie worde filling the mouthe like the faburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heauen with that Atheist Tamburlanâ. Richard Jonesâs preface to the initial publication of the two parts (1590) comprised another type of commentary in his admission that he removed comic scenes from the text: âI haue (purposely) omitted and left out some fond and friuolous Iestures, digressing (and in my poor opinion) far vnmeet for the matterâ. Philip Henslowe lists performances of Marloweâs plays at the Rose in 1594â95, along with inventory (in 1598) for items such as a âTamberlyne brydellâ, perhaps for the âpampered jadesâ of Part II, along with âTamberlynes cotte [i.e. coat] with coper laceâ and âTamberlanes breches of crymson vellvetâ for son-in-law Edward Alleynâs costume. Elsewhere in his diary, the entrepreneur mentioned buying the script for 40 shillings from Alleyn on 2 October 1602.1 In spite of this seemingly fortuitous purchase, no records of a post-1595 early modern performance survive.
However, this subsequent dearth of theatrical exposure does not signify that Tamburlaine had been entirely forgotten, given the number of allusions, many satirical, in plays and other texts of the time, such as the references to a âstalking Tamberlaineâ in Thomas Dekkerâs Wonderful Year (1603) and a âwarlike Tamburlaineâ in his Old Fortunatus (1600); Shakespeareâs parody in 2 Henry IV, courtesy of Pistol (1598); and the injunction to âplay the Tamburlaineâ in Histriomastix (1598).2 The satirist Joseph Hall (1597) imagined a drunk in the theatre swaggering about as âthe Turkish Tamberlaineâ, fuelled by âhuf-cap termes, and thundring threatsâ.3 Thomas Heywoodâs prologue to The Jew of Malta (1633), performed at the Cockpit before Charles and Henrietta Maria, mentions Marlowe and Alleyn in context with Tamburlaine:
by the best of Poets, in that age,
The Malta Jew had being, and was made;
And He, then by the best of Actors playâd:
In Hero and Leander, one did gain
A lasting memorie: in Tamberlaine,
This Jew, with others many.4
Those in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who interested themselves in âMr. Marloeâ and his conqueror read this piece of evidence differently from one another, and thus created a different controversy: authorship. Based on these couplets, John Miltonâs nephew Edward Phillips attributed âthe first and second parts of Tamerlane, the Great Scythian Emperourâ not to Marlowe but to Thomas Newton, who had edited and contributed to Seneca His Tenne Tragedies (1581).5 Francis Kirkman (1671) and Gerard Langbaine (1691), reading the same Heywoodian lines, together settled on Marlowe as the author. Edmond Malone (1790) concurred but vacillated, under the influence of Richard Farmer, who could not believe that the playwright had written Tamburlaine. The writer of the preface to the plays in the landmark Pickering edition of Marlowe (1826) suggested that the aforementioned passage should be read without punctuation of any kind after âTamburlaineâ, so that âIn the words of the poet one âmadeâ and the other âplayedâ the Jew; and therefore as far as relates to this play the latter part of the sentence may be applied to either Marlowe or Alleyn, and in like manner what is said of Tamburlaine, may independently of other evidence, be applied to the author or the actorâ. For the record, this commentator did not think Marlowe to be the author. There is, of course, more to the story of the early reception of Tamburlaine, with other play references, parodic or otherwise.6
Though the Tamburlaine plays eventually disappeared from the public theatres, references to them or to the historical figure continued from the mid-seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. In Timber (1640), Ben Jonson, who learned much of his craft from watching and reading Marlowe, nonetheless famously observed that the âtrue Artificerâ of the theatre should eschew fustian and bombast and âspeake to the capacity of his hearersâ so that his language âshall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes and Tamer-Chams of the late Age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting, and furious vociferation, to warrant them to the ignorant gapersâ. Sage as Ben was considered to be, it is difficult to ascertain how influential this pronouncement actually was. The seventeenth century featured no shortage of heroes furiously vociferating to gapers who did not consider themselves to be ignorant. Sir John Suckling mentions Tamburlaine in his play The Goblins (1648), as does Sir William Davenant in A Playhouse to Be Let (1663), and Thomas Shadwellâs The Humourists (1670), whose Drybob exclaims, âI have been beaten more severely, than ever Turk was by Tamerlain; which by the way, is no ill Comparison; hah?â. Edmund Gayton (1654) reported that at various âfestivalsâ, groups of players would put on Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, and other allegedly forgotten old works.7
Though Marloweâs authorship of Tamburlaine was hardly assured in the eighteenth century or the first quarter of the nineteenth, interest in his oeuvre did not abate, taken up by a pair of influential critics in their editions. Charles Lamb (1808), exuberant as always, exclaimed: âThe lunes of Tamburlaine are perfect âmidsummer madnessââ. Furthermore, âNebuchadnezzarâs are mere modest pretensions compared with the thundering vaunts of this Scythian Shepherdâ. He spoke derisively and humorously, as one might expect, about the âpampered jadesâ passage in Part II. Yet he then made an amalgam of erotic Marlowe verses, combining a sexy passage from Lustâs Dominion â not thought apocryphal then â with Gavestonâs opening speech from Edward II, and then the âOf stature tall, and straightly fashionedâ (1Tam 2.1.7â30) description of Tamburlaineâs manly beauty. John Payne Collier (1820), disdainful of Lambâs tone and perceived amateurism, countered that though the language may seem âextravagant, perhaps bombasticâ, the careful reader should note that âMarlow was obliged to make his language correspond with the nature of the clime ⌠in the utmost gorgeousness of oriental splendor: what was wanting in the scenery and dresses, he was, in a manner, bound to make up for in the glitter and glare of descriptionâ. Tamburlaineâs speeches âare not half so exaggerated and wind-swollenâ as those of John Drydenâs Almanzor in The Conquest of Granada. Collier accomplished much for Marloweâs benefit here, legitimately and otherwise. At about the same time, he had created one of his forgeries in Hensloweâs diary that established Marlowe as the author of the two plays. By this device, and by crediting him as a master innovator of dramatic blank verse with links to Shakespeare, he created a fairly accurate literary history that scholars have accepted ever since.8
Alexander Dyce produced an edition of Marlowe (1850) seven years before the first of his three Shakespeares (1857, 1864â5, 1875â6) and two decades after the landmark Pickering publication (1826), which had been the first competently edited text of Marloweâs works. Dyceâs textual scholarship was relatively accurate, his commentary and introductions providing useful information on Tamburlaine and the rest of the dramatic corpus. Along with the problematic Pickering, Oxberry, and anonymous Regency-era volumes, some expansive and colourful remarks about Marloweâs works might have struck Dyce as amateurish. This necessitated a learned alternative, a solid text with a named editor whose work followed the philology of the time. James A. Broughton (1830) had implied that he was responsible for at least one of the pair of editions preceding Dyceâs. His handwritten note in his copy of the Pickering (1826) reads: âIn an edition of Tamburlaine printed (but not published) 1818, I enumerated various circumstances which had occasioned me to be sceptical as to Marloweâs property in the playâ. Broughton thereby continued the authorship issue regarding the twinned works from the previous century. But others thought differently. Arthur Hallam (1839) admired the Tamburlaine technique, credited the plays to Marlowe, yet thought them a âfailureâ. Granted, in Tamburlaine, âa better kind of blank verse is first employed; the lines are interwoven, the occasional hemistich and redundant syllables break the monotony of the measure, and give more of a colloquial spirit to the dialogueâ. The âinflated styleâ and âbombastâ are ânot so excessive as has been allegedâ, and besides, were âthought appropriate to such oriental tyrants. This play has more spirit and poetry than any which, upon clear grounds, can be shown to have preceded it. We find also more action on the stage, a shorter and more dramatic dialogue, a more figurative style, with a far more varied and skilful versificationâ. Leigh Hunt (1844) admired Marlowe as a romantic radical. His heroâs glorious speeches apparently outweighed any atrocities, and to this old friend of John Keats, Marloweâs blank verse in the plays bore comparison to Milton: âIt has latterly been thought, that a genius like Marlowe could have had no hand in a play so bombastic as this huffing tragedy. But besides the weighty and dignified, though monotonous tone of his versification in many places, ⌠there are passages in it of force and feeling, of which I doubt whether any of his contemporaries were capable in so sustained a degreeâ. Dyce seemed aware of the issues of decorum, attribution, and morality r...