In ACT 1, SCENE 2 of TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT, PART 1, the eponymous hero envisions his vast empire-to-be, measuring in his mind’s eye the limits of “his empery / By east and west as Phoebus doth his course” (39–40). Much later, in the final scene of Part 2, the dying Scythian warrior measures his dominion again, for the last time. Calling for a map, he gloats over his conquests even as he expresses keen regret and amazement at the worlds yet to be subdued. With his expiring breath he exhorts his sons to continue his conquests and expand his empire. The ability of his sons, woefully unprepared to accomplish such a monumental task, remains problematic, but these two scenes provide vivid emblems for the challenges that the Marlowe Society of America, since its inception, has undertaken: the responsibility not only of measuring the extent of Marlowe’s achievements, but also of expanding the critical contexts of his plays.
The Marlowe Society of America was organized in 1974, and, during the first twenty-seven years of its existence, scholarship on Christopher Marlowe has burgeoned. In addition to the two collections of critical essays on Marlowe published under its aegis, the Society annually hosts two sessions at the Modern Language Association Convention, and in 1998 sponsored its fourth international conference in Cambridge, England at Marlowe’s own alma mater, Corpus Christi College. Two or three scholarly books on Marlowe appear in print every year, in addition to a constant flow of critical essays. Moreover, the life of this apparently dashing yet mysterious figure has also inspired several biographical studies, historical novels, original dramas and, most recently, films. After centuries of neglect—on the stage as well as on the page—the late twentieth . . .