Titus Andronicus

The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus may be Shakespeare's earliest tragedy. It depicts a fictional Roman general engaged in a cycle of revenge with his enemy Tamora, the Queen of the Goths.

Text of the play

Titus Andronicus was published in three separate quarto editions prior to the First Folio of 1623, which are referred to as Q1, Q2, and Q3 by Shakespeare scholars.

Q1, published in 1594, is regarded by scholars as a reasonably "good" (complete and reliable) text, and is the basis for most modern editions, although it does not include some material found in the First Folio. Only a single copy is known to exist today.

Q2, published in 1600, appears to be based on a damaged copy of Q1, as it is a good reproduction of the Q1 text, but is missing a number of lines. Two copies are known to exist today.

Q3, published in 1611, appears to be a further degradation of the Q2 text: it includes a number of corrections to Q2, but introduces even more errors.

The First Folio text of 1623 seems to be based on the Q3 text, but also includes material found in none of the quarto editions, including the entirety of Act 3, Scene 2 (in which Titus seems to be losing his sanity). This scene is generally regarded as authentic and included in modern editions of the play.

Date and authorship

Most scholars date Titus to the early 1590s; it was certainly written prior to 1594, the date of its first published edition.

None of the three quarto editions lists Shakespeare as the author. Francis Meres lists the play as one of Shakespeare's tragedies in a publication of 1598, and the editors of the First Folio included it among his works. There is evidence that the first act was written by George Peele, who may also have written the scene in which Lavinia uses Ovid's Metamorphoses to explain that she has been raped. The assertion of Peele's hand in the play is controversial, and those who admire the play tend to argue against it.

It has even been posited that Shakespeare didn't write Titus Andronicus at all; for example, the 19th century Globe Illustrated Shakespeare (still in print in 2005) goes so far as to claim there was a general agreement on the matter due to the un-Shakespearean "barbarity" of the play's action.

Reputation

Titus Andronicus is certainly Shakespeare's bloodiest tragedy; some measure of its matter can be gleaned from a single stage-direction: "Enter the empress' sons with Lavinia, her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravished." (Act II, scene IV). The play is frequently dismissed for its violence, and some Shakespeare lovers consider it childish, juvenile, or believe that it is populist trash written only to make money. However, it was an extremely popular play in its day, second only to The Spanish Tragedy, another bloody play of that period by Thomas Kyd.

Since the late twentieth century, however, the play has been revived frequently on stage and has been revealed to some as a powerful and moving exploration of violence that pre-empts King Lear in its bleakness, to others as a forerunner of the Hollywood slasher movie. The play can speak to modern audiences, who are used to violence in film, in a way that it could not to Victorian audiences; however modern audiences may still find the play's graphic cruelty absurd, unused as they are to attending public executions and dismemberment of the kind that were familiar to Shakespeare's audience. Literary critic and Shakespeare scholar Harold Bloom has claimed that the play cannot be taken seriously and that the best imaginable production would be one directed by Mel Brooks.

The character of Titus has been played by important actors such as Laurence Olivier, Brian Cox, Anthony Sher and Anthony Hopkins.

Information provided by Wikipedia

Summary

Act I

The Emperor of Rome has died, and his son Saturninus and Bassinius squabble over who will succeed him. The Tribune of the People, Marcus Andronicus, announces that the people's choice for new emperor is his brother, Titus Andronicus, a Roman general newly returned from ten years' campaigning against the empire's foes. Titus enters Rome to much fanfare, bearing with him Tamora, Queen of the Goths, her sons, and Aaron the Moor. Titus feels a religious duty to sacrifice Tamora’s eldest son Alarbus to the memory of his own sons who died during the campaign. She begs for the life of Alarbus, and when he is hacked to bits anyway, vows horrible revenge.

Andronicus refuses the throne in favor of the old emperor's elder son Saturnius; the two agree Saturnius will marry Titus' daughter Lavinia. However Bassinius had a previoius love-match with the girl and Titus' surviving sons help them escape; in the fighting, Titus kills his son Mutius.

The new emperor, Saturninus, is content to let the lovers be, and marries Tamora instead.

Act II

During a hunting party the next day, Tamora's lover, Aaron, meets Tamora's sons Chiron and Demetrius, arguing over which should woo the newlywed Lavinia. They are easily pursuaded to ambush Bassinius and kill him in the presence of Tamora and Lavinia. Lavinia begs Tamora to save her or, failing that, to kill her before she is raped. Tamora refuses; she wants revenge. To keep Lavinia from revealing their identity, they cut out her tongue and hack off her hands.

Aaron brings Titus' sons Martius and Quintus to the scene and frames them; the Emperor arrests them. Lavinia tries to hide but Marcus finds her.

Act III

Titus and his remaining son Lucius beg for the lives of Martius and Quintus, but they are marched off to execution. Marcus enters with Lavinia, but none can tell whether she is trying to exonerate or inculpate her brothers.

Aaron enters, and tells the men that the emperor will spare the prisoners, if one of the three sacrifices a hand. Each demands the right to do so, but it is Titus who has Aaron hack off his hand and take it to the Emperor. In return, a messenger brings Titus the heads of his sons.

Titus orders Lucius to flee Rome and raise an army among their former enemy, the Goths. Knowing not how to learn the identity of his persecutors, he can think only to cheer his daughter by reading her sad stories from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Act IV

Titus' grandson, who has been helping Titus read to Lavinia, complains that she won't leave his book alone. In the book, she indicates to Titus and Marcus the story of Philomel, in which a similarly mute victim wrote the name of her wrongdoer. Marcus gives her a stick to hold with her mouth and stumps; she writes the names of her attackers in the dirt. All present vow revenge.

Titus feigns madness, tying written prayers for justice to arrows and commanding his kinsmen to aim them at the sky. Marcus directs the arrows to land inside the palace of Saturninus, who is enraged by this and orders the execution of a Clown who had delivered a further supplication from Titus.

Tamora is delivered of a child; the nurse can tell it must have been fathered by Aaron. He promptly kills the nurse and flees with the baby to save it from the Emperor's inevitable wrath.

Act V

Lucius, marching on Rome with an army, captures Aaron. To save the baby, Aaron reveals the entire plot, relishing every murder, rape and dismemberment.

Tamora, convinced of Titus' madness, approaches him along with her two sons, dressed as the spirits of Revenge, Murder, and Rape. She tells Titus that she (as a supernatural spirit) will grant him revenge if he will convince Lucius to stop attacking Rome. Titus agrees, sending Marcus to invite Lucius to a feast, and "Revenge" (Tamora) to invite the Emperor, but insists that "Rape" and "Murder" (Chiron and Demetrius) stay with him. Titus' servants bind Chiron and Demetrius, and Titus tells the two his plan: to cut their throats, while Lavinia holds a basin in her stumps to catch their blood, and to cook them into a pie for their mother.

Titus enters the feast at his house dressed as a cook and invite all to eat well. Titus asks Saturnius whether a father should kill her daughter if she has been raped; when the Emperor agrees, Titus kills Lavinia and tells Saturnius what Tamora's sons had done. He reveals that they were in the pie Tamora has just been enjoying, and then kills Tamora. Saturnius kills Titus; Lucius kills Saturnius.

Lucius is acclaimed Emperor. He, his uncle Marcus, and all present bid a tender and loving fairwell to Titus. Lucius orders that the Emperor be given a proper burial, that Tamora's body be thrown to the wild beasts, and that Aaron be buried chest-deep and left to die of thirst and starvation.

Aaron is unrepentent to the end, proclaiming: