Lexical-Semantic Fields in Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great

This article examines the lexical-semantic fields employed in Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great (Parts I and II) and analyzes how vocabulary choices construct themes of power, conquest, identity, and Renaissance humanism. Using a lexical-semantic field approach grounded in structural semantics and discourse analysis, the study identifies dominant semantic domains such as war, sovereignty, divinity, violence, and transformation and demonstrates how their interaction intensifies Tamburlaine’s characterization and ideological force. The findings contribute to Marlovian scholarship by showing that lexical organization is not merely stylistic ornamentation but a core mechanism through which meaning, ideology, and dramatic tension are produced.