I sometimes wonder how long it's going to be before people realize that the most important writing ever done - which has been an influence on almost every idea that came after it, and which holds the key to future ways of learning about life, art and literature - must be looked at with much more seriousness than is currently the case. Shakespeare must be made central to the educational experience of young people. For this to happen, it must not be treated frivolously: the various agendas of academic and other professional commentators must not be allowed to interfere, nor should nonsensical conspiracy theories such as the "authorship question" be the location of the division regarding Shakespeare. (Once and for all: there is no evidence for any of this stuff because it didn't happen that way. Every single piece of evidence in existence supports the established story. And in response to the question of why academics won't even entertain the possibility of another theory, the answer is simple. They can't. They must follow the evidence and only that, just like any other professional. By the way, I saw the trailer for "Anonymous", and it looks really dumb. No, check that - it is really dumb. Boycott it.)

Another thing that bugs me is that whenever Shakespeare's name comes up, people talk about the words that he coined as if this was his central achievement. Patronizing, that. The attitude that follows is one of, "oh yes, he was a good writer for his time, did a lot for the language, you know". This kind of thinking is naive. Shakespeare had accomplishments of similar consequence in many, many other ways as well. My solution for all of the above? Let's stop discussing Shakespeare, and start reading him seriously. And let's do everything we can to encourage kids to do the same.

If you take a look at the sources that influenced Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (his first tragedy as well as his first Roman play), Seneca's Thyestes and Ovid's story of Philomela from Metamorphoses, you'll see that the bloodiness of his play didn't come out of nowhere. Even by today's standards, these works are nasty. Not that Shakespeare didn't match them in this regard: he did. In fact, thanks to his unequaled verisimilitude, he surpassed them, and created a play that is harrowing to watch or read. But as I mentioned in my previous post, I think recent audiences and commentators are getting past this fact and seeing some of the many qualities that the play contains. I also mentioned in my last post that I think the writing of the play was crucial to Shakespeare, and that I would try to demonstrate some of the influence the play had on his later career. Here we go: 1. In the storyline itself, there are strong parallels with Coriolanus (particularly the story of Lucius joining forces with an opposing army to subdue Rome) and King Lear (not only are the opening scenes very similar in terms of stagecraft, but the subplots involving Edmund and Aaron are introduced and then integrated into the main plots in very similar ways). 2. The scenes set in the Andronici mausoleum can be seen as precursors to those in the Capulet tomb in Romeo and Juliet. 3. In terms of the story's arc, a very clear parallel can be drawn with Macbeth, as the two title characters go from being highly decorated and respected warriors to infamy in the eyes of their societies, from which point they discover their inner natures. 4. The theme of madness, real or assumed, as it pertains to Titus, of course brings Hamlet to mind. 5. Tamora's first speech in the play, in which she begs for her son's life by describing the importance of mercy, is clearly the seed that led to Portia's famous words in The Merchant of Venice. 6. The four other works set in Rome that he was to write later (in order of composition, The Rape of Lucrece, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus), which treat in every case a major turning point in Roman history, can all be seen as an attempt to answer the central question posed by this play (and which may have influenced the title of one of the most famous works in the study of history, Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire): What happened?

Poor Titus Andronicus. Not only does he suffer every possible indignity in the play named for him, but the play itself, actually a very important one in Shakespeare's career (and which is much better than most people realize, incidentally), is usually discussed with open derision. In fact, the dominant critical attitude toward it for the better part of four centuries has been the attempt to somehow prove that either a) Shakespeare didn't write the play, or b) if he did, he didn't really mean to. The primary reason for all of this is, of course, the play's violence, which even by today's standards (which have been "shaped" by the content of popular culture), seems shocking and/or disturbing. Fortunately, a great many commentators have set about trying to explain what Shakespeare was really up to in writing this play (for a long time, the assumption was that he wrote it entirely for profit and thus played up its sensationalism and horror). One of the best pieces that I've read on the subject is Alan Hughes's introduction to the 1994 Cambridge edition, in which he summarizes the history of the play in terms of its writing, performance practices, criticism and (I'm happy to report) its increasing appreciation over the last few decades. Highly recommended. In the next little while (my next post, I should say), I'm going to add my two cents regarding what I consider to be the play's most important characteristic: its importance in terms of Shakespeare's later career, and in particular the tragedies.