Bombast is extravagantly inflated and
grandiloquent diction, disproportionate to its subject. It was a common
feature of English drama of Shakespeare's age, and of later heroic drama.
Marlowe is known especially for the bombastic ranting of his Tamburlaine the
Great (1590):
Our
quivering lances, shaking in the air, And bullets, like Jove's dreadful
thunderbolts, Enroll'd in flames and fiery smouldering mists, Shall threat the
gods more than Cyclopean wars; And with our sun-bright armour, as we march,
We'll chase the stars from heaven, and dim their eyes That stand and muse at
our admired arms.
