s uplifted forehead strikes the sky':
incredible victories are won, the vilest cruelties practised; vast
empires are shaken to their foundations, kings are overthrown and new
ones crowned as easily as the wish is expressed; everywhere pride calls
unto pride with the noise of its boastings. There is no plot, unless we
give that name to a succession of battles, pageants and camp scenes.
There is not the least attempt at characterization: in their glorious
moments Bajazeth, the Soldan of Egypt, Orcanes are indistinguishable
from the Scythian shepherd himself. The popularity of _Tamburlaine_ was
not won by fine touches, but by spectacular magnificence, by the pomp
and excitement of war, and by the thrills of responsive pride and
boastfulness awakened in the hearers by the convincing magniloquence of
the speeches. This was possibly the first appearance upon the public
stage of matured drama as opposed to the moralities and interludes.
Udall and Still wrote for school and college audiences; Sackville,
Edwards, Hughes and their compeers presented their plays at court; so
did Lyly; and it was there that _The Arraignment of Paris_ was acted.
But Marlowe, like Kyd, laid his work before a larger, more
unsophisticated audience, unrolling before its astonished gaze the full
sweep of a five act play, crowded with warriors, headlong in its changes
of fortune, and irresistible in its 'drum and trumpet' appeal to man's
fighting instincts. From men of humble birth, in that age of adventure
and romance, the victorious career of the Scythian shepherd won instant
applause; with him they too seemed to rise; they shared in his glory,
exulted with him in the chariot drawn by kings, forgave his savage
massacres, and echoed his vaunts.

Yet there is something beyond all this, which has a lasting value, and
appeals to the modern world as it appealed to Elizabethan England.
Through the smoke of 'frantic boast and foolish word' may be discerned
the fiery core of an idealized human grandeur. Breathing the
intoxicating air of the Renaissance, Marlowe conceives man equal to his
loftiest ideals, able to climb to the highest point of his thoughts.
Choosing imperial conquest as the most striking theme he bids the
shepherd aim at a throne, then bears him on the wings of unwavering
resolution straight to his goal. The creation of Tamburlaine is the
apotheosis of man on the earth. In such words as these does the
conqueror announce his equality with the gods