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.

The three parts of Henry VI are dazzling plays by any standards other than Shakespeare's. Compared to his best work, there's no question that they come up short, but then that's not really a fair comparison, because the fact is that the writing of these early plays was what allowed him to learn his poetic and dramatic crafts so thoroughly. There's no way that the rest of Shakespeare's work would have been written without the earliest plays: Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, and particularly these three, because I think they were the most responsible for what followed, in terms of both technique and content. Over the next couple of posts, I'll try to convince you as to why, but for today let's simply consider what an ambitious undertaking it was for a young writer to adapt the Wars of the Roses for the stage. Michael Taylor puts it best in one of the notes to his excellent introduction to his 2003 edition of the Oxford Henry VI, Part One: "Many commentators have pointed out the sheer unlikelihood of conceiving a play in three parts at this time. A two-part play such as Marlowe's Tamburlaine was itself a daring venture; a three-part play, so the argument runs, would have been inconceivable. (Although it is always dangerous to talk about the inconceivable when we are dealing with Shakespeare.)"

Shakespeare's early plays, particularly Titus Andronicus and the three parts of Henry VI, are often undervalued by commentators. There's no question that compared to the late tragedies, or the great histories that form the Henriad (Richard II, the two parts of Henry IV and Henry V), these plays do not stand up well. Aside from the fact that few plays do, it should be understood that in these works Shakespeare was learning about his craft both technically and philosophically. And in them he found the material that he was going to unravel artistically for the remainder of his working days. The plays portray dark, treacherous worlds completely in keeping with the contents of history books - as William James once said, "History is a blood bath." My contention is that Shakespeare wrote to try to inform us of how to avoid repeating the errors of the past. And so a revenge tragedy like Titus Andronicus, which is clearly a direct descendant of Seneca, started the artistic growth that allowed a play like Hamlet to be written. And on the technical side, we can clearly see that King Lear's opening two scenes are clearly the progeny of the first two in Titus. But the play is very compelling in and of itself, not just as preparation for later plays. If you haven't seen Titus Andronicus, there are several that I'd recommend: Julie Taymor's 1999 version, starring Anthony Hopkins, is excellent, as is the BBC production from 1985 - which was the last play produced for the series. Hmm...