Analyses of Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great (1587) have often centered on the titular character’s powerful rhetoric, especially in relation to Tamburlaine’s captive wife and queen, Zenocrate. This essay develops this attention to Tamburlaine’s rhetoric by comparing the rise of his empire to R.J.B. Bosworth’s account of Benito Mussolini’s rhetoric and rise to power. This comparison elucidates the centrality of Tamburlaine’s rhetoric to his construction of his em-pire. Tamburlaine’s rhetoric of self-aggrandization and friendship closely resembles Mussolini, but the two rulers diverge in their rhetorical constructions of femininity. Tamburlaine’s rhetoric elevates Zenocrate, situating her persuasion as the telos of his empire. However, Zenocrate challenges Tamburlaine’s violence, causing him to experience “effeminate” doubts and binding him in a rhetorical struggle until her death. This essay argues that this struggle only increases as Tamburlaine approaches his own death. Tamburlaine’s speeches and violence following Zenocrate’s death show that his ambitions have narrowed to simply re-capturing her, even at the expense of his friendships and empire. This essay also demonstrates that Tamburlaine ultimately fails to capture Zenocrate, as he cannot constrain her speech or construct her true post-mortem image into his rhetorical constructions. The real Zenocrate, read by many critics as a passive victim of Tamburlaine, actually resists Tamburlaine’s control even in death.

Dr. Stump greatly influenced Andrew’s direction and ambitions for this capstone project. Dr. Stump’s guidance was especially important to this project’s attention to rhetorics of femininity, which brought Andrew more intently into dialogue with scholarship surrounding Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great. His mentorship for this capstone also helped shape Andrew’s vision of his future as a writer and scholar. This project’s heavy attention to the writing process reshaped Andrew’s philosophy of writing, and Dr. Stump's guidance help make this project the foundation of Andrew's graduate school applications this past winter.