‘Who taught thee this?’ Female Agency and Experiential Learning in Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, and Edward the Second

Abstract

In Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, Friar Jacomo—suspicious of her second conversion to Christianity—demands of Abigail: ‘Who taught thee this?’ In so doing, the Friar voices Marlowe’s interest in the experiential learning patterns of his female characters. This article uses Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schön’s learning theories to examine patterns of female learning and agency within the patriarchal power structures of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine I and II, The Jew of Malta, and Edward the Second. This unorthodox application aims to rectify the lack of attention given to Marlowe’s female characters and to generate insights into the learning patterns and choices of the ‘divine’ Zenocrate, ‘compliant’ Abigail, and ‘dissembling’ Isabella. The learning theories applied provide a rich and unique language for unfolding the idiosyncratic experiential learning patterns of Marlowe’s women, and reveal Marlowe’s interest in how his female characters negotiate their environments and learn from their experiences.

Keywords:

• Christopher Marlowe
• Tamburlaine
• The Jew of Malta
• Edward II
• organizational management theory
• double-loop learning
• feminist literary criticism
• female agency

My thanks to Associate Professor Liam Semler for his unit of study on Marlowe (University of Sydney) which inspired my thinking in this article, and for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this work.