Amidst the energetic drive to complete my Tamburlaine paper (finally), I reread both parts and found this gem of a quote:

“Villains, these terrors and tyrannies
(If tyrannies war’s justice ye repute),
I execute, enjoin’d me from above,
To scourge the pride of such as Heaven abhors;
Nor am I made arch-monarch of the world,
Crown’d and invested by the hand of Jove,
For deeds of bounty or nobility;
But since I exercise a greater name,
The scourge of God and terror of the world,
I must apply myself to fit those terms,
In war, in blood, in death, in cruelty,
And plague such peasants as resist in me
The power of heaven’s eternal majesty.” (2.4.i. 146-158)
    Tamburlaine explains the central ethical paradox of his character here; his highest ethics comes at the moment he is absolutely unethical. That is, as the “scourge of God” his very duty is to kill, pillage, boast, and a myriad other activities that counter universal ethics. (I realize Nietzsche would dismiss this notion, but he will not figure into my discussion here) Of course, one could argue that Tamburlaine is merely delusional about his mission’s divine sanction, but the ease and extent of his victories coupled with the Early Modern politics that give rise to the play testify otherwise.
    First, quite simply, Tamburlaine and his forces are invincible in both parts of the play. Marlowe extends himself to set up the ferocity, strength and magnitude of Tamburlaine’s enemies, only to have the (anti)protagonist destroy them in two lines. Much more important, however, is the historical situation at the time the play was written and the utopic (compensatory) gestures Tamburlaine’s character allows.
    In the Early Modern world, the Ottoman Empire is plainly the dominant world force, both militarily and economically. The ‘Turks’ were enormously successful and expanding, thus terrifying Europeans with fears of both military domination and religious conversion to Islam. In this setting, Marlowe writes Tamburlaine in which the title character is a Persian (another Ottoman enemy—aside from Europe) that successfully, and easily, destroys the Turks. That is, although he is based on a real historical figure, Tamburlaine functions as the realization of the European fantasy desire to vanquish the Ottomans. European sectarian divisions and relative military weakness prevent them from posing a real threat, thus the narrative calls on Tamburlaine to be the “scourge of God,” whose slaughter and conquest of the Turks is ethical precisely because such violence is his mission. (Could we also say that his actions are ethical to an Elizabethan audience precisely because they are a compensatory realization of their own longings and fears? Would this then be a Nietzschian move, to locate ethics not in Kant’s categorical imperative but in the historical situation?)

 

..more tomorrow; I hope to make a link to the abstraction of war and an amazing conversation I had with a student about his experiences as a Marine on Iraq’s frontlines.