Hunter Gk the Sources of Titus Andronicue Once Again

Although traditionally Titus Andronicus has been seen every bit one of Shakespeare's to the lowest degree respected plays, its fortunes accept changed somewhat in the latter half of the twentieth century, with numerous scholars arguing that the play is more accomplished than has hitherto been allowed for. In particular, scholars have argued that the play is far more thematically complex than has traditionally been idea, and features profound insights into ancient Rome, Elizabethan society, and the human condition. Such scholars tend to argue that these previously unacknowledged insights have only become credible during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as merely now has the ultraviolent content of the play achieved a sense of relevance. For example, in his 1987 edition of the play for the Gimmicky Shakespeare series, A.L. Rowse writes; "in the civilised Victorian historic period the play could not be performed because it could not be believed. Such is the horror of our own age, with the appalling barbarities of prison camps and resistance movements paralleling the torture and mutilation and feeding on human flesh of the play, that it has ceased to be improbable."^[1] Similarly, manager Julie Taymor, who staged a production Off-Broadway in 1994 and directed a film version in 1999, says she was drawn to the play considering she found information technology to be the most "relevant of Shakespeare's plays for the modern era;"^[ii] She feels that the play has more relevance for us than it had for the Victorians; "information technology seems similar a play written for today, it reeks of now."^[3] Because of this newfound relevance, previously unrecognised thematic strands have thus come to the forefront.

This article presents an overview of four of the nigh prominent themes in the play.

Revenge [edit]

Titus exacts his revenge for the rape of Lavinia by killing Chiron and Demetrius and draining their blood; illustration from The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare, edited by Nicholas Rowe (1709)

Perhaps the almost obvious theme is that of revenge. The story of Procne and Philomela is mentioned several times, and simply as they are driven by a desire for revenge, so likewise are the characters in Titus; the unabridged narrative from midway through Human action 1 is built effectually the plotting of revenge. According to Hereward Thimbleby Price, Shakespeare "is writing a Senecan play co-ordinate to the rules, that is to say, a play in which the hero is a man who inexorably pursues revenge and who dies in the act of taking it."^[four] Bill Alexander, who directed a Royal Shakespeare Visitor production in 2003, argues that

the play is largely about revenge and the desire to accept revenge. I think that everyone understands on some level that revenge is something you might feel from time to time. The play asks the question "At what indicate is it right for an individual to take revenge because in that location is no other way of redressing wrongs?" One of the groovy things well-nigh Shakespeare is that he never attempts to reply such questions, he but poses them. Titus Andronicus poses the question of revenge, and then it tin can't not be relevant. Everyone has an opinion about when revenge becomes justified and whether the nature of existence civilised and human demands that something similar revenge is excluded, or must be excluded, from the imagination ... In a sense the play is there to evoke our humanity and our sense of compassion about what man beings tin can do to each other and about what revenge does to human souls. Revenge can drive people mad, and madness tin can drive people to revenge."^[5]

The theme of revenge is introduced very early in the play. In the opening scene, nosotros acquire that some of Titus' sons have been killed during the state of war with the Goths, and as a result, Titus feels compelled to sacrifice Tamora'south son, Alarbus. Hither revenge takes on a religious duty every bit Titus claims of his dead sons, "Religiously they ask a sacrifice" (l.124). The sacrifice of Alarbus, however, prompts a desire for revenge in his family. As Demetrius tells Tamora immediately afterwards the cede;

The selfsame gods that armed the Queen of Troy
With opportunity of sharp revenge
Upon the Thracian tryant in his tent
May favour Tamora, the Queen of Goths
(When Goths were Goths and Tamora was Queen),
To quit the encarmine wrongs upon her foes.

i.1.136-141

This ultimately leads to Tamora ordering her sons to rape Lavinia, which in turn leads direct to Titus killing and and so cooking Chiron and Demetrius, his eventual murder of both Lavinia and Tamora, his own death at the easily of Saturninus, and Saturninus' death at the easily of Lucius. Revenge runs through the play from beginning to end; Coppélia Kahn argues that the basic trajectory of the plot is "Titus' transformation from Roman hero to revenge hero."^[half-dozen]

Afterwards the cede of Alarbus, when Saturninus has taken Tamora as his bride, she asks him to pardon Titus for what Saturninus sees equally dishonourable conduct. Incredulous, Saturninus asks, "What, madam, be dishonoured openly,/And basely put information technology up without revenge" (1.i.432–433); any infraction or insult must exist reciprocated. Later, Aaron tells Tamora that he too is preoccupied with revenge; "Blood and revenge are hammering in my head" (2.3.39). Ordering her sons to rape Lavinia, Tamora says "This vengeance on me had they executed./Revenge it, every bit you love your female parent's life" (2.three.114–115). Then, prior to the rape, Tamora responds to Lavinia's pleas for mercy by outlining how important her revenge is, only Lavinia's hurting tin satiate information technology;

Hadst one thousand in person ne'er offended me,
Fifty-fifty for [Alarbus'] sake am I pitiless.
Remember, boys, I poured forth tears in vain
To save your brother from the sacrifice,
But fierce Andronicus would non relent.
Therefore away with her, and utilize her as you volition;
The worse of her, the better loved of me.

2.3.161-167

As Chiron and Demetrius drag Lavinia into the forest, Tamora vows "Ne'er let my heart know merry cheer indeed/Till all the Andronici exist made away" (2.3.187–188). Tamora will literally not exist happy until she has avenged herself on the whole family.

Later in the play, Titus makes a similar avowal. Afterwards the deaths of Martius and Quintus, he asks, "Which way shall I observe Revenge's cavern?/For these ii heads exercise seem to speak to me,/And threat me I shall never come to bliss/Till all these mischiefs be returned again" (3.i.269–272). As with Tamora, he is here saying that his chief raison d'être has become to seek revenge. Similarly, prior to Lucius' departure to the Goths, he declares;

If Lucius alive he will requite your wrongs,
And make proud Saturnine and his empress
Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.
Now will I to the Goths and raise a ability,
To be revenged on Rome and Saturnine.

3.one.295-299

Immediately after Lucius' departure, Titus prepares a meal, simply warns Marcus "Look you lot swallow no more/Than will preserve merely so much strength in usa/Equally will revenge these bitter woes of ours" (3.2.1–3). Subsequently, Titus comes to feel that even God has go involved in his desire for revenge; "Here brandish at last/What God volition have discovered for revenge" (iv.1.73). Then, upon the discovery of who raped Lavinia, he declares

And swear with me, as, with the woeful fere
And begetter of that celibate dishonoured dame,
Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape,
That we will prosecute by skilful advice,
Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,
And see their blood, or die with this reproach.

4.1.88-93

Young Lucius also becomes involved in a want for revenge;

Boy
I say, my lord, that if I were a human being,
Their mother's sleeping room should not be safe,
For these base of operations bondmen to the yoke of Rome.

TITUS
Ah, that'southward my male child! Thy father had full oftentimes
For his ungrateful land done the similar.

Male child
And, uncle, so will I an if I live.

4.one.106-111

Later, Marcus urges Publius to "Join with the Goths, and with revengeful war/Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude,/And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine" (4.3.32–34).

The nearly obvious manifestation of revenge is when information technology literally enters the play, with Tamora attempting to dupe the apparently insane Titus; "I will encounter with Andronicus,/And say I am Revenge, sent from below/To join with him and right his heinous wrongs" (5.ii.ii–4). She then introduces herself equally

I am Revenge, sent from th'infernal kingdom
To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind
By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.

v.2.32-35

Titus and then instructs Revenge that if she encounter Tamora and her sons "I pray thee, exercise on them some violent death;/They have been violent to me and mine" (5.2.108–109).

Jonathan Bate sees this scene as especially of import in the handling of revenge. On how Titus manipulates the scene and turns the tables, Bate comments "the vehicle of Tamora'due south revenge against Titus for the expiry of Alarbus has go the vehicle of Titus' revenge against Tamora for the rape of Lavinia and the deaths of Bassianus, Quintus and Martius." He also finds great significance in the physical entry of Revenge into the play; "by representing Revenge as a graphic symbol'due south device rather than a 'reality' outside the action, [Shakespeare] suggests that retribution is a matter of man, not divine will."^[seven]

Violence and the audience [edit]

I of the main reasons that Titus has traditionally been derided is the corporeality of on-stage violence. The play is saturated with violence from its opening scene, and violence touches almost every character; Alarbus is burned alive and has his artillery chopped off; Titus stabs his own son to death; Bassianus is murdered and thrown into a pit; Lavinia is brutally raped and has her easily cutting off and her tongue cutting out; Martius and Quintus are decapitated; a nurse and a midwife are stabbed to death by Aaron; an innocent clown is executed for no apparent reason; Titus kills Chiron and Demetrius and cooks them in a pie, which he and so feeds to their mother. Then, in the terminal scene, in the infinite of a few lines, Titus kills in succession Lavinia and Tamora, and is so immediately killed past Saturninus, who is in turn immediately killed by Lucius. Aaron is then buried up to his neck and left to starve to decease in the open air and Tamora'due south body is thrown to the wild beasts outside the urban center. As South. Clark Hulse points out, "information technology has xiv killings, nine of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or ii or three depending on how y'all count), 1 live burying, 1 example of insanity, and 1 of cannibalism – an average of 5.ii atrocities per act, or one for every 97 lines."^[8]

An example of the violence in the play – Aaron cuts off Titus' manus whilst the already handless Lavinia looks on; Gravelot illustration, engraved past Gerard Van der Gucht (1740)

J. Dover Wilson, following John Addington Symonds, defines the play as part of a subgenre called "Tragedy of Blood", directly influenced by Seneca, and places it alongside such plays as Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton's Gorboduc, (c.1561), Thomas Hughes' The Misfortunes of Arthur (1588), Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy (c.1588), Christopher Marlowe'southward The Jew of Malta (1590), Henry Chettle's The Tragedy of Hoffman (1602) and the bearding Alphonsus, Emperor of Deutschland (1654). As such, a common theory as to why the play is so violent is that Shakespeare was trying to outdo his predecessors, who catered to the blood-thirsty tastes of the Elizabethan groundlings (Alan C. Dessen refers to Titus equally "the virtually 'Elizabethan' of Shakespeare's plays"^[9]). In Thomas Preston's Cambyses (1569), for example, a character is brutally flagellated on phase, and various props and theatrical effects are used to simulate dismemberment and several instances of decapitation. In Kyd'due south The Spanish Tragedy, there are several graphic murders, and the protagonist bites out his ain tongue. Dover Wilson thus suggests that Shakespeare was giving the audition what information technology wanted, only by giving it to them in such excessive quantities, he was in issue, mocking them, every bit he watched them "gaping ever wider to swallow more than every bit he tossed them bigger and bigger gobbets of sob-stuff and raw beef-stake."^[10]

However, many twentieth century critics, working with new research into Elizabethan civilisation, have suggested that the social club may not have been as claret-thirsty as is often assumed, and as such, Shakespeare could non accept been catering to the audition'south predilections for violence. According to Ann Jennalie Melt for example, not all of Shakespeare's audience would have been groundlings, the intelligentsia would also take made up an important part of the box office; "the social and economic realities of Renaissance London decreed an audience more privileged than plebeian."^[eleven] With this in mind then, Eugene M. Waith makes the suggestion that Shakespeare was attempting to appeal to both levels of his audience, groundlings and intelligentsia; he embraced the traditions of violence and then equally to ensure high box office, but the style of the play and the numerous classical allusions propose he was writing with an educated audition in mind.^[12] Similarly, Sylvan Barnet argues, "Although the groundlings probably were delighted, the author must have felt he was creating a drama that would entreatment also to the cultivated, who knew Seneca and Ovid."^[13] The vast range of mythological and classical references have often been pointed to equally bear witness of an educated target audition; references include Priam, the Styx, Scythia, Hecuba, Polymnestor, Titan, Phoebe, Hymenaeus, Ajax, Laertes, Odysseus, Olympus, Prometheus, Semiramis, Vulcan, Lucrece, Aeneas, Dido, Venus, Saturn, Philomel, Dian, Acteon, Jove, Pyramus, the Cocytus, Tereus, Cerberus, Orpheus, Tarquin, Cornelia, Apollo, Pallas, Mercury, Hector, Enceladus, Typhon, Alcides, Mars, Astraea, Pluto, Cyclops, Verginia and Sinon.

With this in mind, some critics suggest that the violence in the play is much more than violence for violence'due south sake, and is instead a fundamental part of the thematic whole. For example, Brian Vickers argues that critics unremarkably express "an aesthetico-ethical dislike for the violence" because they fail to grasp that "any attentive and unprejudiced reading of the play will prove that the violence is in no way gratis but part of a closely organised depiction of several cycles of harm and counter-harm."^[14] Similarly, for Waith, the violence "represents the political and moral degradation of Rome when Saturninus becomes Emperor of Rome. Information technology besides plays a major part in the presentation of the hero'south metamorphosis into a cruel revenger. While no artistic device tin be chosen inevitable, i tin can say with some balls that Shakespeare'due south use of violence in Titus Andronicus is far from gratuitous. It is an integral office of his dramatic technique."^[15]

Working along the same lines, Jonathan Bate argues that Shakespeare, not content with presenting a play in which violence is a theme, may likewise accept been making his audience wonder about the nature of the violence earlier them, and thus the play acquires a sense of social critique; "Would playgoers have drawn comparisons between the revenger's ritualised violence and the ritualised violence that they were familiar with in existent life?"^[16] Thus, "Shakespeare is interrogating Rome, asking what kind of an instance it provides for Elizabethan England."^[17] Trevor Nunn, who directed an RSC product in 1972, sees the play in a like light, arguing that the violence raises profound questions for an Elizabethan audience; "thinking about Rome was the only way an Elizabethan had of thinking nearly civilisation" and as such "if Roman power, police force and virtue could fail in the cease, what absolutes could men expect to under sky?" In this sense, the play depicts "the Elizabethan nightmare, for fifty-fifty golden ages come to an stop in claret, torture and barbarism, and even Rome, the greatest culture the world had known, can autumn, dragging mankind with it into the darkness."^[18]

Some other manager who has addressed this issue is Gale Edwards, who directed a Shakespeare Theatre Visitor production in 2007. In her notes, Edwards argues

this is a story, not about gratuitous violence, but about the results and repercussions of violence on society, on family unit and on the human psyche. It is a story about great pain and suffering, which is the inevitable result of any human action of revenge. It deals with our capacity for terrible cruelty and our vulnerability as human beings. It deals with our dignity, our endurance and our definition of ourselves. Our very identity. The lopping off of limbs, in this reading of the play, becomes a powerful metaphor for the dismembership of the state, the destruction of our moral codes and the disintegration of our very humanity.^[nineteen]

Similarly, Peter Brook, when explaining why he thought his 1955 RSC production had been then successful, argues that the play is "about the near modern of emotions – about violence, hatred, cruelty, hurting."^[xx]

Breakup of political club [edit]

Some other prominent theme in the play is political order, both its collapse and the desire to create a new order. Jacques Berthoud argues that ane of the primary ideas of the play is "an impression of disintegrating control."^[21] Ofttimes, political order is supplanted by total chaos, and the characters can only yearn for a fourth dimension when society volition again reign supreme. As Eugene G. Waith argues of the highly formal nature of the opening scene, "the ceremonies of triumph, cede, burial and election immediately constitute the solemnity of public occasions on which an ideal political order is affirmed and individuals are valued to the extent that they support it. The repeated interruptions of the ceremonies advise the fragility of that gild while the mention of Titus' dead sons and the deaths of Alarbus and Mutius emphasise the terrible cost of maintaining it."^[22] The political order that so many characters yearn for and would die to protect is presented as far from stable.

The demise of order is represented past Titus himself; the once proud general who stood for everything that was proficient and honourable in Rome, merely is now a madman lying on the road and preaching to the dirt (three.i.23–47);

Titus, noble, patriotic, only flawed by cruelty and an abysmal lack of political judgement, is a mirror of Rome in decline. He, also, has spent his life in repelling barbarism, simply now his weariness, onetime historic period, and lack of mental agility in coming to terms with new problems, reflect the lack of real free energy and capacity of Rome in dealing with the various crises that aggress it in its declining years. His subscription to the unhistorical cruelty of making sacrifice of prisoners in the urban center streets is a symptom of the coarsening of Roman life and values. In the effigy of Rome'south "best champion," therefore, we see Shakespeare's initial exploration in microcosmic form of the painful and tragic collapse of a great civilization.^[23]

The breakdown of club is also emphasised time and again throughout the play in a more literal sense. For instance, Marcus alludes to the lack of leadership in Rome because of the death of the sometime Emperor, and thus asks Titus "Assistance to set a head on headless Rome" (1.ane.186). Due to the date of Saturninus however, the breakup of society accelerates; his wife is having an affair and aptitude only on revenge upon the Andronici, an invasion army is formed, Saturninus loses the support of the people, and his greatest general seemingly goes mad. The plummet of political order reaches an ironic apotheosis in the final scene, with the breakdown of all guild as four murders are committed at a imperial feast in quick succession; Titus kills Lavinia, then Tamora, Saturninus kills Titus, and Lucius kills Saturninus. Immediately upon the restoration of harmony, however, Marcus urges a return to the Rome of one-time, "O, permit me teach you how to knit again/This scattered corn into 1 mutual sheaf" (v.iii.69–70), an order which Lucius later promises to restore; "May I govern so,/To Rome's harms and wipe abroad her woe" (5.3.146–147). Thus the play ends with a hope of restored order, not with the actual restoration itself.

Civilisation vs. Barbarism [edit]

Another theme mentioned numerous times throughout the play is the disharmonize between civilization and barbarism. For many of the characters, Rome is the image of a civilised social club, with everything outside Rome seen every bit barbarous. This concept is introduced when Marcus intervenes in the debate between Bassianus and Saturninus, which is threatening to boil over into violence;

Let us entreat, by honour of [Titus'] proper noun
Whom worthily yous would have now succeed,
And in the Capitol and senate's correct,
Whom you pretend to laurels and adore,
That yous withdraw you and abate your strength,
Dismiss your followers, and, as suitors should,
Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness.

1.ane.39-45

Marcus feels that, as a civilised state, this is how Rome should act. He is also the great champion of civility when pleading with Titus to let Mutius be buried in the family unit tomb;

Endure thy brother Marcus to inter
His noble nephew hither in virtue's nest,
That died in laurels and Lavinia's cause.
Grand art a Roman; be not vicious:
The Greeks upon advise did coffin Ajax,
That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son
Did graciously plead for his funerals;
Let not young Mutius then that was thy joy,
Be barred his entrance hither.

ane.1.377-384

However, not all of the characters agree with the uncomplicated equation that Rome is civilised and everything else barbaric. When Titus refuses to spare the life of Alarbus, for example;

TAMORA
O cruel, irreligious piety!

CHIRON
Was never Scythia half so barbarous.

DEMETRIUS
Oppose non Scythia to ambitious Rome.

1.1.130-132

Aaron too sees Roman civility as laughable, simply in a different way to Chiron and Demetrius; "I urge thy oath; for that I know/An idiot holds his bauble for a god,/And keeps the oath which by that god he swears." (v.one.78–lxxx). Here, Aaron sees civilisation as nothing more than than something foolish, peopled by idiots who keep their word. He returns to this theme in his final speech communication, glorying in his embracement of atrocity;

Ah, why should wrath be mute, and fury impaired?
I am no baby, I, that with base prayers
I should repent the evils I take done;
Ten thousand worse, than e'er nevertheless I did
Would I perform, if I might accept my will.
If ane good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul.

5.3.183-189

Yet, the play itself is ambiguous in its depiction of civilised characters and barbaric ones. For example, it ends with the apparently civilised Romans joining forces with the apparently barbarous Goths. Even so, according to both Jonathan Bate and Jacques Berthoud, the Goths at the end of the play are not the same Goths who had been led by Tamora. Bate believes the play "begins with a Roman stigmatisation of the Goths as barbarians, but modulates towards a very unlike view. If the 2nd Goth is a barbarian, what is he doing gazing "upon a ruinous monastery"? For the Elizabethans, history had lessons to teach the present, so this anachronism is purposeful."^[24] Bate devises a thesis which suggests that the Goths who appear earlier in the play are 'evil' and those who follow Lucius are 'good'. Bate also argues that "at i level, the Goths at the end of the play are invading Rome considering they wish to take revenge on their Queen Tamora for selling out and marrying Saturninus. Only at the same time, they and Lucius share a language of faithful friendship, worthiness, accolade and valour. They serve as a rebuke to the decadence into which Rome has fallen. This is of a piece with the play'southward persistent dissolution of the binary opposition which associates Rome and the city with virtue, the Goths and the woods with barbarism."^[25]

As Lucius tells Titus the tribunes are no longer listening to him, Titus begins to realise that the line between civilisation and barbarism is narrower than he thought; Jean-Michel Moreau illustration, engraved past N. le Mire (1785)

Jacques Berthoud argues that the Goths at the terminate of the play are Germanic whereas Tamora is non a Germanic name, merely is instead Asiatic, thus the Goths at the end of the play (the Germanic Goths) are non the Goths ruled over by Tamora (the barbarian Goths).^[26] Speaking of Tamora's Goths, Berthoud argues "what these Goths take revealed about themselves is non that they are possessed by Satanic powers, simply that they are, equally it were, socially moronic. The Romans are Romans by virtue of the fact that they have internalised Rome; at an elementary level the Germanic Goths, too, are shown to take assimilated the qualities of a real, if unsophisticated culture. In dissimilarity, these 'barbarian' Goths practise not seem to have internalised annihilation ... they remain morally incomplete. It is for this reason that they regard the massively integrated Andronici as their pre-ordained foes."^[27] On the other manus, Anthony Brian Taylor reads the terminate of the play equally meaning that Rome has simply embraced barbarism, and "what motivates the Goths who take centrolineal themselves to Lucius, is no sudden burst of uncharacteristic altruism but the prospect of revenge on Rome."^[28]

However, the question has been asked past many critics; is the Rome of Titus Andronicus really civilised itself? Co-ordinate to Robert Miola, it is non; "Information technology devours its children – figuratively by consigning them to the gaping maw of the Andronici tomb, and literally by serving them in the bloody banquet at the play's end."^[29] 1 of the inherent ironies of the play is the contradiction between Titus' civilised veneer when burying his sons, and the unfeeling cruelty he shows to Tamora regarding her own son. This is emphasised in his failure to adhere to his own doctrine that "Sweetness mercy is nobility's true badge" (1.1.119). The simplistic distinction between the Romans as civilised and the Goths as savage is thus complicated. Markus Marti argues that the apparent contradiction in Titus, and in Rome at large, has more important ramifications beyond character psychology;

Backside a thin layer of cultural gloss lurks Mr Hyde, or rather, our cultural achievements are a superstructure which consists of signifiers heaped upon signifiers of signifiers, simply which is ultimately grounded on a very ugly material base of operations which nosotros try to hibernate, to forget, to dispel and ignore. Rome is the right setting to show this, because this is the place where our culture started in the eyes of an Elizabethan audience, and it is the identify where it reached its first peak, in literature, in law, in the building of an empire, in the Pax Romana, in Christianity. But Rome was founded on murder and rape – and if the cultural achievements of humanity – society, law, language, literature – are followed dorsum to their roots, if words are made flesh once more, all our cultural achievements turn out to be based on origins which we now consider inhuman and beastly: on sacrifices, on rape and murder, on revenge, on cannibalism.^[thirty]

Similarly, Jonathan Bate argues that the play depicts the Roman conversion from civility to atrocity;

The urban center prided itself on not being barbaric: the discussion "civilised" comes from "civilis", which means "of citizens, of the urban center", and Rome was the urban center. The religious rituals of a civilised culture, it was believed, involved fauna rather than human sacrifice. When Lucius demands that the shadows be appeased through the lopping of the limbs of "the proudest prisoner of the Goths" and the consuming of his mankind in the burn down, barbarism has entered the city. The kickoff of the play's many reversals of expected linguistic and behavioural codes takes place, and the supposedly barbaric queen of Goths speaks a Roman language of valour, patriotism, piety, mercy and nobility, whereas the Roman warriors go virtually their ritual killing.^[31]

Anthony Brian Taylor makes a similar argument apropos the grapheme of Lucius, who he sees every bit "a deeply flawed Roman. Stolid, unimaginative, and soldierly, it never dawns on him that his readiness to commit unspeakable atrocities on man, woman, and child, is utterly barbarian and totally irreconcilable with the civilised values on which his life is centred. Moreover, in beingness a deeply flawed Roman, Lucius is his father's son, and as such, a fascinating extension of the play's central theme."^[32]

Darragh Greene makes the point that it is Lucius and Marcus' mastery of rhetoric, the art of manipulating language, that undermines naive ideals of civilised order: "'Have we done naught amiss?' (5.three.126) asks Marcus, Tribune and so putative guardian and guarantor of the socio-moral guild. Once the question is formulated, in an historic period of rhetoric that recognizes language is the tool for shaping perception, for making the world, the answer volition be whatsoever Marcus or Lucius wish it to be for their own purposes."^[33]

References [edit]

Notes [edit]

All references to Titus Andronicus, unless otherwise specified, are taken from the Oxford Shakespeare (Waith), based on the Q1 text of 1594 (except 3.two, which is based on the folio text of 1623). Nether its referencing system, 4.3.15 means human activity 4, scene 3, line xv.

1. ^ A.L. Rowse, Titus Andronicus; Gimmicky Shakespeare Series (Maryland: University of America Press, 1987), 15
2. ^ Julie Taymor, DVD Commentary for Titus; 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2000
3. ^ Charlie Rose interview; 19 January 2000
4. ^ Price (1943: 62)
5. ^ Bill Alexander (2003). "Managing director Interview". Royal Shakespeare Visitor. Archived from the original on April 17, 2008. Retrieved November 21, 2012.
6. ^ Kahn (1997: 55)
7. ^ Bate (1995: 22)
8. ^ Hulse (1979: 107)
9. ^ Dessen (1989: 4)
10. ^ Dover Wilson (1948: lvii)
11. ^ Ann Jennalie Cook, The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare'southward London (Princeton: Princeton Academy Printing, 1981), 271
12. ^ See Waith (1984: 67)
13. ^ Barnet (2005: 11)
14. ^ Vickers (2002: 150)
15. ^ Waith (1984: 69)
16. ^ Bate (1995: 23)
17. ^ Bate (1995: 17)
18. ^ Quoted in Dessen (1989: 35)
19. ^ Gale Edwards (March xix, 2007). "View from the director's chair: Gale Edwards on Titus". Shakespeare Theatre Company. Retrieved November 21, 2012.
20. ^ Quoted in Dessen (1989: fifteen)
21. ^ Massai (2001: xlviii)
22. ^ Waith (1984: 59)
23. ^ Taylor (1997: 147)
24. ^ Bate (1995: nineteen)
25. ^ Jonathan Bate, "Lucius, the Severely Flawed Redeemer of Titus Andronicus: A Reply", Connotations 6.3 (Autumn 1997), 332
26. ^ Massai (2001: xlix)
27. ^ Massai (2001: liv)
28. ^ Taylor (1997:152)
29. ^ Miola (1981: 94)
30. ^ Marti (2004)
31. ^ Bate (1995: 6)
32. ^ Taylor (1997: 145)
33. ^ Greene (2013: 73)

Editions of Titus Andronicus [edit]

• Adams, Joseph Quincy (ed.) Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus: The First Quarto, 1594 (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1936)
• Baildon, Henry Bellyse (ed.) The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus (The Arden Shakespeare, 1st Serial; London: Arden, 1912)
• Barnet, Sylvan (ed.) The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus (Signet Classic Shakespeare; New York: Signet, 1963; revised edition, 1989; 2nd revised edition 2005)
• Bate, Jonathan (ed.) Titus Andronicus (The Arden Shakespeare, tertiary Series; London: Arden, 1995)
• Bate, Jonathan and Rasmussen, Eric (eds.) Titus Andronicus and Timon of Athens: Two Classical Plays (The RSC Shakespeare; London: Macmillan, 2008)
• Cross, Gustav (ed.) Titus Andronicus (The Pelican Shakespeare; London: Penguin, 1966; revised edition 1977)
• Dover Wilson, John (ed.) Titus Andronicus (The New Shakespeare; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948)
• Evans, K. Blakemore (ed.) The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974; 2nd edn., 1997)
• Greenblatt, Stephen; Cohen, Walter; Howard, Jean Due east. and Maus, Katharine Eisaman (eds.) The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Shakespeare (London: Norton, 1997)
• Harrison, M.B. (ed.) The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus (The New Penguin Shakespeare; London: Penguin, 1958; revised edition, 1995)
• Hughes, Alan (ed.) Titus Andronicus (The New Cambridge Shakespeare; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; 2nd edition 2006)
• Massai, Sonia (ed.) Titus Andronicus (The New Penguin Shakespeare, 2nd edition; London: Penguin, 2001)
• Maxwell, J.C (ed.) Titus Andronicus (The Arden Shakespeare, 2nd Series; London: Arden, 1953)
• MacDonald, Russell (ed.) Titus Andronicus (The Pelican Shakespeare, 2nd edition; London: Penguin, 2000)
• Waith, Eugene M. (ed.) Titus Andronicus (The Oxford Shakespeare; Oxford: Oxford Academy Press, 1984)
• Wells, Stanley; Taylor, Gary; Jowett, John and Montgomery, William (eds.) The Oxford Shakespeare: The Consummate Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986; 2nd edn., 2005)
• Werstine, Paul and Mowat, Barbara A. (eds.) Titus Andronicus (Folger Shakespeare Library; Washington: Simon & Schuster, 2005)

Selected secondary sources [edit]

• Flower, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (New York: New York Publishing Company, 1998)
• Boyd, Brian. "Common Words in Titus Andronicus: The Presence of Peele", Notes and Queries, 42:3 (September 1995), 300–307
• Brockbank, Philip. "Shakespeare: His Histories, English and Roman" in Christopher Ricks (editor), The New History of Literature (Book iii): English Drama to 1710 (New York: Peter Bedrick, 1971), 148–181
• Brucher, Richard. ""Tragedy Laugh On": Comic Violence in Titus Andronicus", Renaissance Drama, 10 (1979), 71–92
• Bryant Jr., Joseph Allen. "Aaron and the Pattern of Shakespeare's Villains" in Dale B. J. Randall and Joseph A. Porter (editors), Renaissance Papers 1984: Southeastern Renaissance Briefing (Durham, North Carolina: Knuckles Academy Press, 1985), 29–36
• Bullough, Geoffrey. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (Volume 6): Other 'Classical' Plays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966)
• Carroll, James D., "Gorboduc and Titus Andronicus", Notes and Queries, 51:3 (Fall, 2004), 267–269
• Chernaik, Warren. "Shakespeare, Co-Author: A Historical Written report of Five Collaborative Plays (book review)", Mod Language Review, 99:4 (2004), 1030–1031
• Christensen, Ann. ""Playing the Cook": Nurturing Men in Titus Andronicus", in Holger Klein and Rowland Wymer (editors), Shakespeare and History. (Shakespeare Yearbook), (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Printing, 1996), 327–54
• Cohen, Derek. Shakespeare's Civilization of Violence (London: St. Martin's Press, 1993)
• Daniel, P. A. A Time Analysis of the Plots of Shakespeare'southward Plays (London: New Shakspere Society, 1879)
• Dessen, Alan C. Shakespeare in Performance: Titus Andronicus (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989)
• Dobson, Michael S. The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation and Authorship, 1660–1769 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995)
• Duthie, M. I. Shakespeare (London: Hutchinson, 1951)
• Fawcett, Mary Laughlin. "Arms/Words/Tears: Language and the Torso in Titus Andronicus", ELH, 50:2 (Summer, 1983), 261–277
• Foakes, R. A. and Rickert R. T. (eds.) Henslowe's Diary (Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Press, 1961; 2nd edn. edited by Foakes alone, 2002)
• Greene, Darragh. "'Take we done aught amiss?': Transgression, Indirection and Audience Reception in Titus Andronicus," in Staged Transgression in Shakespeare's England Ed. Rory Loughnane and Edel Semple. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 63-75. ISBN 978-1-137-34934-vii
• Goodwin, John. Royal Shakespeare Theatre Visitor, 1960–1963 (London: Max Reinhardt, 1964)
• Haaker, Ann. "Non sine causa: The Use of Emblematic Method and Iconology in the Thematic Structure of Titus Andronicus", Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 13 (1970), 143–168
• Halliday, F. East. A Shakespeare Companion, 1564–1964 (Baltimore: Penguin, 1964)
• Hamilton, A. C. "Titus Andronicus: The Form of Shakespearean Tragedy", Shakespeare Quarterly, xiv:2 (Summer, 1963), 203–207
• Hiles, Jane. "A Margin for Error: Rhetorical Context in Titus Andronicus", Fashion, 21:2 (Summer, 1987), 62–75
• Hill, R. F. "The Composition of Titus Andronicus" Shakespeare Survey, 10 (1957), 60–lxx
• Huffman, Clifford. "Titus Andronicus: Metamorphosis and Renewal," Modern Language Review, 67:four (1972), 730–41
• Hulse, S. Clark. "Wresting the Alphabet: Oratory and Action in Titus Andronicus", Criticism, 21:2 (Bound, 1979), 106–18
• Hunter, G. K. "Sources and Meanings in Titus Andronicus", in J. C. Gray (editor) The Mirror upwards to Shakespeare Essays in Honour of G. R. Hibbard (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1983a), 171–188
• ——— . "The Sources of Titus Andronicus – once again", Notes and Queries, 30:2 (Summer, 1983b), 114–116
• Jackson, Macdonald P. "Stage Directions and Speech Headings in Human action i of Titus Andronicus Q (1594): Shakespeare or Peele?", Studies in Bibliography, 49 (1996), 134–148
• ——— . "Shakespeare's Brothers and Peele's Brethren Titus Andronicus again", Notes and Queries", 44:4 (November 1997), 494–495
• James, Heather. "Cultural Disintegration in Titus Andronicus: Mutilating Titus, Virgil, and Rome", in James Redmond (editor), Themes in Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 123–40
• Jones, Emrys. The Origins of Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford Academy Press, 1977)
• Kahn, Coppélia. Roman Shakespeare: Warriors, Wounds, and Women (New York: Routledge, 1997)
• Kendall, Gillian Murray. ""Lend me thy hand": Metaphor and Commotion in Titus Andronicus", Shakespeare Quarterly, 40:3 (Autumn, 1989), 299–316
• Kolin, Philip C. (ed.) Titus Andronicus: Critical Essays (New York: Garland, 1995)
• Kott, Jan. Shakespeare Our Gimmicky (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Publishing, 1964)
• Kramer, Joseph Eastward. "Titus Andronicus: The Fly-Killing Incident", Shakespeare Studies, five (1969), nine–19
• Police, Robert A. "The Roman Background of Titus Andronicus", Studies in Philology, 40:2 (April 1943), 145–153
• Marti, Marcus. "Language of Extremities/Extremities of Language: Body Linguistic communication and Culture in Titus Andronicus"; 7th World Shakespeare Congress, Valencia, Apr 2001
• Metz, M. Harold. "The History of Titus Andronicus and Shakespeare's Play", Notes and Queries, 22:4 (Wintertime, 1975), 163–166
• ——— . "Stage History of Titus Andronicus", Shakespeare Quarterly, 28:2 (Summer, 1977), 154–169
• ——— . "A Stylometric Comparing of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, Pericles and Julius Caesar", Shakespeare Newsletter, 29:1 (Spring, 1979), 42
• ——— . Shakespeare's Earliest Tragedy: Studies in Titus Andronicus (Madison: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996)
• Mincoff, Marco. "The Source of Titus Andronicus", Notes and Queries, 216:2 (Summer, 1971), 131–134
• McCandless, David. "A Tale of 2 Tituses: Julie Taymor's Vision on Stage and Screen", Shakespeare Quarterly, 53:4 (Winter, 2002), 487–511
• Miola, Robert Due south. "Titus Andronicus and the Mythos of Shakespeare's Rome", Shakespeare Studies, xiv (1981), 85–98
• Muir, Kenneth. The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays (London: Routledge, 1977; rpt 2005)
• Nevo, Ruth. "Tragic Class in Titus Andronicus", in A.A. Mendilow (editor) Further Studies in English language Linguistic communication and Literature (Jerusalem: Magnes Printing, 1975), one–18
• Onions, C. T. A Shakespeare Glossary (London: Oxford University Press, 1953; 2nd edn. edited by Robert D. Eagleson, 1986)
• Palmer, D. J. "The Unspeakable in Pursuit of the Uneatable: Language and Action in Titus Andronicus", Critical Quarterly, 14:4 (Winter, 1972), 320–339
• Parrott, T. Thou. "Shakespeare's Revision of Titus Andronicus", Modernistic Language Review, fourteen (1919), 16–37
• Price, Hereward. "The Language of Titus Andronicus", Papers of the Michigan Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, 21 (1935), 501–507
• ——— . "The Authorship of Titus Andronicus", Periodical of English language and Germanic Philology, 42:1 (Leap 1943), 55–81
• Reese, Jack East. "The Formalization of Horror in Titus Andronicus", Shakespeare Quarterly, 21:1 (Leap, 1970), 77–84
• Robertson, J.One thousand. Did Shakespeare Write Titus Andronicus?: A Study in Elizabethan Literature (London: Watts, 1905)
• Rossiter, A. P. Angel with Horns: Fifteen Lectures on Shakespeare (London: Longmans, 1961; edited by Graham Storey)
• Speaight, Robert. Shakespeare on the Phase: An Illustrated History of Shakespearean Performance (London: Collins, 1973)
• Sacks, Peter. "Where Words Prevail Not: Grief, Revenge, and Language in Kyd and Shakespeare", ELH, 49:iii (Autumn, 1982), 576–601
• Sampley, Arthur K. "Plot Structure in Peele's Plays as a Test of Authorship", PMLA, 51:4 (Winter, 1936), 689–701
• Sargent, Ralph M. "The Sources of Titus Andronicus", Studies in Philology, 46:2 (Apr 1949), 167–183
• Schlueter, June. "Rereading the Peacham Drawing", Shakespeare Quarterly, 50:ii (Summer, 1999), 171–184
• Sommers, Alan. ""Wilderness of Tigers": Structure and Symbolism in Titus Andronicus", Essays in Criticism, ten (1960), 275–289
• Spencer, T. J. B. "Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Romans", Shakespeare Survey, x (1957), 27–38
• Starks, Lisa S. "Cinema of Cruelty: Powers of Horror in Julie Taymor's Titus", in Lisa S. Starks and Courtney Lehmann (editors) The Reel Shakespeare: Alternative Movie theatre and Theory (London: Associated Academy Press, 2002), 121–142
• Taylor, Anthony Brian. "Lucius, the Severely Flawed Redeemer of Titus Andronicus", Connotations, vi:2 (Summer, 1997), 138–157
• Tricomi, Albert H. "The Aesthetics of Mutilation in Titus Andronicus", Shakespeare Survey, 27 (1974), 11–19
• ——— . "The Mutilated Garden in Titus Andronicus", Shakespeare Studies, 9 (1976), 89–105
• Ungerer, Gustav. "An Unrecorded Elizabethan Performance of Titus Andronicus", Shakespeare Survey, 14 (1961), 102–109
• Vickers, Brian. Shakespeare, Co-Writer: A Historical Written report of Five Collaborative Plays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
• Waith, Eugene Yard. "The Metamorphosis of Violence in Titus Andronicus", Shakespeare Survey, 10 (1957), 26–35
• West, Grace Starry. "Going past the Volume: Classical Allusions in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus", Studies in Philology, 79:1 (Spring 1982), 62–77
• Wells, Stanley; Taylor, Gary; with Jowett, John & Montgomery, William. William Shakespeare: a Textual Companion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)
• Willis, Deborah. ""The gnawing vulture": Revenge, Trauma Theory, and Titus Andronicus", Shakespeare Quarterly, 53:1 (Spring, 2002), 21–52
• Wilson, F. P. Shakespearean and Other Studies (London: Oxford University Press, 1969; edited by Helen Gardner)
• Wynne-Davies, Marion. ""The swallowing womb": Consumed and Consuming Women in Titus Andronicus", in Valerie Wayne (editor), The Affair of Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 129–51

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_in_Titus_Andronicus

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