Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens

by William Shakespeare, Jonathan Bate, Eric Rasmussen

“These words are razors to my wounded heart.”
—Titus Andronicus
 
“We have seen better days.”
—Timon of Athens
 
Eminent Shakespearean scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen provide fresh new editions of the two great Titus Adronicus, a graphic story of revenge, and Timon of Athens , a cautionary tale about false friends and unearned loyalty.
 
THIS VOLUME ALSO INCLUDES MORE THAN A HUNDRED PAGES OF EXCLUSIVE
 
• original Introductions to Titus Andronicus and Timon of Athens
• incisive scene-by-scene synopsis and analysis with vital facts about the work
• commentary on past and current productions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, and designers
• photographs of key RSC productions
• an overview of Shakespeare’s theatrical career and chronology of his plays
 
Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers, these modern and accessible editions from the Royal Shakespeare Company set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century.

Genres: Plays, Classics, Shakespeare, Drama, Fiction, Theatre, Tragedy

352 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1986

About the author

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".

Reviews

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 5 out of 5]

T. S. Eliot called Titus Andronicus “one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written”. It is Shakespeare's most macabre play. It's not just that a lot of people die, including most of the main characters, which would put it along the lines of Hamlet or King Lear, it's the manner the human body is treated. It opens with an execution by dismemberment off stage, and family murder on stage. But it also involved heads, and severed hands cut off on stage, cannibalism, a rape where men cut off the hands and tongue of their victim and then make fun, on stage, of her inability to communicate. It's a play that involves a march to display body parts. It's awful, it's also—well it can be—great fun.

There is a lot of King Lear in the set-up. Titus, a Roman general obsessed with honor, gallantly turns down an offer to become emperor of Rome in return for having his daughter marry the new emperor. In a blink this decision of giving up power becomes disastrous. His daughter Lavinia is carried off, Titus has killed his own son, and the new emperor marries Titus's captive goth - the mother of captive he just executed by dismembering him. This new empress, Tamora, will have her revenge. Honor and vengeance and their endless cycle, have reign. Throw in Tamora's barbaric Goth sons and her lover, the Moor Aaron - who is both a racist stereotype of evil and sharp maneuverer, and well there's a lot to come. Ovid is not only a reference, but directly cited. A copy of Metamorphoses appears on stage, the characters flipping through the book and discussing the gruesome rape of Philomena by Tereus. Ovid had a thing for macabre humor, most extreme his battle of the Centaurs and the Lapiths at a wedding. This one story is simply a series of more spectacular and gruesome and more ridiculous deaths in the riot. The point is gruesome humor, although I'm not sure anyone reads it that way today. Shakespeare makes a direct reference to it. It felt to me like this was what Shakespeare had in mind...that he wanted us to see the humor.

It hard to explain why this play works—except, like for T. S. Eliot, and, well, for anyone who else kept their decency, where it doesn't. But somehow this does work. The language is toned down, the plot sequence is the driver. And there is enough here to think about to allow that an element of fascination to thrive in us, and in such a way as to allow us to the separate the spectacle on stage from the kind of judgement we use in reality. To put it another way, I loved it.

Makes you wonder, though. I put it this way on my compressed Litsy post: "It‘s not that I enjoyed this so much or how it works with the jammed together mixture of gore/shock gamed with concerns of calculation vs mistakes, it‘s what it says about art in relation to our finicky sense of what‘s ok. This macabre can do the magic, can work. We can laugh at it, our fascination thoroughly dominating over our sense of need for decency. But have to wonder about our programming."

Obviously not a play for everyone.

-----------------------------------------------

43. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
editor: Sylvan Barnet
commentaries: H. T. Price, Richard David, Alan C. Dessen &, The History of Titus Andronicus (an anonymous brief history in prose of unknown origin)
1st performed: 1591? (an early play)
format: 160-pages in Signet Classic paperback that includes Timon of Athens.
acquired: May
read: Jul 12- Aug 16
time reading: 10 hr 39 min, 4 min/page
rating: 5
locations: later empire Rome
about the author April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Titus Adronicus is the first play I read for my class on Shakespearean Tragedy. The lowdown from the prof is that there's been controversey over whether Shakespeare even wrote the thing, the fallout resulting in the lack of a Titus-Adronicus-only edition on Goodreads for my reviewing purposes. So, this review is a lie, as I likely won't get to Timon of Athens until I take on my copy of the Complete Works in one fell swoop. The important thing is, contention or not, said Complete Works has this proto-bloodfest of a play, so whatever quibbles about authenticity were worked out by 1988 or thereabouts (leastwise in the places that use the £ on the front bookflap. I've no clue about the ones that make use of $ or €).

I won't ruin anyone's fun by mentioning the play contains cannibalism. It's only a spoiler if I let you in on the specifics. Between this and that there's a whole gamut to run of the baleful, ludicrous, doomed, gnawing-off-your-leg-naked-in-the-dark that is the mean and methodology of tragedy.

Exhibit A: Human cannibalism is taboo.

Exhibit B: Human incest is taboo.

Exhibit B.1: Incest has some weighty, but not guaranteed, biological inhibitors.

Exhibit A.1: Beyond the natural consequences of same species infection, cannibalism has none.

Exhibit A.1.a: Or does it?

Exhibit A.1.b: You see, to truly know the limits of the inherent laws of cannibalism, one cannot presume one would know at any instant where one, as a human being, was consuming human flesh. It can be baked. It can be brewed. It can be the gelatin of the marshmellows in your hot cocoa, something I'm miffed at TV series Hannibal for not conjuring up; perhaps it was too pedestrian, but never mind that. The point is, to prepare to prevent onself from ever engaging in same species consumption, one would have to give full rein to the appetite for as long as it takes with some far off guarantee that, eventually, one would stop.

Exhibit C: If rape and murder and enslavement can be assumed to follow the same evolutionary track of crime and punishment, there's not much hope for us, is there.

Maybe it's cause I'm no Shakespeare/theatre scholar and this was the last play I read before TA, but so many parts of Adronicus' plot screamed LEAR, LEAR, LEAR. Banishment, misguided giving up of ultimate power, doomed patriarch, fools, madness, escalation of revenge, entrapment, evil. Awful lot of Othello as well in a weirdly composite sense, but that's another analysis. I'll know for sure when I tackle them both later in the quarter. Might not do much on the test taking level, but it'd make for a damn fine paper.

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 4 out of 5]

60. Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare
composed: c 1605
format: 227-pages in Signet Classic paperback that includes Titus Andronicus.
acquired: May
read: Nov 18 – Dec 19
time reading: 11 hr 34 min, 3.1 min/page
rating: 4
locations: Classical Athens
about the author April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616

other contributors
Editing
Maurice Charney - editor – c1965, 1989, 2005
Sylvan Barnet – series editor – c1963, 1989, 2005
Sources:
Lucian– Timon (100’s), translated from Greek by Lionel Casson (1962)
Plutarch – excerpts from Lives from Antony & Alcibiades (c 120), translated from Greek by Sir Robert North (1579)
William Painter – from [The Palace of Pleasure] (1566)
Commentary:
William Richardson – On the Dramatic Character of Timon of Athens (1785)
Roy Walker – from Unto Caesar: A Review of Recent Production (1958)
David Cook – Timon of Athens (1963)
Susan Handelman – Timon of Athens: The Rage of Disillusion (1979)
Maurice Charney – Timon of Athens on Stage and Screen (1965/2005)

This was the last Shakespeare of the year for the Listy group I follow, and another where I led the discussion. (It included a misanthropic theme song challenge.)

Timon is a classical misanthrop story, a rich man in Athens who ran out of money and became a hater of all humanity. He's credited with many sly remarks, such as, before cutting down tree used for hanging, offering anyone in Athens a last chance to hang themselves before he cut it down. A second century satire by Lucian about him is preserved, and Plutarch references him twice, once in the life of Athenian general Alcibiades (who appears in this play), and the other in the life Mark Antony, who is compared to Timon at one point when he secluded himself near the end of his life.

This play was never supposed to be preserved and was probably not finished or preformed. Apparently when the First Folio of Shakespeare was getting printed there was some kind of legal issue over the inclusion of Troilus and Cressida, and pages were left blank in the tragedy section. Eventually those pages were partially filed-in with this play, and partially left blank, since this play is shorter. (Also, eventually, T&C was included). So, what was this filler text?

This is not a perfect play, but despite some heavy criticism, it's a very interesting and heavily worked piece. The play opens with Timon a rich man, flagrantly spreading his wealth in crazy events, or dramatically helping someone in need. Timon sees his followers as friends, and they see him as a source of money. First Timon runs out of money, then he sends his servants to borrow money from all his "friends", who turn him down in a variety of humorous ways. Distraught at his treatment and debt Timon flips from philanthropist to misantrop, abandons Athens for the woods, cursing the city and its inhabitants profusely (in creative ways Shakespeare excelled at). Alas, naked, angry and alone, Timon, digging for roots, strikes gold. But his misanthropy is set and he uses his gold only to undermine Athens, funding an attack on the city by the spurned Athenian general Alcibiades. Athens at his mercy, Alcibiades halts only on learning Timon has died and left a bitter epitaph. Alcibiades goes a difference route, finds mercy and most of Athens is spared.

Among the plays best parts is the cynic Apemantus. When Timon is wealthy, Apemantus humorously shreds his false impression of those who appear to praise him. But he criticized everyone and is seen as a misanthrop. Timon ignores his prophecy of poverty. When Timon is alone in the woods, Apemantus confronts him in a long conversion between misanthrop and spurned cynic. It's a terrific part of the play and it's funny in the overall sense in how Apemantus approves of Timon's poverty and hatred but blasts him for the narcissistic aspect of his misanthropy.

The play has some oddities and doesn't entirely work, and it may well have been abandoned because of its problems, yet it makes a curious and entertaining work and provides a lot of think about. It manages to be one of those things that seem to get more impressive when you're not reading it (or watching it?), and just thinking about it.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contained two of Shakespeare’s plays in one, so I’ll review each play.

Titus Andronicus: I would not read this play again. It’s dark, violent, and bloody. It contains rape, cannibalism, mutilation, murder, etc. But I think at its heart, it’s a lesson on mercy or what happens when mercy is not shown. Several times in the play characters have the opportunity to show mercy but don’t, and then when positions are reversed, they do not receive mercy. If one person had been merciful, all this tragedy would have been avoided. There was some value in this play, but overall it’s so shockingly violent that I can’t recommend it and wouldn’t read it again.

Timon of Athens: I wouldn’t read this one again either, not because of violence (it wasn’t violent at all), but because it’s kind of bland and not that interesting. There’s value in the story about not listening to flatterers, but overall it just didn’t capture my interest. I read in my copy that this is the least popular and least performed of Shakespeare’s plays. I believe it.

[Jacques Coulardeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This play by Shakespeare is a founding play in his career. He will never accumulate that much physical cruelty in another play, preferring psychological or mental cruelty to such gross and even sickening horror.

One element has to be emphasized. The role of “pairs of brothers” in this play. Titus Andronicus has a brother Marcus Andronicus who plays a major role in the plot. Titus Andronicus had twenty-five sons and only four (presented as two pairs: Martius-Mutis and Lucius-Quintus) come back from war alive accompanying one dead brother to represent the twenty-one who died. Tamora, the Queen of the Goths, is Titus’s prisoner and she has three sons: Alarbus, Chiron and Demetrius. The late Emperor had two sons, and the two brothers are crucial since they want to succeed their father. They are Saturninus and Bassianus.

The play starts with the decision of Titus Andronicus to have Tamora’s eldest son, Alarbus, sacrificed to pacify the spirits of his dead sons. Alarbus is then, off stage, dismembered alive and then disemboweled alive and the arms and legs, then the entrails are burned on a sacrificial pyre before the still not completely dead body of Alarbus is burned hence still alive, as a full report tells us. We can note it is close to what happened to William Wallace. This reduces the triplet to a simple pair of brothers

Titus Andronicus chooses Saturninus to succeed his father and Saturninus then announces he chooses Lavinia, Titus’s daughter, as his future wife. Titus then offers Tamora and her two remaining sons to Saturninus who decides to make Tamora his mistress, maybe more, with Lavinia’s agreement. Bassianus then declares Lavinia his betrothed and seizes her with the agreement of her brothers but against Titus’s own decision to return her to Saturninus.

But Saturninus declares Titus an accomplice in the abduction to get rid of this popular general and he announces Tamora will be his wife, hence the new empress. This should then lead to Titus being declared guilty and eliminated but Tamora pleads for him, though she is only postponing her vengeance. The end of this first act then announces two weddings: Saturninus with Tamora and Bassianus with Lavinia.

It is important to insist on the role of Aaron, the Moor as Shakespeare calls him, who is Tamora’s adviser and lover. He is obviously by his name a Jew. We can wonder what a Jew is doing with the Queen of the Goths, the northern Germanic tribes. We have also to understand we are after the diaspora imposed by the Romans in the first century after Christ and these dispersed Jews were quite able to move to Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire itself, with even some vengeful intention. Then the name of Moor is justified in a way since for Shakespeare Moor covers all those from the south and east of the Mediterranean Sea, including black Africans, and we can even think the Turks or Ottomans are included leading to a religious meaning bringing together Judaism and Islam: strangely enough in the period when Shakespeare was living and writing the Ottoman Empire took slaves from Europe, men as prisoners of war, and women for the harems of the upper class (the most famous of these slaves could be John Smith, the pioneer who went on the 1607 expedition to what was to become Virginia. This Aaron advises Tamora’s surviving sons Chiron and Demetrius who lust for Lavinia, to rape her on the following day after the wedding ceremonies during the planned hunt in the forest.

On Aaron’s advice Tamora suggests her sons to kill Bassianus before raping Lavinia. They thus kill Bassianus on stage and take Lavinia away for the rape scene. Then Aaron devises a fake letter to have Titus’s sons Martius and Quintus accused for the murder of Bassianus and the emperor Saturninus has the two brothers sentenced to death.

Then Chiron and Demetrius bring Lavinia back. They have cut off her tongue for her not to be able to speak and cut off her hands for her not to be able to write, so that she cannot tell what happened. She is discovered by Marcus, Titus’s brother.

The third act starts with the Senate being consulted on the sentence against Martius and Quintus (note one brother of each pair as presented at the beginning of the play). The sentence is confirmed and the two brothers are taken away for execution. Lucius is banned from Rome because he tried to interfere with the execution of his brothers. It is then that Lavinia is brought in by Marcus. Then Aaron comes in to announce Saturninus has decided to commute the death sentence of Martius and Quintus if their father’s severed hand is brought to him in exchange for their life. Lucius, Titus’s eldest son, and Marcus, Titus’s brother, suggest their own hands be taken instead of Titus’s but Titus refused and Aaron helps him have his hand chopped off. After Aaron has left with Titus’s hand a messenger arrives with Martius’s and Quintus’s heads. Titus then gets into a rage and sends Lucius to the Goths to raise an army against Saturninus and Tamora.

The third act is peaceful since it only contains one symbolical murder. Marcus kills a fly and justifies his act by the fact the fly resembled Aaron. Symbolical and ironically or sarcastically cathartic.

In the fourth act Lavinia is able to reveal to Titus and Marcus the identity of her rapists by directing them to the story of Philomel in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. They put two and two together and understand the culprits are Chiron and Demetrius when she writes their names in sand with a stick between her teeth.

But in the mean time (against all possible chronological logic, Tamora is announced pregnant and she delivers a black baby who is brought by the nurse to Aaron for killing since the child cannot be the Emperor’s son. Aaron kills the nurse and leads Chiron and Demetrius into buying the white son of some countryman, Muliteus, to replace the black baby that he then sends to the Goths for safekeeping.

Some insane imbroglio involving Titus and a passing clown ends up with the clown being hanged on order from Saturninus, when it is announced that Lucius is arriving with a Goth army and is approaching the capital. Tamora pretends she can persuade Titus to withdraw Lucius from the Goth army.

The fifth act starts with Aaron and his black child being captured by Lucius who sentences them to be hanged, but Aaron exchanges the life of his son against the truth: he confesses his role in all the crimes from Bassianus to Lavinia and the role played by Chiron and Demetrius on his advice. His death sentence is confirmed.

Then a messenger from Saturninus arrives with the proposition of a parley at Titus’s house. Lucius accepts. Meanwhile Tamora and her sons, Chiron and Demetrius, come to Titus’s to convince him she is going to help him in his vengeance against Saturninus. He lets her believe he agrees and asks for her sons to stay with him. As soon as she is gone he has the two sons gagged, killed, and cooked into a meat pie he intends to serve to Tamora. Lucius arrives then with Aaron he hands over to Marcus for execution. Saturninus and Tamora arrive. Titus tells a story about a father killing his raped daughter and he just does that to Lavinia. Saturninus asks for the names of the rapists. Titus waits for the meat pie to have been honored by Tamora to reveal the identity of the meat in the pie, and he stabs Tamora. Satunrinus then kills Titus and Lucius kills Saturninus. Lucius is declared the new emperor and Titus is exonerated. Aaron is then brought up and Lucius decides he has to be buried up to the neck and abandoned to starve to death. He reveals his true nature in his opening remark before the cannibalistic banquet and in his concluding remark right at the end and before he is executed:

AARON
Some devil whisper curses in mine ear,
And prompt me that my tongue may utter forth
The venomous malice of my swelling heart!
[…]
AARON
O, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb?
I am no baby, I, that with base prayers
I should repent the evils I have done:
Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
Would I perform, if I might have my will;
If one good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul

We can wonder if S. Clarke Hulse's count is right, that states Titus Andronicus is a play with "14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or 2 or 3, depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity and 1 of cannibalism--an average of 5.2 atrocities per act, or one for every 97 lines." (“Wresting the Alphabet: Oratory and Action in Titus Andronicus," S. CLARK HULSE in Criticism, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Spring 1979), pp. 106-118, Published by: Wayne State University Press, Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23102751, Page Count: 13). But one thing is sure it is more than “aesthetic of mutilation” invoked by S. Clark Hulse. It is in totally phase and agreement with practices that were only starting to evolve in the 16th century in England. Shakespeare in later plays will be less intense in such events but systematic elimination of all contenders of a criminal situation are common in Hamlet, or Macbeth, or many other plays, even a sentimental tragedy like Romeo and Juliet with four deaths, two by sword and two by poison on stage. Even the lyrical poem Venus and Adonis is very graphic about Venus’s love for Adonis and Adonis’s death under the tusks of a wild boar, raped to death in a phallic way since he refused to be raped by Venus.

So enjoy the play.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

[boocia]

i enjoyed this more than i thought! did see a production right after which probably helped. cant say the bard isnt the bard for a reason! also can see why this is one if his less beloved works, it definitely seems a lil too jampacked, and a little unfocused maybe? events occur so quickly

but i really enjoyed this tragic twistings of a patriotic man trying to remain patriotic or honorable as the barbarism of the empire he trusts unmasks itself and inflicts itself on his family. in the end revenge isn’t the “political” revenge of war, coups, allyship w old enemies; its cannibalism, its feeding a woman her own children, its killing your own child and a whole
bloodletting on what is supposed to be a political discussion. this thread that beneath the seeming civilizations of political office and social contract is just teeming insanity and brutality is a fun one to strum. in these troubled times etc

i also really enjoyed the articulation of rigid hopelessness; titus adronicus resorts to death, not just of his enemies, but of his own daughter, of his rebellious sons. this complete unsalvageability of his tragedy is self-inflicted; he didn't have to do any of the killing he did, not even from a social pressure standpoint. just cool to see that, think about it. honestly extremely dadcore - i think there is something genuinely to be said about the male drive to death vs the female one, or isolationism and suicide and masculinity, idk, if you wanted, to about this play. titus adronicus doesn't kill himself, but he does damn well kill his children; a more intense form of abnegation -- not mere self-abnegation, but futureself-abnegation.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Titus Andronicus:

Exposition (spoilers):

Titus Andronicus returns, with 4 of his sons, victorious from the defeat of the Goths, with Tamora, conquered Queen of the Goths, and three of her sons, to Rome, where Saturninus, the eldest son of the former Emperor, contends with his brother Bassianus, for the title.

Within one short act, Titus, nominated also for the title, declines, offers his support to Saturninus, who duly becomes Emperor, but Titus also offers his daughter Lavinia as the Emperor's wife. But Lavinia is already betrothed to Bassianus, and Saturninus immediately has an eye for Tamora, whose eldest son Alarbus has just been executed as sacrifice to atone for Titus's lost sons in the war. Titus's remaining few sons swear to honour and protect Lavinia's betrothal as Bassianus leads her away, supported by Marcus, Titus's brother, and Titus, in anger, kills his own son Mutius who stands against him when he tries to retrieve Lavinia. His remaining (fewer) sons, with Marcus and Bassianus, oppose Titus before the Emperor, who wishes to dispose of them all - but Tamora intercedes with a private aside of later revenge on them all, and for the moment to stay any action, since the patricians (Senate and tribunes) may take Titus's side in this argument.

And we've only just begun...

So in one brief act of one single scene, there has been a mutilation-sacrifice, a filicide and multiple betrayals (Mutius and his brothers against their father, Titus against his son, Bassianus against Saturninus, Saturninus against them all, and Tamora against Titus's family, the Andronici).

Next, Aaron the 'Moroccan' Moor, as yet unspoken, pledges his desire for his Queen, and Tamora's two remaining sons squabble over Lavinia, where the three devise a plan for the two brothers to capture and rape her! But they have much more planned beyond this for Titus and his family...

Background and Sources:

Good god! What was in Shakespeare's head to commit himself to this disgusting play? Well, it was his attempt to emulate the violent and bloody revenge plays of his contemporaries, which were extremely popular with audiences throughout the 16th century, such as Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy [1582-92] - which established a new genre, the revenge tragedy, in theatre - and Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great [1587-8], i.e. just before the inception of Titus. It's source is Ovid's Metamorphoses VI, in which the story of Philomela is extended: Philomela, daughter of Pandion, King of Athens, is sister of Procne, who is given to Tereus, King of Thrace, for saving Athens. Procne returns to Thrace with Tereus and they have a son, Itys, and she asks for Philomela to visit. Tereus meets and falls in love with her and forces himself on her in the woods. Philomela pleads for mercy, and then for death, and Tereus, enraged, rapes her and cuts out her tongue to prevent her from implicating him, and leaves her under guard in a wood cabin. But Philomela sews the story of her torture into a tapestry and sends it to Procne. In her madness, Procne plots her revenge: she kills her son and feeds it to Tereus during a feast!

That Shakespeare thought of oneupmanship over this plot strikes me as excessively grotesque! But he did. There are rapes, child killings, multiple betrayals and murders and mutilations; two people lose their hands, five their heads, one her tongue. And two are fed to their mother! Who is promptly killed herself. And the killer is killed. And then that killer killed.... O Bloody Rome!

As for the play? Well, let me leave it temporarily with my favourite line drawn from it, which for me sums up the awful state which Shakespeare went to such pains to illuminate for us:

"Terras Astraea reliquit" - 'Astraea, goddess of Justice, has left the Earth'. IV.3.4.

And yet, my favourite part of it is the moment when we must suspend our disbelief to its already etiolated limits: when the awful Tamora appears personified as Revenge with her psychopathic sons Demetrius, as Murder, and Charon, as Rape, to trick the supposedly mad Titus into turning a parley, potentially to her ruin, to her ultimate advantage - and yet we see her finally for what she is: a disturbing vicious barbarian, yes, but also a bit of an empty-head!


Timon Of Athens:

A crudely constructed one-man show of muted tragic impact, part satire on the evils of filthy lucre, which peters out really, but segues neatly into Shakespeare's next and Earth-shattering dramatic tragedy. But of 'Timon's benighted ecstasy'...

'Has friendship such a faint and milky heart?' (ToA, RSC Macmillan, 3.1.56)

Upon this question hangs the fate of Timon, who, generous to a fault - that fault being that now the coffers are empty, the land and property mortgaged or sold, the creditors queueing - when he turns to his friends, whom he rescued with loans and freely distributed gifts, he finds them 'melted into air, into thin air' (Tem, 4.1.163), to borrow from a later play which redresses such injustices. A simple plot, a vital interrogation, and Timon himself referencing the biblical parallels straightaway, Acts 20:35, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive'. But this philosophy - and there is much Cynicism in this play - has not availed him.

It is, however, a truism, that when you really do need a friend, they do let you down. A best friend for life, recently telling you they love you, can simply melt into thin air, when you need them. The reason is simple: most people are primarily involved in their own life problems, and simply haven't the energy or courage to be able to face yours when in crisis. 'For policy sits above conscience' (ToA, 3.2.90). But wait... we are not even at this point; Timon has no real 'friends', no one to call a best friend. He has attendant lords and senators of Athens with whom he has managed the intricate system of obligations via largesse concomitant with his 'state', drawing parallels with the costly sycophancy around James I's court. Money references cascade like a slot machine win in the front half of this play. In the pecuniary and psychological senses, then, it is a play with very modern relevance.

''Twas time and griefs / That framed him thus' (ToA, 5.1.132-3).

What is of interest is that the play explores the journey of a man once at the top of his society through the heart of darkness his despair with his fellow man brings him to. And man here is key; apart from a few seconds of Cupid's masquers - all prostitutes - and the brief appearance of two named prostitutes later, there is not a significant (rounded) female role in this man's play. Since we are accustomed, both in the romantic comedies and the romances, that the appearance of a young female principal will inevitably be the medium of salvation for the failing father or father figure, the absence of any female role in this play early signposts its generic trajectory. This will be an unrelenting, unredeemed tragedy, no saviour on the horizon, not even family to fall back on, the centrum of civilisation, the crucible of redemption in the romances. We are still in Shakespeare's dark phase.

'Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart, Undone by goodness!'

If this is a tragedy then, Timon must possess some hamartia, some tragic flaw. Is generosity a flaw, a fault? I've know those who agree, yes. I do not see it that way, but have learnt more than once that it is not valued by the recipients, yet little complaint is heard. Moderation, then, is the key - occasional generosity? Probably, as in all things. Yes, Timon was a 'fool', but a well-intentioned one, gifting out of principal, not folly. So it swings, and we must decide where we sit. However, the development, his casting off of all society, is entirely understandable. Sometimes people disappoint, and en masse. The collective conscience of society can let you down. As with any society, a balance must exist: capitalism and socialism, science and arts, merit and help, list the polarities. Too much of anything is surfeit, unhealthy, utopian, extreme. But somewhere there has to be a safety net. That is the responsibility of any responsible society.

'The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends' (ToA, 4.3.321-2).

What, then, do we learn from Shakespeare's least-known tragedy (I class Troilus And Cressida as a comedy). Well, it had mixed authorship, almost equal parts written by Thomas Middleton, with perhaps Shakespeare edging the slight majority. It is unlike any of the other tragedies, since family plays no part in it, nor indeed do women, except by reference - and most of those unfavourable, lending it a distinctly misogynist bias within its general misanthropy. Is it a man's play because men traditionally held economic power? Probably. But that is its central weakness, that there is no redeeming daughter, wife, mother, family. Also that - unlike the romances - there is no redemption from any divinity, such as Diana, Juno, Jupiter, the Oracle - for a classical play. It distinctly lacks magic. And perhaps that is its central failing and success: it is a realist tragedy, an everyday tragedy, a thing that could happen to all of us. With no magic, no redemption, and no women, it is inevitably going to be bleak.

And yet, it is certainly the tamest of Shakespearean tragedies: there are no murders, no battles, no famines, no nasty confidence tricks, no developed sub-plots, no sudden reversals of Fortune - for Timon's fall was long and gradual, till the coffer was finally empty. His hamartia, then, was his purblindness to basic domestic economics, bad management, living beyond his means without the responsibility for his own affairs. A very forgivable flaw. It suggests a neurosis of actually not being able to make true friendships, desperately clinging to tried and tested profligacy to cover for this crippling debility, and the ultimate disappointment in finding that despite all that generosity, not one of his flatterers helped him out. But perhaps because of all these reasons, it is necessarily Shakespeare's weakest tragedy. Nothing makes you go 'oh!', or 'ah!'. Even the void at the end is inevitable. It has no pound of flesh, and yet what a waste. It has no doomed love, and yet, what a want for it. It is, in the end, neither a real tragedy nor a satire (hence, Troilus And Cressida a comedy of sorts). It does descend into satire (in the meeting of Timon with Apemantus in the forest, 4.3), but does not reside there in tenor.

But what it is, is the run-up to King Lear, Shakespeare's very next play. We can clearly see here the germinal of Lear on the Heath, raving at the tempest, making sense out of his nonsense, come down so low, he is of kin with the Fool, Poor Tom and a blind man. Here lies the genesis of a character fallen so far from so high that even while there is the scent of a reprieve (and at least he gets that penultimate experience), his doom is inevitable, as the rules of the genre demand. If, therefore, we value Timon for anything else, it must be for Lear.

The version I read was in the RSC Macmillan 'Titus Andronicus and Timon Of Athens: Two Classical Plays'. Alongside Titus Andronicus, Timon's fate passed in the night like a fly winding its way to silent death through mere exhaustion, after a few angry buzzes. The contrast is fitting. As usual, the play must really be seen to gain most from it, and the RSC's text includes performance details in which - though not in the larger view - the play can be both well-produced, acted and appreciated critically, though the general view is that, despite being a valid postmodern metaphor for our times, it's really only a one-man show. Yet despite all these 'failings', Timon will stay with you, if for one reason only: that with each successive play of Shakespeare's that you read, you accrue or accrete a series of impressions and inter-relations that form a part of the whole, a kind of mindset of canon. And even if for this - and this is no mean thing, but a pleasure in the entire process - I am glad that I read it, great though it was not.

[Jocelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read Titus Andronicus for class.
Rounded down to 2 stars for both.

2.5 stars for Titus Andronicus.

Titus Andronicus is about a Roman soldier who becomes the target of revenge after he sentences the son of the queen-of-Goths-turned-Empress to death.

Normally, people will say -- and myself included -- that I have very few problems with gore and violence in fictional works (i.e. cinema, television, video games); in fact, I might relish it a bit because I'm not really a violent person and when it comes to real atrocities I can be human and feel empathy and sadness. But when I'm playing Grand Theft Auto, I kind of just want to shoot gangsters, bang prostitutes and run over pedestrians, because I would never in all my life ever do something like that if it were really me and real life. Sometimes, though, fictional works can go a little too far for me (like certain scenes from Hostel, because seriously removed eyeballs hanging from sockets. Just thinking about that image makes me want to throw up). And that's what Titus Andronicus was like for me.

Many people I know would call Shakespearean work boring because they don't think anything happens, and I will always call bullshit. Just because Shakespeare was writing plays doesn't mean things don't happen. Yeah, you read dialogue and minimal stage directions, but let's grow an imagination so that when it says He kills/stabs him you can envision it. And my imagination did that for this play because when it says people start lobbing body parts off and cutting off/out other body parts, my imagination concocted gratuitous gore, so much that it was a tad sickening. I won't even start on the cannibalism.

But points to Shakespeare for not following through with the infanticide.




2.5 stars for Timon of Athens

Timon of Athens is about Timon, a lord in debt, whose "friends" won't lend him money even though he is nice to them and gave them lavish gifts previously.

The play isn't as interesting as I thought it would be. Timon comes across as overly naive and foolish, and obviously his "friends" are huge dickbags. It's so irritating that Timon's dumb enough to keep giving people gifts when his money's practically bye-bye. That's what bothered me most about this play. I can't even sympathize with Timon because he's so careless with his wealth and doesn't ask to be paid back. What does he end up with? People who take advantage of him and rob him blind. So annoying.

I know this play is supposed to be a tragedy or part of the problem plays, and it is a little tragic with Timon's (I assume) suicide, but overall it was nowhere near as tragic as, say, Hamlet. But, yeah, not a particularly happy ending. I still managed to laugh though.

Highlights:
- Timon starts throwing stones at everyone. It's hilarious.
- Timon and Apemantus start insulting each other non-stop. It's hilarious.

I only wish the play didn't end where it did. I know the story is about Timon, but Alcibiades' actions are interesting enough to follow.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I am far from a Shakespearean scholar, I do possess a degree in English and find myself often defending Titus Adronicus as one of my favorite Shakespearean works. Though it has outlandish violence against women and men, children and adults, and a host of other issues, it plays well as an examination and morality play about the cost of revenge. It is, perhaps, the literary equivalent of a Quentin Tarantino film like Reservoir Dogs or Kill Bill... the quest for revenge takes a toll on all who become muddled in it and even the innocent, the well meaning, and the passerby who has knowledge of it becomes embroiled in it and pays some form of price. Is the price sometimes gory or even over the top? Yes, but it must be so to serve the purpose of the work.

It should be noted, by the way, that I place this well above works like Romeo and Juliet, which seems to be much more popular in the general populace. I argue that this is more fitting for our world as I find it highly suspect that anyone would believe that two young teenagers had found true love, but a military man and a leader of the Goths having so much hatred that both would seek revenge? This is much more believable of a plot line.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I now know why the Romans found it necessary to construct Vomitoria...and why theatres appropriated the term. What a gruesome bloodbath! Given that Titus has already lost 21 of his 25 sons when the play starts, the subsequent carnage really shouldn't come as a surprise. But it's horrifying and mind-numbing nonetheless.

Sweeney Todd without the sensibilty and devoid of its persistent humor. Even so it can be quite a wild night in the theatre.

"Timon of Athens" and its inherent difficulties are covered extensively and well by others. I 'll simply add that several of the commentaries included in this volume gave me more to think about than the play itself. They did deepen my understanding of what Shakespeare may have been trying to accomplish in this particularly weak member of the canon.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

How do you solve a problem like a lesser play? If you're Modern Library's RSC Shakespeare series, you go for strength in numbers and band together a play so bloody that for centuries no one wanted to believe it truly belonged to the Bard (Titus Andronicus) and a play that really did only partly belong to him (Timons of Athens, co-authored by Thomas Middleton) in a collection that may just as well be called Dialed to Eleven: Men Who Takes Things Too Damn Far (and Then Take Them a Little Farther).

In the notoriously bloody Titus, the eponymous general returns triumphant but several children lighter from his war with the Goths, and decides to vent his fatherly angst by executing the son of the Goth queen, Tamora, thus setting in motion a series of escalating vengeances that leads to the rape, murder, or dismemberment (or in one notable case, all three) of nearly every named character in the play. After all of that sound and fury, Timons, which tracks the fall of a Athenian gentleman from prosperity to hermit-in-the-wood-hood due to his inability to balance his checkbook, seems particularly bloodless, though what it lacks in passion it makes up in bile in a endless-seeming outpouring of misanthropy in the fourth act.

Of the two plays, Titus, with its Tarentino-esque violence and evil power couple Aaron and Tamora, is by far the more interesting, and not just because Aaron feels like an early workshop of Lear's Edmund. Tamora is one of the few women in Shakespeare to take revenge upon those who have wronged her, and the only one I can remember to do so with such bloody glee. Shakespeare paints her as an evil queen - an othered, sexualized, walking death fetish - yet her actions are no more than a response to those of Andronicus himself, who slaughters her child in front of her. Apparently, vengeance is a man's business, and women should just smile and turn the other cheek and try not to provoke their enemies into baking their remaining children into pies.

For his part, Timons can't work up the kind of energy necessary for a good vengeance killing; after burning through his fortune entertaining sycophants who abandon him the minute his pockets empty, he opts to remove himself to the forest and shout imprecations at anyone who interrupts his monologues about root-gnawing. (Because sure, why not?) Where Titus is truly unstable, Timons seems simply sulky, and it's difficult to sympathize with the plight he got himself into even while you admire a few of the more misanthropic zingers he hurls in Act IV.

As with all of the Modern Library's RSC Shakespere series, this one comes with a strong introduction for both plays, a scene-by-scene analysis, textual notes, and a history of Shakespeare's career in the theater. My favorite part of this series is usually the discussion of the performance history of the play and insight from the actors and directors involved with different productions; as lesser plays, Titus and Timons have fewer performances to analyze, which leaves the editors less material to work with and results in a somewhat abbreviated version of what's usually a very in-depth exploration.

Overall, I agree with Modern Library's assessment that neither of these plays provides enough material to warrant its own edition, and that possibly the only way to get anyone to read Timons of Athens is to pair it with the morbid curiosity that is Titus Andronicus. As it is, at least bound this way these two drama queens can keep each other company.

[Sandra Miksa · Rating 4 out of 5]

For "Titus Andronicus": 5 full stars.
A very gruesome play with morally grey characters. Rome is in cahoots with its brash leaders. Every character in this play felt so vivid and real. The drama in this play just never ends. Rape, killings, serving live flesh, etc. Shakespeare is at his best in this play; presenting troubling parallels between good and evil.

For "Timon of Athens": 3 stars.
It was a repetitive snooze fest after reading "Titus Andronicus." I loved the character of Apemantus; he's a savage, a comedian but also the moral high ground of the story; presenting facts as they are: riches can't buy friendship nor loyalty. He's the type of realist cynic you can't help but to relate to and admire. Timon, himself, was a disappointment that ends up being a veritable cynic... the despicable kind although the sympathy we feel for him.

[Victoria Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this last year, during my first trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon, where we went to see the RSC's production of Titus Andronicus. It's always hard, to rate a book which has more than one story in it, as is the case in this instance. I loved reading Titus, a rather gruesome revenge story, which I would give four stars, but Timon of Athens just was not my cup of tea at all, and I could not give it more than two stars, so I've split the difference. It might be worth pouting out that both of these plays are believed to have been co-authored by Shakespeare and George Peele, and Thomas Middleton, respectively, and maybe one worked better than the other. 

Looking for more bookish content? Look no further than www.cartonmanettedarnay.wordpress.com!

[Tumblyhome (Caroline) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wellllll. This was not for the faint hearted. A horror story of revenge (primarily) with much 🩸🩸🩸🩸 and 🗡️ 🔪 and far far worse. But apart from all that I was engrossed.

Despite the violence of this play, any tour of the Tower of London will see the reality of much of the violence Shakespeare writes of here.

In this play you could see the embryo of King Lear, Lady Macbeth, Iago and also the roots of Ovid, Greek Tragedies and Herodotus. There wasn’t the beautiful writing, certainly not what Shakespeare matured into, but it was interesting to read this knowing what was to come.
I hesitate to say I enjoyed this one because of the blood,gore, violence and shocking themes but…. I did!
So I recommend it if you are interested in exploring what makes humans do inhuman things.

[eleonor]

titus - 4.5
titus adronicus x the waitress collab when? (should be a new crossover musical). read this because of a video essay on cannibalism in early modern english drama.

"Villain, what hast thou done"
"that which thou canst not undo"
"thou has undone our mother"
"Villian, I have done thy mother"

timon - 2
only read this because i need to log titus and can't find a separate entry. not as entertaining (or funny) as the former.

[Bryan Summers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm going to be team directing a Shakespeare play with my wife staring middle school students. I thought Titus Andronicus would be fun since it is basically a feature length bloody, violent Monty Python sketch. I forgot about all the rape though. Way too much rape. So we are going to do a different play.

[Malvina · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual, an excellent RSC edition of these plays, with introduction and production notes. I only read ‘Titus Andronicus’ this time; I’ll read ‘Timon’ another time. Because really, reading that one play with - as the notes explicitly state - its ‘pile-up of atrocities’ is enough for now. It’s the Bard with his ‘goriest tragedy’ and direst villains. My goodness.

[Michael Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought Titus was worth reading again, but Timon not. Very strange combo, these. Titus was earlier, more immature, but more engaging (for all the violence). Timon was later, more well-written in general, but the theme of indebtedness just rankles me. Timon seemed like a sketchy, financial King Lear. I may have to see if I was missing something major with Timon.

[Subashini · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for Titus Andronicus.

[Andre Sandoval · Rating 4 out of 5]

good

[Christina Sinisi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won't argue about the writing--it's Shakespeare.

But the story, oh, I can't erase it from my mind! So terrible, so awful, abhorrent.

We all need Jesus.

All I can say.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shakespeare's gory revenge play, "Titus Andronicus" seems like the Tarantino flick of its day, complete with amputations, cannibalism and every note of human cruelty and resentment.

The titular character is a honor-fixated Roman general who returns from years of warfare to a populace that wants to crown him emperor as tribute. He turns down the role, handing it over to the former emperor's son instead. After the new emperor marries the queen Titus vanquished, however, things go wrong quickly.

Titus murders his own son, sees his daughter raped and mutilated and two other sons framed for the murder of his son-in-law, the emperor's brother. This first spurt of action culminates in a gory scene where he chops off his own hand to win his sons' freedom, only to receive their severed heads instead.

From there, Titus' thoughts understandably turn toward rebellion and revenge, even as his enemies continue plotting evil against him...and anyone within proximity. The villainy, like the rest of the play, is over the top in embracing decadence. Shakespeare goes gonzo, and while there are some pleasures there, it's hard to follow at times, much less believe. Titus accomplishes a pyrrhic victory, but there's no satisfaction there, only grim finality.

This is regarded as one of Shakespeare's worst plays, and it reads like a prodigious talent discovering exactly what it can get away with. I wouldn't be surprised if it were very successful; as the accompanying commentaries state, it's pure melodrama, without much ambiguity or growth to leaven it.

There are definitely highlights: the terror of the woodland scenes as well as "Aaron the Moor's" defiance defending his newborn son, one borne by the empress and not matching the hue of her royal husband. There's a great perspective there, and it's exciting to see Shakespeare mine it, even as he turns Aaron into something of a literal devil at the end.

"Titus Andronicus" probably isn't the place to start if you're looking to become familiar with the Bard. If you've read a bit of Shakespeare, though, it's an opportunity to see a new flavor on the familiar, even if it isn't wholly a successful one.

As for "Timon of Athens," it's a pretty thin tale. It shares the fall of the titular Greek noblemen, who's constantly chasing new extravagance in lavishing his friends with parties and gifts. Unfortunately, this ostentatious generosity soon renders him bankrupt, and his servants go out in vain to borrow money from the very people for whom he's just squandered his fortune.

Friends like these are "feast-won, fast-lost" we're reminded, but that offers Timon little comfort. Embittered, he goes to live in the wilderness, casting his hate onto all men who approach him. Timon travels from the extremes of society to the extremes of solitude pretty easily; as the play makes clear, he's unable to find moderation in either form. He eventually dies, but his scornful epitaph ends up saving the city of Athens from destruction by the rebel Alcibiades, who was cast out at the same time as Timon but finds a happier medium in his relationship with his fellow man.

The play is commonly regarded as unfinished, and it reads that way, more a morality play than the dense, layered narratives we're used to from Shakespeare. The cynical philosopher Apemantus has some nice lines, but Timon is more a parable than a character...and not very fun to spend time with.

Apemantus does get some nice insults in, though:

Timon: How lik'st thou this picture, Apemantus...Wrought he not well that painted it?

Apemantus: He wrought better that made the painter, and yet he's but a filthy piece of work.

With "Timon of Athens," Shakespeare seems to have a point he wanted to make but wasn't able to successfully dramatize to completion. As a result, the play is likely for completists only.

[Riki · Rating 3 out of 5]

After studying a couple semesters of the works of William Shakespeare in college I am no longer quite as stunned by the extreme violence and the ill fates that befall his characters, yet Titus Andronicus still comes as a bit of a shock. In perhaps the most epic show of revenge in all of literary history, Titus Andronicus tells the sordid tale of what happens when you cross a scorned Roman and the queen of the Goths who has all of a sudden become the Empress.

In this play of the ultimate revenge there is a bit of everything in terms of violent acts. It all begins as the Empress’s son is murdered in ritual sacrifice. Then Lavinia, daughter of Titus himself is brutally raped before having her hands and tongue cut off to keep her from telling who raped her. The violence finally wraps up in the grand moment when Titus kills the Empress’s sons and then chops them up to be served in a meat pie. Revenge in this play is served best while watching the Empress eat her children in the form of said meat pie. Somewhere in the end there Titus also kills his own daughter Lavinia, perhaps to spare her the shame of living after being raped and mutilated, although as only Shakespeare can do, the ultimate motive is quite unclear.

This play is dark and a bit campy when all is said and done, but I did love the literary references to The Metamorphoses of Ovid and found the plot to move forward rapidly. It is, of course quite violent and bloody, but it does tell a great cautionary tale of what happens when you let revenge become your only motivation for living.

As always with Shakespeare I cannot stress enough that the edition you choose to read can make or break your enjoyment of the play. Be sure to get a good scholarly edition with proper footnotes and annotations. Not only will it ease the strain of reading the language, but it will also enhance your enjoyment tenfold being introduced to the social and political background of the times.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It`s a bit odd that these two plays - a bloody revenge tragedy and a tragedy of naivety and nicety abuseed - were printed in a single book. I really liked them, particularly Titus Andronicus. Timon is very clearly far from complete, which is a shame and is what prevented what would otherwise have been a five star rating. While Titus is a great play it is not for the faint of heart. I strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with the revenge tragedy genre before diving into this gruesome play. The Spanish Tragedy, The Changeling, The Duchess of Malfi and 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore

[Shay Hopper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this drama/tragedy, Titus was a proud man who lost his son and went mad once his daughter was raped and mutilated. this story and many sad places where you expected and a lot of places where you saw great humility. Titus being able to cut has hand off to save his son was not only admirable but showed great love for his family, ultimately it was futile. I do believe that sometimes people are pushed to the edge as Titus was and will do the craziest things to get back at people. Like Titus killing the sons of the queen and feeding them to her in a pie was horrible but look at all the things that they did to him, he had no recourse and did what he had to do. This was a great read for dramatics and tragedies and I suggest you read it twice because you can get a little confused with everything going on.

[Candice Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really really dark. I am pretty sure that Aaron is one of the darkest characters to have ever been created. After reading this I have met a girl named Lavinia and pray that her parents didn't name her after the girl in this play! She is beautiful and because of it her husband is murdered, she is raped and beaten, her hands and tongue get cut off and in the end her father slits her throat. Dark, dark, dark. Though I did like some lines that were written. They were spoken by Titus Andronicus when his son has died:

Secure from worldly chances and mishaps. Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells, here grow no damned grudges; here are no storms, no noise, but silence and eternal sleep: In peace and honor rest you here, my sons.

[Brandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this in my Shakespeare's Early Plays course this past semester. I found upon reading it that I may not be a fan of how it is written, but I truly can appreciate the plot and thought put into it. Unlike most people, I have not read an overt amount of Shakespeare, but I found myself enjoying the mindset of the characters he was able to create especially in this play. The only major issue I had in the end of the play is I don't know exactly what happens to Titus' last living son, Lucien. But overall I found that I did not have to force myself to read in order to get through this play, which tends to happen with any text given in any course.

[Keith Mukai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Titus is pretty crazy, gory stuff. However, it did give us: "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!" Honestly, I'd just rent Julie Taymor's excellent adaptation with Anthony Hopkins. It's got weird past-mixed-with-present art direction but the play itself is weird so it all works quite well.

ps - I highly recommend the Signet Classics editions for all of Shakespeare's works. They have the best footnote/annotation system I've seen. It enhances readability and still gives you all the info you'd need.

[D. Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blood, blood, everywhere! I had thought Macbeth a bloody play, but it has nothing on Titus Andronicus. This fast-paced play is a bit confusing at first but quickly sorts itself out. It is a tale of revenge and makes no bones about it. Not for the faint of heart, it is nevertheless a worthy Shakespeare read.

[Madeline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only read Titus (for a class). Those two stars are for Aaron, who is an evil badass and extremely compelling, and Marcus, who is the only sane person in the play. The scholarship around Titus Andronicus is much more interesting than the play itself, IMO. I think the psychology is cursory (even by Elizabethan standards) and most of the characters are boring.