Playing with Promethean Fire: Dido, Queen of Carthage and Tamburlaine the Great

Abstract

This article attempts to consider Marlowe's Promethean imagination in the context of Denis Donoghue's Thieves of Fire (1973). It focuses on two plays Dido, Queen of Carthage and Tamburlaine the Great, but the project extends further to 'Marlowe's Journey', the working title of a book culminating in a new look at Doctor Faustus. The general idea is to link the plays with acting, the inbuilt histrionic style of Marlowe's characterization, with the concept of the Promethean, understood as subversion on the moral and political scales.