Marlowe's seven plays dramatise the fatal lure of potent forces, whether religious, occult or erotic. In the victories of Tamburlaine, Faustus's encounters with the demonic, the irreverence of Barabas in The Jew of Malta, and the humiliation of Edward II in his fall from power and influence, Marlowe explores the shifting balance between power and helplessness, the sacred and its desecration.

For more than seventy years,...

One of the smash hits of the late 1580s and 90s, Tamburlaineestablished blank verse as the poetic line of English Renaissancedrama, Edward Alleyn as the first English star actor and Marlowe as oneof the foremost playwrights of his time. The rise and fall of aScythian peasant-warrior who conquers the Middle East and is struckdown by illness after burning the books of the Koran is presented intwo parts crammed with theatrical splendour and equally spectacularcruelty. Marlowe's original audiences were delighted with theblasphemous and ruthlessly ambitious hero; the introduction to thisedition...

'Tell me worldlings, underneath the sun, If greater falsehood ever has been done'

The Jew of Malta, written around 1590, can present a challenge for modern audiences. Hugely popular in its day, the play swings wildly and rapidly in genre, from pointed satire, to bloody revenge tragedy, to melodrmatic intrigue, to dark farce and grotesque comedy. Although set in the Mediterranean island of Malta, the playevokes contemporary Elizabethan social tensions, especially the highly charged issue of London's much-resented community of resident merchant foreigners. Barabas, the...