ENGL 4313/5583: Shakespeare’s Tragedies

Northeastern State University, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

John M. Mercer, Professor of English

Study Guide 1: Titus Andronicus

Revised 8-18-10

 

Answers not found in the play itself may be found in our textbook’s introduction to the play or in other sources.

 

Composition of the Play

  1. Approximately when did Shakespeare write Titus Andronicus?
  2. Where does the composition of this play fit chronologically in relationship to Shakespeare’s other tragedies?
  3. When and why was Shakespeare’s authorship of the play first questioned?
  4. What different theories explain the relationship of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus to George Peele’s older play of the same title?
  5. What theory of the play’s authorship does each of the following facts support?
    1. In a book published in 1598, Francis Meres lists Titus Andronicus among Shakespeare’s tragedies.
    2. The First Folio, the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, published in 1623 by Shakespeare’s colleagues John Heminge and Henry Condell, includes Titus Andronicus.

 

Text of the Play

See the introduction to the play and “Note on the Text” (page 1097).

  1. What publication provides the best text of Titus Andronicus?  When was this text first published? When was the only existing copy of this text found?
  2. What scene of the play is not included in the First Folio of 1623?
  3. Why is the text of the play in the First Folio not considered reliable?

 

Reception of the Play

  1. In Shakespeare’s time, Titus Andronicus was a popular play. What evidence supports this assertion? 
  2. In general, Elizabethans loved violent sports such as bear-baiting.  Extra-credit research: What can you learn about bear-baiting and other violent entertainments in Elizabethan England? What do these entertainments reveal about the tastes of the Elizabethans? 
  3. What particularly violent, even grotesque, situations are depicted in the play?
  4. Titus Andronicus fell into general disfavor from the late 17th century until the 20th century?  Why might this have been the case?
  5. In the 20th century, the reputation of Titus Andronicus was rehabilitated.  Today many scholars believe that when it was written it was the best tragedy in English.  What are the implications of this assertion?

 

Sources and Influences

  1. Shakespeare, like the other playwrights of his time, based almost all of his plays on written sources rather than on his imagination.  The story of Titus Andronicus derives from a group of apocryphal tales about the last days of the Roman Empire.
    1. What does apocryphal mean?
    2. What is probably the main source of Shakespeare’s play? 
    3. Extra-credit research: What is a “chapbook”?
  2. Titus Andronicus takes many elements from the plays of Seneca, a writer of Latin tragedies in the first century of the Common Era.  Seneca’s tragedies, however, were merely recited rather than acted out on stage.  To what extent does each of the following elements of Senecan tragedy relate to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus?
    1. Characters commit unnatural crimes.
    2. Characters seek revenge of blood for blood (“an eye for an eye”).
    3. Characters experience increasingly horrible punishments.
    4. The avenger ironically brings about his own destruction (as in Hamlet).
    5. The play’s language is highly rhetorical (exaggerated, artificial, bombastic, with long, formal speeches).
    6. Although main characters have introspective speeches (usually soliloquies), they do not reveal depth of character.

 

Titus Andronicus is an Elizabethan revenge tragedy, which shares some of the traits of Senecan tragedy.  Other important Elizabethan revenge tragedies include

·         Gorboduc (the first tragedy written in English)

·         The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd (perhaps the most popular Elizabethan revenge tragedy)

·         Ur-Hamlet (an earlier Elizabethan play about Hamlet, now lost, that is thought to have been the immediate source of Shakespeare’s Hamlet) 

  1. To what extent does each of the following elements of Elizabethan revenge tragedy apply to Titus Andronicus?
    1. The plot concerns a “blood feud” usually involving the revenge of a father for the killing of his son or of a son for the killing of his father. 
    2. A villain effectively schemes against other characters.
    3. The avenger is mad (insane) or pretends to be.
    4. The avenger delays his revenge, thus allowing the plot of the play to develop. (At what point in the play does Titus know everything he needs to know in order to seek revenge but still continue to delay revenge?)
    5. The avenger pays the price of losing his own life after he gets his revenge.
    6. Sensational horrors are depicted on stage.
  2. Extra-credit research: What else can you learn about Elizabethan revenge tragedy, and how does this information relate to Titus Andronicus?

 

Other sources of Titus Andronicus include three mythological stories:

  1. In the myth of Philomela (from Metamorphoses, a collection of myths by the Latin poet Ovid), Philomela is raped and has her tongue cut out by her brother-in-law Tereus (pronounced “TEE-roos”).  Philomela reveals the crime by weaving a tapestry.  Tereus’s wife Progne (or Procne) takes revenge by serving Tereus a meal of his own son.  Shakespeare explicitly mentions this myth in two passages: 2.4.26-43 (page 1080) and 4.1.47-63 (page 1085).  Please read these passages carefully.
    1. What elements of the myth of Philomela does Shakespeare mention in these passages? 
    2. How does the myth of Philomela relate to the plot of Titus Andronicus?
  2. In the myth of Lucrece (pronounced “loo-CREASE”), Lucrece, a virtuous wife, is raped by the ruler Tarquin.  Lucrece reveals the truth and then stabs herself.  Tarquin is punished by being exiled.  Shakespeare wrote The Rape of Lucrece, a long narrative poem, perhaps about the same time he wrote Titus Andronicus.  In the play, he alludes to the myth of Lucrece in 2.1 (page 1076) and 3.1 (page 1083).  Please read these two scenes carefully.
    1. What elements of the myth of Lucrece does Shakespeare mention in these passages?
    2. How does the myth of Lucrece relate to the plot of Titus Andronicus?
  3. Seneca’s tragedy Thyestes (pronounced “thigh-ESS-tease”) is only a questionable source of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, but the plots of the two plays are similar.  In the myth of Thyestes, King Atreus takes revenge on his brother Thyestes for having sexual relations with Atreus’s wife by feeding Thyestes a meal of his own two sons.  What scene in Titus Andronicus is reminiscent of the myth of Thyestes?
  4. Extra-credit research: What else can you learn about any of these three myths, and how does this information relate to Titus Andronicus?

 

Theatrical Elements of Titus Andronicus

  1. What scene early in the play could logically make use of the trap door in the platform stage of an Elizabethan public playhouse?
  2. In 5.2 (page 1093), when Titus exits “above” and enters “below,” what parts of the stage of an Elizabethan public playhouse would have been used?  (See plate 32, following page 1898.)
  3. Based on the drawing at the top of plate 9 following page 490 and the caption accompanying it, what is surprising about the costumes that were apparently used in the original production of the play?  How is this costuming anachronistic?
  4. Titus Andronicus relies heavily on grotesque elements.  In this context, what is the definition of grotesque?  What are some examples of the use of the grotesque in this play?  

 

Language in the Play

  1. Find examples of each of the following types of language in the play, and be prepared to discuss in class when and why Shakespeare uses each type:

·         blank verse

·         rhymed couplets

·         prose

  1. Find examples of each of the following speech conventions in the play, and be prepared to discuss in class why Shakespeare uses each convention:

·         asides

·         soliloquies

  1. Which character delivers the final speech of the play?  Why?

 

Parallel Groups of Brothers

Shakespeare likes to use parallel characters or groups of characters in his plays.  Except for Tamora and Aaron, almost all the characters in Titus Andronicus are siblings.  The play contains the following sets of brothers:

  1. The sons of the former emperor of Rome: Saturninus and Bassianus
    1. Their rivalry for their father’s throne provides the play’s initial conflict.  Why does their rivalry not continue throughout the play?
  2. The older generation of the Andronicus family: Titus and Marcus
    1. How does Marcus provide a contrast (foil) to his brother Titus?  In particular, how are the two brothers different in their attitude toward revengeful killings?
  3. The sons of Titus Andronicus: Lucius, Quintus, Martius, Mutius
    1. What is the total number of Titus’s sons?  What has happened to those whose names are not listed above?
    2. What happens to Quintus, Martius, and Mutius?
    3. What is Lucius’s position at the end of the play?
  4. The sons of Tamora, Queen of the Goths: Demetrius and Chiron (pronounced “KI-ron”).
    1. What dispute do Demetrius and Chiron have that is similar to a dispute between Saturninus and Bassianus?
    2. At the end of the play, what names do Demetrius and Chiron give themselves in disguise?  How are these names appropriate?

 

The Plot of Titus Andronicus

In the plot of Titus Andronicus Shakespeare includes several innovations not found in his source material.  Most of act 1, in fact, consists of newly created events, including the following:

·         Titus’s sacrifice of Alarbus

·         The rivalry between Saturninus and Bassianus for the throne and for Lavinia

·         Titus’s killing his own son Mutius

  1. Titus’s sacrifice of Alarbus is an anachronistic innovation; the ancient Romans did not actually practice human sacrifice.  This sacrifice, however, provides motivation for the chain of revenge in the play.  What are the main events in this chain of revenge?
  2. Each of the events bulleted above provides an occasion for Titus to demonstrate character weakness, helping to make the play a tragedy of character.  What error of judgment does Titus make with regard to each event?
  3. Other innovations in the plot of Titus Andronicus are listed below.  What does the inclusion of each of the following add to the play?

a.       Titus’s plea before the tribunes for the lives of Martius and Quintus

b.      The characters Lucius and young Lucius

c.       The scene in which Titus kills a fly at dinner (3.2)

d.      The references to Ovid’s Philomela

e.       Aaron’s love for his son

f.       Titus’s revealing his plans to Tamora’s sons before he kills them

  1. Because of external events and his own errors in judgment, Titus reaches his lowest point in 3.1. 
    1. By this point in the plot, what specific losses or reversals has Titus suffered? 
    2. Whose departure in this scene eventually brings help to improve Titus’s situation?
  2. Another turning point comes in 4.1.
    1. What important information does Titus finally learn in this scene?  
    2. After this, rather than immediately take revenge, what strange actions involving each of the following does Titus engage in?

                                                              i.      arrows (4.3)

                                                            ii.      pigeons

                                                          iii.      swords

  1. In Elizabethan revenge tragedies (as in Hamlet), it is often unclear whether the avenger is mad (insane) or only pretends to be mad. 
    1. What evidence supports the idea that Titus actually loses his sanity?
    2. What evidence supports the idea that Titus only pretends to be insane?  (See, for example, Titus’s aside at 5.2.142-44.)   What use does Titus make of his apparent insanity?
  2. Many characters die in the resolution or denouement at the end of the play.
    1. Which characters die, and how does each die?
    2. Which characters’ murders are premeditated?  Which characters’ deaths seem gratuitous? 

 

Titus Andronicus as an Aristotelian Tragedy

In The Poetics, Aristotle describes the characteristics of ancient Greek tragedy.  Shakespearean tragedy often but not always adheres to these characteristics. 

  1. Aristotle says that a tragedy depicts the tragic hero’s fall from happiness at the beginning of play to misery at the end of the play.
    1. In what sense is Titus in a state of happiness at the beginning of the play?
    2. Besides the fact that he loses his life, in what sense is Titus in a state of misery at the end of the play?  What other losses has he suffered?  How has his character degenerated?
  2. Aristotle says that the tragic hero (the main character in a tragedy) should be noble.
    1. Is Titus noble by birth and social standing?
    2. Is Titus also noble in character at the beginning of the play?
  3. Aristotle says that a tragic hero has a hamartia or imperfection that brings about his fall from happiness to misery.
    1. What errors in judgment does Titus make that contribute to his fall?
    2. What character flaws contribute to his fall?
    3. What apparent strengths in Titus’s character work against him, helping to cause his fall?  In particular, how is Titus’s devotion to honor both a positive and negative trait?
  4. Aristotle says that a tragic hero’s suffering is greater than he deserves.
    1. In what sense is Titus’s suffering greater than he deserves?
    2. In what sense does Titus deserve his suffering?
    3. On the whole, on which side of this issue do you find the arguments to be stronger?
  5. Aristotle says that the events in the plot of a tragedy must be linked in a believable chain of cause and effect.
    1. What events in the plot are clearly linked in a chain of cause and effect?
    2. What events in the plot seem not to be linked by cause and effect but rather seem to occur by chance or coincidence and therefore are not believable?
  6. Aristotle says that watching a tragedy has the effect of uplifting rather than depressing the audience.
    1. From a moral standpoint, what is positive about the state of affairs at the end of the play?
    2. From a political standpoint, what is positive about the state of affairs at the end of the play?

 

Aaron as Villain

  1. Aaron has been called the most interesting character in the play.  What makes Aaron a particularly interesting character?
  2. A criticism of the play is that the villain Aaron is only loosely related to what happens in the plot in general and in the resolution (ending) in particular. 
    1. In what sense is Aaron not integral to the plot and resolution of the play?
    2. What significant role(s), if any, does Aaron play in the plot?
  3. Like a Vice character and a Machiavel, two kinds of stage villains familiar to Shakespeare’s audience, Aaron seems to enjoy doing evil for its own sake.  How does each of the following scenes support this assertion?  What other passages also show Aaron’s enjoyment of evil?
    1. 3.1  (see, for example, 3.1.202)
    2. 5.1  (see, for example, 5.1.111-20, 124 ff.)
  4. What motivations, if any, does the play provide to explain Aaron’s villainy?
  5. In the context of the play, what is the significance of Aaron’s race?  See especially 5.1.
  6. Shakespeare’s creation of Aaron has been called a dry run for Iago in Othello.  Extra credit research or prior knowledge: How is Iago similar to Aaron?  How is Iago different from Aaron?   

 

Image Pattern: Womb/Tomb

  1. Language in the play emphasizes the fact that siblings come from the same womb.  In 4.2.122-27, what does Aaron say about this fact?  (Quote the appropriate phrases, and explain Aaron’s argument.)
  2. This play repeatedly uses figurative language that links the womb and the tomb.
    1. What passage describes the tomb of Titus’s sons as a womb?
    2. How does the description of the pit containing Bassianus’s corpse connect womb and tomb (2.3.239-40, page 1079 b1)?  (Quote the lines, and explain the metaphor.)
  3. What other lines in the play use imagery related to wombs and/or tombs?