Like most plays written by Shakespeare the inspiration of the play Titus Andronicus has a range of sources from which Shakespeare has sampled from. Yet some of the inspired fiction still withholds very loose ties to it’s original source which causes a clash of speculation around the subject of inspiration giving the reader or scholar many ways to interpret the actual events, in the terms of personality or motivation of the characters.
Titus Andronicus however unlike many of Shakespearian Roman set plays is fictional meaning that Shakespeare did not need to cling to the possible or even the humane way of thinking, which may explain why some aspects of the play are so grotesque and tragic. For example how literally everyone in the play holds little to no humility and mercy, causing the play to spiral down into chaos, with the majority of the characters being “killed off” within the ending scene of the play.
Some scenes of the play do have large amount of 3rd party sources; as “no book worked upon Shakespeare’s imaginary force more vigorously than Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the source of most of his mythological imaginary.”[1] These books would have been studied by Shakespeare in the classroom as he came into the exercise of with writing epistles that imagined a particular situation or impersonated the style of a figure from classical history, or mythology.[2]
These studies of the classics were deeply woven into Shakespeare’s scholarly psyche due to the fact that he had studied them from a very young age, causing him to maybe subconsciously recreate a story that he implemented into his own plays that originally derived from his young studies of the classics. This subconscious grasp may be the reason as to why lots of his stories have very elusive origins. This is because Shakespeare is not writing all of the original story but only parts of it such as the rape and mutilation of Lavinia.
Within the sixth book of Ovid’s metamorphoses, Ovid tells of the rape of Philomela. She is the daughter Pandion, the king of Athens. Her sister Procene despite ill omens, marries Tereus of Thrace and haves a son for him who is called Itys. Philomela’s sister after spending 5 years in Thrace wishes to see her sister again and asks for her husband Tereus to bring Philomea to her from Athens. Tereus therefore goes to Athens in with the order to bring Philomea to Procene however when travelling from Athens to Thrace with Philomea he begins to lust for her. In his attempts to settle his desires peacefully with Philomea he fails. He furthermore drags her to a forest rapes her. Then cuts out her tongue so she cannot tell anyone and returns to his wife with the lie that her sister is dead.
However Philomea weaves a tapestry in which she explains the events that caused her misfortune. She shows this to her sister Porcene and together in the forest the plot revenge. They attain their revenge by cooking Itys in a pie and serving the pie to Tereus whom oblivious to its contents eats the pie. The sisters then show the head of his son and explain to him what he has just done.[3]
This story from Ovid’s metamorphoses holds great resemblance to Shakespeare’s play as it relates to not just the rape and mutilation of Lavinia but partially to the revenge of Titus with the pies which contain human flesh. Other sources that may relate to the play are other books of Ovid’s metamorphoses, random folk tale such as “a moors vengeance” and the play Thyestes.[4]
As for the acts in the play, Titus Andronicus was Shakespeare’s first play which is categorized in it’s own genre as a Revenge Tragedy meaning that there will be an inevitable blood bath at the end of the play. Also touching on the fact that the play was Shakespeare’s first, in spite of publicity this play had to to become a hit even with Shakespeare’s lack of experience in play-write. So Shakespeare had to think about how to entertain his audience, so he therefore had to think logically about the contents of his audience.
The type of audience that would normally attend one a play would be a group of men as the difference in society in the Elizabethan era was male dominant meaning that men would have the most of the power in the society making the able to for example dictate the fortune of their wife’s who were most likely at home looking after children while they were out having a good time. So therefore Shakespeare made his first play a very masculine orientated play which gravitated to the subject of extreme, exaggerated violence, which could be said as the male genre at the time and possibly today.[5]
This act of violence also embodies the feeling of Schadenfreude[6] which is the pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. Which is another maybe un-pure human characteristic that most people would rather deem not real as it is seen as morally wrong. This Schadenfreude is just another aspect of the play that Shakespeare has implemented to capture the interest of the audience and the way that Shakespeare build’s tension in his play causes the audience who are watching his plays to develop a longing for Schadenfreude. This longing for the displeasure and misfortune of others is fulfilled once a character has been killed.
Overall the way that Shakespeare set his first play was due to the story’s of his childhood and the logistics of his everyday audience. Shakespeare’s first play therefore was quite popular in its day of showing as it showed what the people wanted, a long twisted play that was enveloped a masculine nature. Which ends in a blood bath that fills the audiences longing for the feeling of Schadenfreude.
Notes
1. Staging the world Shakespeare.
Published by the British museum press.
Written by Jonathan Bate & Dora Thoron
pg 126
2. Staging the world Shakespeare.
Published by the British museum press.
Written by Jonathan Bate & Dora Thoron
pg 124
3. Wikepedia: Titus Andronicus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Andronicus
Heading: Sources
page was last modified on 3 October 2013 at 21:56.
Read 07/10/2013
4. Wikepedia: Titus Andronicus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Andronicus
Heading: Sources
page was last modified on 3 October 2013 at 21:56.
Read 07/10/2013
5. Titus Andronicus: Historical Context
This work by Christopher Waugh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0
Written by Christopher Waugh
Last edited 24/09/2013
Seen 07/10/2013
6. Dictionary.com
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/schadenfreude
last edited 2010 Douglas Harper
read 07/10/2013
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