Torture or paine can daunt my dreadlesse minde—
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o which Tamburlaine* Vp with him then, his body shalbe scard. In an art of grandiose overreaching and magniloquence these toucheshave an enlivening effect, and the critics by the way who have sol-emnly debated whether or not Marlowe possessed a sense of humourmust have slept through this line. But Marlowe had little enough humour, even of this grim sort.The two modes through which he speaks to us are the seductive, thelanguorous (displayed in Dido, the first half of Edward, and Heroand Leander), and the vast and atrocious (displayed nearly every-where else in the extant intact work of high quality). These modespossess in common a certain self-indulgence and a concern with per-suasion, but clearly in most respects they stand opposed. What I wishto claim is that his deepest dramatic effects are the result of an inter-penetration of the modes which is not only mature but diabolical.
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