Biographical plays about military leaders

tragedy by William Shakespeare

thumb|John Philip Kemble as Coriolanus by [[Thomas Lawrence, 1798]]

play by Pierre Corneille

tragedy by Friedrich Schiller

trilogy of dramas by Friedrich Schiller

play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

thumb|right|An Marlowe portrait|anonymous portrait, often believed to show Christopher Marlowe. [[Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.]] Tamburlaine the Great is a play in two parts by Christopher Marlowe. It is loosely based on the life of the Central Asian emperor Timur (Tamerlane/Timur the Lame, d. 1405). Written in 1587 or 1588, the play is a milestone in Elizabethan public drama; it marks a turning away from the clumsy language and loose plotting of the earlier Tudor dramatists, and a new interest in fresh and vivid language, memorable action, and intellectual complexity. Along with Thomas