I LOVE THIS PLAY.
This play got such a bad rep for so long. But seriously, it almost completely redeems "Shrew."
I read this play for the first time in college, and then was lucky enough to get to teach it once, and and I've seen a couple of filmed versions, and it just boggles my mind that T.S. Eliot, who I also adore, ever once thought that Titus was "one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written, a play in which it is incredible that Shakespeare had any hand at all." But he did think that, because Titus is a bloody mess, an operatic abattoir of revenge and rape and cannibalism AND I LOVE IT.
I love it because in it, Shakespeare does what he does best: entertain the masses on top, and say something really important underneath.
For those who haven't seen or read it yet (GO. FIND A PRODUCTION SOMEWHERE AND WATCH IT!), Titus Andronicus is the story of the triumphant return of the aforementioned General Andronicus to Rome from war, bearing as booty Tamora, Queen of the Goths, her sons (Alarbus, Chiron, and Demetrius,) and her Moorish lover Aaron. They arrive home and Titus promptly sacrifices Alarbus to the Roman gods, despite Tamora's pleading for his life. This sets off a chain of revenge, but first there is the election of the new Roman emperor: the commonfolk want Titus, but he abdicates in favor of the former emperor's eldest son, Saturninus. He also promises his daughter Lavinia to Saturninus in marriage but SURPRISE she's in love with Bassianus, Saturninus' younger brother, and they run off together. Saturninus gets a bit cranky, Tamora whispers in his ear, and voila, Tamora becomes Empress of Rome.
Oops.
The next day, a panther hunt is held, and everybody wanders around the dark and scary forest, where chaos and murder ensues. Aaron and Tamora are surprised mid-tryst, two of Titus' other sons are framed for murder, and Chiron and Demetrius rape Lavinia atop her dead husband's body, and then proceed to lop off her hands and cut out her tongue in order to prevent her from snitching on them.
Yes, I'm deliberately making light of the situation, because the play does as well. It delights in its goriness, in how close it steps to genuine madness.
Titus, of course, gets his revenge. Lavinia manages to communicate the name of her ravishers. Titus holds a dinner at his home and tricks the Emperor and Tamora into attending, where he serves them both pies made from the flesh and bones of Chiron and Demetrius before killing both of them. But not before also killing Lavinia, whose shame cannot be born.
Whose shame cannot be born. Think about that. "The girl should not survive her shame, / And by her presence still renew his sorrows." (V.iii).
The most horrifying thing in the entire play is not Lavinia's rape and maiming; it is the way the men around her turn her agony into their own pain. Stripped of any way of expressing her pain, from the moment they discover her, they treat her as one dead, a lifeless trunk, a shambling shadow. They grieve for themselves, not for her: "he that wounded her / Hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead" (III.i). They have no empathy for her pain, only anger that her honor (which belongs to them) has been stolen and grief that their daughter and niece is dead to them and can no longer sing or play the lute or embroider or comfort them. It's monstrous.
And then there's Aaron.
Shakespeare does something really beautiful here. Titus is a terrible father, but a virtuous Roman in all other ways. Aaron is a self-professed villain, but he risks everything to save the baby born to him and Tamora. He sacrifices himself for that child, confessing to every evil deed he has ever done and trying to come up with more, in order to ensure the child's safety. His honor is worth nothing next to the child's life, whereas Titus kills his own son when that son went against his orders in the first scene. And Shakespeare is brave enough to call out the racism that marks Aaron: "Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears" (IV.ii) and when asked if he can't blush for his deeds, answers Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is" (V.i.). Except a black dog may blush, but no one would ever see it for the darkness of his skin, and this is exactly the kind of joke that Shakespeare's audience loved; one where you could not be sure if the speaker intended it or not.
I love Titus Andronicus because it's a giant middle finger to questions of the worth of honor when honor means things like social hierarchy and the possession of women's sexuality. I love it for Titus' grief as he begs the stones of the Roman streets for mercy. I love it for Tamora's fierceness and for "make them know what 'tis to let a queen / Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain" (I.i). I love it for the glee in Titus when he serves the Empress a pie made from her sons: "'Tis true, 'tis true; witness my knife's sharp point" (V.i). Shakespeare was almost certainly slyly referring to himself in the line from Act V: "Chief architect and plotter of these woes." An excellent architect and plotter here, indeed, to slip under the radar for so many decades.
I read this play for the first time in college, and then was lucky enough to get to teach it once, and and I've seen a couple of filmed versions, and it just boggles my mind that T.S. Eliot, who I also adore, ever once thought that Titus was "one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written, a play in which it is incredible that Shakespeare had any hand at all." But he did think that, because Titus is a bloody mess, an operatic abattoir of revenge and rape and cannibalism AND I LOVE IT.
I love it because in it, Shakespeare does what he does best: entertain the masses on top, and say something really important underneath.
For those who haven't seen or read it yet (GO. FIND A PRODUCTION SOMEWHERE AND WATCH IT!), Titus Andronicus is the story of the triumphant return of the aforementioned General Andronicus to Rome from war, bearing as booty Tamora, Queen of the Goths, her sons (Alarbus, Chiron, and Demetrius,) and her Moorish lover Aaron. They arrive home and Titus promptly sacrifices Alarbus to the Roman gods, despite Tamora's pleading for his life. This sets off a chain of revenge, but first there is the election of the new Roman emperor: the commonfolk want Titus, but he abdicates in favor of the former emperor's eldest son, Saturninus. He also promises his daughter Lavinia to Saturninus in marriage but SURPRISE she's in love with Bassianus, Saturninus' younger brother, and they run off together. Saturninus gets a bit cranky, Tamora whispers in his ear, and voila, Tamora becomes Empress of Rome.
Oops.
The next day, a panther hunt is held, and everybody wanders around the dark and scary forest, where chaos and murder ensues. Aaron and Tamora are surprised mid-tryst, two of Titus' other sons are framed for murder, and Chiron and Demetrius rape Lavinia atop her dead husband's body, and then proceed to lop off her hands and cut out her tongue in order to prevent her from snitching on them.
Yes, I'm deliberately making light of the situation, because the play does as well. It delights in its goriness, in how close it steps to genuine madness.
Titus, of course, gets his revenge. Lavinia manages to communicate the name of her ravishers. Titus holds a dinner at his home and tricks the Emperor and Tamora into attending, where he serves them both pies made from the flesh and bones of Chiron and Demetrius before killing both of them. But not before also killing Lavinia, whose shame cannot be born.
Whose shame cannot be born. Think about that. "The girl should not survive her shame, / And by her presence still renew his sorrows." (V.iii).
The most horrifying thing in the entire play is not Lavinia's rape and maiming; it is the way the men around her turn her agony into their own pain. Stripped of any way of expressing her pain, from the moment they discover her, they treat her as one dead, a lifeless trunk, a shambling shadow. They grieve for themselves, not for her: "he that wounded her / Hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead" (III.i). They have no empathy for her pain, only anger that her honor (which belongs to them) has been stolen and grief that their daughter and niece is dead to them and can no longer sing or play the lute or embroider or comfort them. It's monstrous.
And then there's Aaron.
Shakespeare does something really beautiful here. Titus is a terrible father, but a virtuous Roman in all other ways. Aaron is a self-professed villain, but he risks everything to save the baby born to him and Tamora. He sacrifices himself for that child, confessing to every evil deed he has ever done and trying to come up with more, in order to ensure the child's safety. His honor is worth nothing next to the child's life, whereas Titus kills his own son when that son went against his orders in the first scene. And Shakespeare is brave enough to call out the racism that marks Aaron: "Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears" (IV.ii) and when asked if he can't blush for his deeds, answers Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is" (V.i.). Except a black dog may blush, but no one would ever see it for the darkness of his skin, and this is exactly the kind of joke that Shakespeare's audience loved; one where you could not be sure if the speaker intended it or not.
I love Titus Andronicus because it's a giant middle finger to questions of the worth of honor when honor means things like social hierarchy and the possession of women's sexuality. I love it for Titus' grief as he begs the stones of the Roman streets for mercy. I love it for Tamora's fierceness and for "make them know what 'tis to let a queen / Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain" (I.i). I love it for the glee in Titus when he serves the Empress a pie made from her sons: "'Tis true, 'tis true; witness my knife's sharp point" (V.i). Shakespeare was almost certainly slyly referring to himself in the line from Act V: "Chief architect and plotter of these woes." An excellent architect and plotter here, indeed, to slip under the radar for so many decades.
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| Are you gonna eat that? The Globe Theater, 2014 (L-R) Matthew Needham as Saturninus, William Houston as Titus Andronicus, and Indira Varma as Tamora |
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