Tamerlane (poem)

The poem follows the life of Tamerlane, the 14th-century warlord who founded the Timurid Empire, though the poem is not a historical depiction of his life. Tamerlane ignores the young love he has for a peasant in order to achieve power. On his deathbed, he regrets this decision to create "a kingdom [in exchange] for a broken heart". The peasant is named Ada in most of Poe's original version of the poem, though it is removed and re-added throughout its many revised versions. The name "Ada" is likely a reference to Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, a renowned poet whom Poe admired. In fact, the line "I reach'd my home — my home no more" echoes a line in Byron's work Don Juan. ==Analysis==

of a 14th-century historical figure. The main themes of Tamerlane are independence and pride as well as loss and exile. Poe may have written the poem based on his own loss of his early love, Sarah Elmira Royster, his birth mother Eliza Poe, or his foster-mother Frances Allan. Only 17 when he wrote the poem, Poe's own sense of loss came from the waning possibility of inheritance and a college education after leaving the University of Virginia. Poe may have first heard of Timur in July 1822 as a young man in Richmond, Virginia. A horse-spectacle called Timour the Tartar was staged at the Richmond Theatre and repeated in October. Some Poe scholars speculate Poe was in attendance or at least heard of the show. Poe may have identified with the title character. He used "TAMERLANE" as a pseudonym attached to two of his poems on their first publication, "Fanny" and "To ——", both published in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter in 1833. Christopher Marlowe's play Tamburlaine is also a story about a Scythian shepherd who falls in love with Zenocrate and conquers most of Asia, Europe, and Africa. ==Publication history==

Tamerlane was first published in Poe's earliest poetry collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems. The "little volume", as Poe referred to it in the preface, consists of 10 poems. This original version of the poem contained 406 lines. In an 1845 publication, it had been edited to only 234. In its initial publication in the collection Tamerlane and Other Poems, Poe included endnotes explaining some of his allusions from Tamerlane. He also confesses early on that he knows little about the historical Tamerlane, "and with that little, I have taken the full liberty of a poet." These endnotes do not appear in any other collection that includes Tamerlane. In 1829, between the poem's first and second publications, Poe sent it along with "Al Aaraaf" for review by influential critic John Neal in his magazine The Yankee. In recognition of Neal's encouragement, Poe expressed desire to dedicate Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems to him, but Neal insisted such a dedication would be an injury to both Poe and the publication. Poe instead dedicated just "Tamerlane" within the volume to Neal. ==References==