“Their colour pleaseth me”: The use of color in Marlowe’s Tamburlaine plays

This essay aims to shed some light on the role of color imagery in Marlowe’s Tamburlaine plays, highlighting how it not only enhances the dramatic spectacle, but also serves as a vehicle for character development and emotional resonance. Marlowe employs vivid color symbolism to accentuate the allure of Tamburlaine’s conquests, the exceptionality of his extraordinary enterprise, and the power dynamics among the plays’ protagonists. The language of color particularly reflects Tamburlaine’s ambitious and ruthless nature, shaping audience perceptions of authority, passion, and brutality. In so doing, this essay follows into the footsteps of Jodi Sandford’s own research interests in Color Studies, and specifically her 2021 monograph, with its illuminating focus on “our experience of vision and color and how we use it in language” (2021, p. 18).