Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1978

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Collins, Robert A.

Abstract

While the text of Tamburlaine I and II contains the classic pattern of act and scene divisions, the organic structure of the play is governed by the twelve signs and houses of the zodiac. The play's metaphorical patterns are consciously formulated to correspond to the zodiacal year, and consequently represent a circular pattern. The play's well-known rising and falling movement (Parts I and II) is analogous to both solar day and solar year. As hero, Tamburlaine's role is that of Sol, the central planet in the Ptolemaic system, ascending with the vernal equinox in Part I and descending with the autumnal equinox in Part II. The imagery traverses, in sequential fashion, the signs and houses, with one radical adjustment: Pisces is removed from the end of the cycle and placed at the beginning of Act I, an alteration which probably has concealed the metaphorical pattern heretofore.

Extent

195 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1978.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Identifier

FADT13929

Format

pdf

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