Tamburlaine as Antichrist: Overview

I originally started to look at Tamburlaine as an Antichrist figure while sitting in class the first or second day we discussed the text. Looking back at my notes, I have a bubbled section where I pondered all the possibilities of just who Tamburlaine is. His character initially perplexed me: early on the reader learns he comes from simple means, yet his speech is anything but. Tamburlaine is eloquent and persuasive, and contrasting him against Mycetes and Cosroe only serves to highlight this fact further. My first line of thought was to compare Tamburlaine with other powerful orators: Adolf Hitler, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Jesus Christ.

I didn’t immediately jump from here to Antichrist, though. My first thought was that Tamburlaine might be a sort of proto-Byronic hero. If the Early Modern period is now viewed as an earlier part of a continuum that flows into the Romantic period, it would make sense that Byron might have modeled his idealized heroes. I haven’t discredited this theory, but it isn’t what I chose to pursue in my research. I also looked for connections where Tamburlaine would be a continuation of the Old English hero ideal. This stemmed more from my own desire to read Tamburlaine in this way, but it too is an interesting filter through which to view Tamburlaine. All through class, I struggled with the character of Tamburlaine – he was far too rich and complex a character to ignore, and the sublime ease he diffused any situation and won over his enemies with words wouldn’t let this question fade – and eventually I wrote, “Who is Tamburlaine supposed to be? Christ? Antichrist? Good? Evil? Byronic? Human? Superhuman?,” and from there narrowed in on the Antichrist role.

Almost immediately details of this reading clicked into place for me. Tamburlaine was raised a simple shepherd and becomes a powerful leader through his words – the parallels to the life of Jesus here are uncanny. Equally so are the diametric oppositions: Tamburlaine is violent and ruthless, he promises his followers earthly riches, and ostentatiously turns Zenocrate not from whore to saint, as Christ turns Mary Magdalene, but rather conquers the princess constructed as pure, frozen, and white.

My notes from the cultural presentation on Islam have two sentences circled with particular emphasis. The first is about how Islam was a collected, sophisticated, and powerful front England faced, a peer in Imperialism England both feared and revered. And the second simply says “Muslim=Antichrist.” Indeed, in my research I’ve discovered this is often how Muslims are portrayed. While the Jews were considered the “Christ killers,” the Muslims were perhaps less conniving but more dangerous, they were the “Christian killers,” constructed as either without religion or of a religion opposite that of Christianity. The Islamic/Ottoman Empire as a whole had the largest army and navy of the day, and the riches of their trade was seemingly limitless. This was the reality England faced, but its perception of Turk was even more intense: a Turk was anything “other,” be it African, Middle Eastern, Asian, Ottoman, Muslim, Indian, or any of the other terms that were used interchangeably. England had much to fear, but feared more still.

Yet the necessity of at least a working relationship with the Ottoman Empire was undeniable to an England obsessed with expansion, both in geographic boundaries as well as cultural. Queen Elizabeth I forged the first bonds with the Islamic world in the form of trade, and since that moment Early Modern England developed a strange view of the Muslim, fear and respect confounding the nation’s psyche. Because they were partners in trade, and because each Empire expanded into neutral territory, there was never a direct military conflict. England couldn’t stand against the enormous power of the Ottoman army, but the true structure ruling the Ottomans was so complex and prone to fluctuation that it was largely concerned with military affairs within its own borders. Much like the United States and the former Soviet Union, these two superpowers continued uneasy relations with the constant, subtle fear of an imminent, all-out war.

And in this tradition Marlowe seems to construct Tamburlaine. He does some terrible, inhuman things at times, but they are never fully denounced for what they are. Nor does Tamburlaine ever meet true opposition at the end of the first play. If Marlowe had written the second part as a response to the popularity of the first, thus defining the first part as an independent play in and of itself, then Tamburlaine’s story very well might end with Tamburlaine on top. Muslim equates with Antichrist. Tamburlaine equates with Turk (even though he is Scythian). Turk equates with Muslim. And so Tamburlaine, in a chain of convoluted association one might come to expect from an Early Modern worldview, equates with Antichrist. In the big picture, Tamburlaine is representative for the entire Ottoman empire as it is viewed by Early Modern England, yet it is this more immediate view – a hero/antihero who is at the core entirely evil but on the surface commandingly, persuasively good – that represents English attempts to reconcile its fear and respect for the Islamic Empire starting with a single literary individual.

Below you'll find a collection of research and resources pertinent to Tamburlaine as Antichrist. My research paper in full is posted, along with my full bibliography. Additionally, there is a list of sources I consulted or otherwise came across in my research, but did not use. And finally, I've included a collection of primary documents that explore the historical figure Timur, on whom Marlowe based Tamburlaine, Early Modern English views of the Muslim, and depictions of Tamburlaine and/or Timur as Turkish ruler, ruthless conqueror, and complex Anglicization attempts.