In these lines, Tamburlaine relies on the past tense as he recounts his martial itinerary.
In these lines we can see where Shakespeare drew a lot of his inspiration for his histories.
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- Sep 2020
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Similarly, the numerous early modem complaints against the "infynytt numbers of the wicked wandrynge Idell people of the land" which flowed from the pens of elites and their organic intellectuals find a contemporary analogue in demonization of the "homeless," along with welfare "reform" (with its reinstitution of the workhouse logic in "workfare" and its inten-sified stigmatization of poverty), as well as anti-panhandling legislation.
This is another "ideal" coming from a classist POV that is still pervasive. It makes me wonder how much came from colonialism and how much is just the unfortunate nature of human beings.
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In 1538, for example, the "powre Artyfycer" John Bayker wrote to Henry VIII to bring to his king's attention what he saw as a deplorable state of the kingdom: "I have beyne in the most payrte off the cytys and greyt townes in england; I have allso gone thorowe many lytyll townes and vylygys: but alasse yt dyd pety my hert, to se in evyry place so many monyments wer that howsess and habytatyons hayth beyne and nowe nothynge but bayr walls standynge" (Tawney and Power 2: 303). A walk through North Philadelphia, Southcentral Los Angeles, Flint, Michigan, or any of the other abandoned inner cities or industrial towns, would give one a similar experience, a jolt of recognition.
It's telling that we're still having these conversations, centuries later, and how easy it is to apply "modern" philosophy and "modern" ideals into a text that is 500 years old.
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Marlowe as writing with an eye to English designs on the New World,
I was wondering this... Marlow's writing, in particular in Tamburlaine seems so prescient, knowing what we now know happened after the first production and publication of this play. Because (we think) Marlowe might have been a spy for Her Majesty, do we think he was writing this with a knowledge no one else had at the time? It seems to give permission for the British "acquisitive energy" that comes in the years following.
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Marlowe stages the collision between geographies newand old.5
This is something I hadn't considered before. Yes, Shakespeare stages his plays outside of England, but not in any way that seems "real". (The Tempest is a great example of this). Marlowe's Tamburlaine very much takes place "out there", but in places that were well-known to the English audience at the time. This idea of oikumene make sense in relation to the ancient epics, and the fact that Marlowe sort of flipped it on it's head and made something tangible in terms of setting seems so simple but is so significant!
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