Titus Andronicus (The Arden Shakespeare, 3rd Series) - Softcover

Shakespeare, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415048680 ISBN 13: 9780415048682

Publisher: Arden Shakespeare, 1995

Synopsis

The author described by "The Guardian" as "one of Shakespeare's best contemporary critics", offers a reappraisal of Shakespeare's bloodiest tragedy."Titus Andronicus" resonates in an age in which the dramatic representation of violence has become an issue of enormous controversy. The text puts forward arguments regarding the date of the play, its sources and its early stage history, recognizing "Titus" as one of Shakespeare's early masterpieces.

About this title

Review:

Shakespeare's most violent and gory play, Titus Andronicus was written in 1592, and represents the dramatist's first foray into the popular genre of revenge tragedy (many editors argue with at least one other collaborator). The result was spectacular, including scenes of murder, human sacrifice, rape, bodily mutilation and cannibalism. Set in late-imperial Rome, the action begins with the Roman general Titus Andronicus and his triumphant return from wars with the Goths. Leading Queen Tamora and her sons as prisoners, Titus stumbles into a power struggle between Saturninus and his brother Bassianus. Titus fatally backs Saturninus, who rapidly turns on the old general and marries Tamora. The implications for the Andronicus family are disastrous. More of Titus' sons are killed, his daughter Lavinia is brutally raped by Tamora's sons, and as Titus begins his descent into madness and despair he even has his own hand cut off in an act of awful trickery. As Titus plots his bloody revenge, he reflects that "Rome is but a wilderness of tigers". The ending is one of the most gruesome conclusions to any dramatic tragedy, and leaves Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs looking quite restrained. Although the play has put audiences off for centuries due to its apparently gratuitous violence, more recently critics have discerned something more to it than pure shock, but that might say more about us than the Elizabethans. .--Jerry Brotton

Book Description:

John Dover Wilson's New Shakespeare, published between 1921 and 1966, became the classic Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems until the 1980s. The series, long since out-of-print, is now reissued. Each work contains a lengthy and lively introduction, main text, and substantial notes and glossary.

About this edition

• Publisher: Arden Shakespeare
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0415048680
• ISBN 13: 9780415048682
• Binding: Paperback