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

Notes

• Joanna Gibbs, ‘Marlowe’s Politic Women,’ in Constructing Christopher Marlowe, ed. J. T. Parnell and J. A. Downie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 164.
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• Chris Argyris, ‘The Executive Mind and Double-Loop Learning,’ Organisational Dynamics 11 (Autumn 1982): 12; R. M. Fulmer and J. B. Keys, ‘A Conversation with Chris Argyris: The Father of Organisational Learning,’ Organisational Dynamics 27 (Autumn 1998), 24.
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• Lisa S. Starks, ‘“Won with Thy Words and Conquered with Thy Looks”: Sadism, Masochism and the Masochistic Gaze in 1 Tamburlaine,’ in Marlowe, History, and Sexuality: New Critical Essays on Christopher Marlowe, ed. Paul Whitfield White (New York: AMS Press, 1999), 183.
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• Lagretta Tallent Lenker, ‘The Hopeless Daughter of a Hapless Jew: Father and Daughter in Marlowe’s Jew of Malta,’ in Placing the Plays of Christopher Marlowe: Fresh Cultural Contexts, ed. Sara Munson Deats and Robert A. Logan (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 66. This article standardizes the name to ‘Abigail.’
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• Joyce Karpay, ‘A Study in Ambivalence: Mothers and Their Sons in Christopher Marlowe,’ in Placing the Plays of Christopher Marlowe: Fresh Cultural Contexts, ed. Sara Munson Deats and Robert A. Logan (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 88.
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• Simon Shepherd, ‘Representing “Women” and Males: Gender Relations in Marlowe,’ in Christopher Marlowe, ed. Richard Wilson (London: Longman, 1999), 64.
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• Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schön, Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1974), 98.
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• Single-loop and double-loop learning are not opposites, but ‘are actually parts of a continuum’: Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schön, Organisational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective (Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1978), 26.
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• Hugh Grady and Terence Hawkes, ‘Introduction: Presenting Presentism,’ in Presentist Shakespeares, ed. Hugh Grady and Terence Hawkes (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), 5.
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• Evelyn Gajowski, ‘Lavinia as “Blank Page” and the Presence of Feminist Critical Practices,’ in Presentist Shakespeares, ed. Hugh Grady and Terence Hawkes (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), 121.
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• Sara Munson Deats, Sex, Gender, and Desire in the Plays of Christopher Marlowe (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1997), 146, 150.
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• Christopher Marlowe, ‘Tamburlaine the Great, Part One,’ in Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Plays, ed. Frank Romany and Robert Lindsey (London: Penguin Classics, 2003), 1·2·7, 1·2·10, 1.2.11-16. All subsequent references to this edition are incorporated in the text.
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• It is Agydas who eventually refers directly to the Prince (1·2·78–79).
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• Zenocrate is also absent until after the slaughter of Damascus at 5·1·319. Physical absence should not be taken for her passivity or disempowerment: Zenocrate’s influence permeates scenes in which she is offstage. Zenocrate’s efficacy is evident in that, during her absence, both Theridamas and Tamburlaine acknowledge her influence, the latter promising to save the Sultan’s life ‘[f]or sweet Zenocrate, whose worthiness / Deserves a conquest over every heart’ (5·1·203–205; 206–208). Tamburlaine is preoccupied with thoughts of Zenocrate when she is not present (see 5·1·135 onwards). Her absence also may be due to the fact that, as Shepherd states, the actor playing Zenocrate could also play the role of one of the Virgins. See Simon Shepherd, ‘Women and Males,’ in Marlowe and the Politics of Elizabethan Theatre (Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1986), 186–87.
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• Christopher Marlowe: the Complete Plays, ed. Frank Romany and Robert Lindsey (London: Penguin Classics, 2003), 4.2.
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• Agydas, who is emotionally unaffected by Tamburlaine, is utilized by Marlowe as a foil to draw attention to Zenocrate’s transition more explicitly. It is his inability to shift into double-loop thinking that leads to his demise and, as a single-loop learner still operating under the older governing values that Zenocrate has relinquished, Agydas regards Tamburlaine as a ‘vile and barbarous’ man that holds Zenocrate ‘from [her] father in despite and keeps [her] from the honours of a queen’ (3·2·26–28). This reinforces his out-dated thinking, for these royal honours are exactly what Tamburlaine provides for Zenocrate. Agydas attempts numerous action strategies to extricate himself and Zenocrate from their captivity without rethinking his governing values: he suggests that Zenocrate not honour Tamburlaine with her love ‘but for necessity’ (3.2.30); he uses Tamburlaine’s militancy to try to sway Zenocrate against him (3.2.40-6); he attempts to remind Zenocrate of her betrothed (3.2.57-8); and finally he claims that Tamburlaine's affections are waning (3.2.59-63). Agydas stands in almost as a proxy for the Prince of Arabia, repeatedly reminding Zenocrate (and Tamburlaine) of Arabia’s prior claim on the princess, which demonstrates his continued operations within the initial framework that Zenocrate has abandoned. Unsurprisingly, none of Agydas’ attempts prove effective, but they do prove Zenocrate’s devoted transferral of her loyalties to Tamburlaine. Agydas’ suicide reveals his inability to rethink his governing values; he never contemplates the thought of supporting Tamburlaine as Zenocrate does. Agydas thus goes to his grave a confirmed single-loop thinker. In his suicide Agydas succumbs to Tamburlaine’s world and so becomes incorporated within it as ‘wise and honourable’ (3·2·110).
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• Brett D. Hirsch, ‘Counterfeit Professions: Jewish Daughters and the Drama of Failed Conversion in Marlowe’s the Jew of Malta and Shakespeare’s the Merchant of Venice,’ Early Modern Literary Studies, Special Issue 19 (2009): 18.
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• Anna Beskin, ‘From Jew to Nun: Abigail in Marlowe’s the Jew of Malta,’ The Explicator 65 (Spring 2007): 133.
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• John Tagg, ‘Double-Loop Learning in Higher Education,’ Change 39 (2007): 38.
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• Barabas must demonstrate his impressive agility to save the situation by attributing Abigail’s silence to a Hebrew custom for newly-betrothed maids (2·3·328–31). This is the second reference to Abigail’s vocality: earlier Barabas instructed her to ‘be silent’ (1·2·239), and now Lodowick is surprised by Abigail’s silence. We have seen the attention paid to Zenocrate’s increasing silence in Tamburlaine and will later examine Isabella’s dumb-show with Mortimer; more scholarly attention perhaps should be directed to Abigail’s voice in The Jew of Malta.
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• Roland K. Yeo, ‘(Re)Viewing Problem-Based Learning: an Exploratory Study on the Perceptions of its Applicability to the Workplace,’ Journal of Managerial Psychology 22 (2007): 371–72.
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• According to Argyris and Schön, this would not be easy. Once a revolution incites a reassessment of governing values, it would take an equally powerful transitional dilemma to repeat the process.
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• Judith Weil, ‘Visible Hecubas,’ in The Female Tragic Hero in English Renaissance Drama, ed. N. C. Liebler (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 58. Gibbs, however, questions whether ‘the plot to murder Gaveston stems from Isabella’ (168).
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