Delicious Evil: Revenge and Ambiguity in Titus Andronicus

Introduction: The Bloodiest Play in the Shakespearean Canon

Titus Andronicus is without question the bloodiest and most horror-filled play in the Shakespearean canon. The viciousness of its events and characters is matched by a relative baseness and lack of poetry in the language — noticeable even to a novice reader of Shakespeare. There is simply less flowery detail and Elizabethan rhetorical structure (that is, the long, convoluted sentences that come to a point brilliantly, but only at length) in this play than in his other commonly encountered works, and according to some critics, less than in any of his other plays at all (Riverside). For these reasons, as well as certain basic issues of character motivation and the rudimentary nature of some dramatic devices, Titus Andronicus was long considered the worst of all Shakespeare's plays, and many critics refused to believe Shakespeare had written it at all.

Questions of Authorship and Textual Authenticity

This question of authorship is not limited to Titus Andronicus alone, of course. There is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the complete authenticity of any text of Shakespeare's plays, as "editorial intervention" was practiced somewhat liberally in the printing process during and following Shakespeare's day, and has been necessary in subsequent editions in an effort to establish the most likely "true" version of his texts (Riverside 55–6). There is also the persistent question of whether the man named "William Shakespeare" is actually the author of the plays attributed to him. Both questions are essentially moot here, however. Though there are plot devices and general themes in this play that appear in more refined forms in Shakespeare's later works and in Elizabethan tragedy in general, the influence could have come from early printed versions of the text and does not necessarily imply authorship.

The point is, we cannot be certain of the true author of this play, or what the true version of the text was when it was first written and performed. Instead, we must work with the text we have at hand.

Gore as Dramatic Strength in a Revenge Tragedy

Despite its gore and lack of poetry — perhaps because of it — Titus Andronicus stands out as an exemplary prototypical revenge tragedy. Far from diminishing the power of the play, the absence of flowery language and the seemingly underdeveloped characters and motivations actually enhance the dramatic elements — namely, the violence — around which the play revolves. Titus' revelation in the final scene, that he has just served Tamora's two sons as a feast, could not be rendered any more starkly: "they are here, both baked in this pie, / Whereof their mother daintily hath fed" (Riverside V.iii.60–1). Any elaborate rhetoric would diminish the pure visceral drama of the moment.

Conclusion: A Postmodern Refusal of Moral Clarity

We do not receive an answer to this question in Titus Andronicus, and this fact alone makes it a noteworthy drama. It is one of the first plays to introduce such disturbing elements without providing clarity as to the morality of these acts — it is almost postmodern in its approach. Taymor's film version captures this ambiguity perfectly, and the constant rising action matched with brilliant pacing does not destroy but rather enhances the dramatic effect. It also keeps the film as faithful as possible to the text we know as Shakespeare's; Taymor refuses to make too many "editorial interventions," instead settling for the far more authentic and dramatically powerful interpretations that are properly her realm as a director.

Works Cited

Evans, G. Blakemore and M. Tobin, eds. The Riverside Shakespeare. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. In The Riverside Shakespeare.