Customer Reviews

Titus Andronicus (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you have a weak stomach, you may want to stay the hell away from this play. Just about every disgusting thing that could happen to a human being, both mentally and physically, happens in this early Shakespeare tragedy.

The pages run over with various forms of vile behavior. There's... dismemberment (just about every kind imaginable), torture, people being buried alive, betraying each other, fathers killing their own daughters and hacking off their own hands, and, most gruesomely, baking their enemies in meat pies and serving them to their next of kin on the dinner table.

The last scene alone is enough to make you go vegetarian or at least seriously considering eating another pot-pie ever again. This is a fairly simple revenge tale, but the words and images Shakespeare uses to tell the tale are often breathtaking. It's certainly not as resonant or as deeply drawn as many of his later works--Macbeth and Hamlet are two of my favorites--but there are some great moments here, even if murder, mayhem,... aren't your cup of tea.

I understand that this is one of Shakespeares least popular, however I found it to be fantastic. Though not for all tastes, this is a true study of human violence and it's effects. There are no heroes, nor any long classic monolouges, but rather a brutal and nearly comical display of revenge brought forth through many characters.

Since this was Shakespeare's first tragedy - it's understandable how he could write something so utterly out of character for him. Everyone must find their own feet to stand on. I find that the college students I teach respond well to this particular piece. The violence, gore and blood keep our up-to-date students involved. They also seem to respond well to Aaron. They are amazed at the evilness and the twisted plot. I will continue to teach this in my classroom and think this version is just fine for the beginning Shakespeare student.

Titus Andronicus is a tragedy of comical proportions. People are easily raped, maimed, and murdered at the drop of a tongue or arm throughout. Titus' feigned insanity brings wretched results for his edible enemies. The request for a detached hand results in hilarious conversation among a handful of volunteers.

This play reminds me of the scene from the Monty Python and the Holy Grail film where the knight has been chopped arm and limbless but still wants to keep fighting.

Revenge ends in a heap of chopped up bodies in Titus. No, the characters are not fleshed out and in great opportunity of winning your sympathoies; they are not supposed to be. The plot is bigger than the players in this one, and it works this way. Revenge does not take much about a person into account. In the end, only the demonlike Aaron keeps his tongue, but who will listen to him? That, dear reader, is the point.

Titus Andronicus is one of Shakespeare's finest plays. However, most people don't understand what it's really about. It is about love and how hate is born of love and how one cannot hate without the depth of love. But it is also a comedy, in a way. The things that happen are so horrible that the only thing you can do is laugh. But this is not the case dearing the scene were one of the characters, Lavinia Andronicus, is raped by Demetrius and Chiron the youngest sons of the Queen of the Goths. In that scene the last thing you can do is laugh. It is so powerful that you just have to cry and shrink into a ball. This is Shakespeare's most powerful play but people over look it because they don't understand it. But none the less this play is a masterpeice and my favorite play ever.

I bought the Kindle edition of this play to use in my uni British Lit class and the formatting is AWFUL. The line numbers are inconsistent--sometimes they are before the line and sometimes they are after the line. Also, there is no spacing whatsoever between the lines and the line number--they are not indented or spaced away, they look like they are part of the line. ALSO, there is no way to effectively search for line numbers as lines are not consistently numbered--only lines with footnotes are numbered, not every five lines like is standard format. The table of contents is wretchedly unhelpful.

The formatting of who is speaking is also inconsistent. Most of the time the speaker is not indented while the lines that they speak are--standard play formatting, however quite frequently there is a "mistake" where one of the speakers is indented as well. This makes it very difficult to tell when the speaker changes for fast or skim reading.

The formatting on this edition is simply dreadful, don't buy it, it's a waste of money and difficult to read because of the formatting. Especially don't buy it for a class--there is no way to search for page number/line number and it is useless as a resource.

This early work of Shakespeare's reads like a novice play, and it is certainly nothing more than violent melodrama. But like all of the Bard's works it is better than most of the stuff out there and it deserves your attention.
First off, the 3 star rating means as compared to other works of Shakespeare. I don't feel it fair to compare him to other writers. For the other writer's sake!
"Titus Andronicus" is often maligned, and categorized as beneath Shakespeare. I find this to be stupid and insulting. This is an obvious early work and a work that was meant to please and entertain (gasp) the bloodthirsty Elizabethan crowds. This was an often produced play of Shakespeare's, and clearly established his reputation as a playwright in London.
The plot of "Titus" barrels along at a very fast pace, and although it includes no great soliloquies, it does contain a wonderful example of Shakespeare's burgeoning prowess when Titus delivers a scathing address to his daughters rapists who are bound before him in Act V:2. One can imagine the excitement rippling through the audience at this most theatrical of stage moments.
I think another great element of "Titus" is the shadings of future Shakespeare characters that we see throughout the text. In Titus' feigned madness I saw elements of Shakespeare's future King Lear. The villainous Aaron the Moor is clearly a precursor to Iago, and Tamora the Queen of the Goths could give Lady Macbeth a decent fight, and would be a juicy and fun role for any actress. Touchingly in the pained loyalty of the son of Titus, Lucius, we get a wounded portrait of a son's loyalty to a man who probably does not deserve it.
In performance "Titus Andronicus" could be deadly in novice hands. But in the hands of a good company of actors, or as read by the comfort of your couch, I think this Shakespeare holds its own.
As for the Pelican Shakespeare series, they are my favorite editions as the scholarly research is usually top notch and the editions themselves look good as an aesthetic unit. It looks and feels like a play and this compliments the text's contents admirably. The Pelican series was recently reedited and has the latest scholarship on Shakespeare and his time period. Well priced and well worth it.

"Titus Andronicus" is the most notorious and least performed play of Shakespeare's. T.S. Eliot once called it the worst play written in the English language and not even the loyalist Shakespeare scholars have stood by it. Not until the movie "Titus" came out, have I heard anyone mention it. All I knew before I finally saw it was that it was extremely over the top violent. In fact, when the rare times it had been performed to modern audiences, many audience members started laughing at how absurd and over the top violent it was. I am a very serious moody theater person but even I couldn't help laugh at some of these scenes. However, I am very curious to suspect, as Harold Bloom did, that Shakespeare might've wrote "Titus Andronicus" as a spoof on his contemporaries. The play's content, plot, and characters are exactly equal to Seneca's plays. Seneca's plays however were never performed and we have no evidence that Shakespeare read Seneca's plays. So perhaps it was a jab at Kyd or Marlowe. The movie "Titus" seemed to use a lot of parody at many times. When I saw it the audience was laughing. I think it is safe to say that that theory may be correct. Although even if it was a parody, the play is still flat and doesn't do much for the audience. There are moments though where we can see Shakespeare developing as a dramatist. I couldn't help but think of "Macbeth" and "King Lear" during parts of Titus' monologues. Actually "Titus Andronicus" at best is a great study on the audience. 'Titus' was well received and performed in Shakespeare's day. Shakespeare was delivering to the audience, giving them a bloody Revenge tragedy that was popular in Elizabethan times. I am very surprise in an age when we make films that can depict a man cutting his face off and feeding it to his dogs("Hannibal"), that 'Titus' wouldn't be more popular. I imagine that Shakespeare was trying to shift from comedian to tragedian and wrote a little experiment called "Titus Andronicus." 'Titus' is worth reading for those who want to read all of Shakespeare but to the average reader, I would say pass and read "KIng Lear" or "Macbeth." To give this play more than three stars would be an insult to Shakespeare's masterpieces.

This is perhaps The Bard's least well known work, but a classic nonetheless. If H. G. Lewis had been a playwrite living in Old England, this is no doubt the kind of drama he might have produced. It has more blood & violence than the most exploitive exploitation film. Heads severed off, murdered children baked into a stew & served to their father, rape, vengeance, mayhem, insanity... all served up in the guise of classic literature. PERFECT!

I cannot begin to explain the gruesome plot of this story. It has rape, murder, and trechory. But even with all these gorry aspects, it is the best book I have ever read. You have not heard a great ending until the book describes a mother eating her two sons at a banquet. Horrible bruetality is eminant in this story, and I love it.