Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” satisfied the Elizabethan craving for macabre entertainment with its gruesome scenes of revenge. Influenced by Greek and Roman writers, the play depicts a Roman general’s descent into psychotic rage after the brutal rape of his daughter. Allusions to Seneca, Ovid, and Livy are present, and Shakespeare’s sources also include Plutarch, Horace, Virgil, and the Bible. The play echoes themes of revenge in contemporaries such as Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe.
William Shakespeare wrote “Titus Andronicus” in 1593 at the height of the Elizabethan era. Political and financial stability after decades of turmoil and war with Spain brought greater prosperity and leisure, and English men and women craved glittering amusement. “Titus Andronicus,” an early play by Shakespeare, satisfied that lust with some of the most grisly and macabre scenes of English tragedies. Despite the seemingly shocking and bloody content, this kind of scary drama wasn’t entirely unique. Shakespeare was most likely influenced by Greek and Roman historians, writers and playwrights Euripides, Ovid, Seneca and Livy, and some of his contemporaries such as Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd.
The opera is set in Italy in 5th century Rome. Andronicus is a fictional Roman general who defends Rome against multiple attacks by the barbarian Goths. Political intrigues, the horrific deaths of his sons and the brutal rape of his innocent daughter slowly transform the main character from sensitivity to psychotic rage. The story depicts the character’s decline in gory detail, painting the bloody story of the revenge trial. As with Greek tragedies of antiquity, Titus Andronicus dies at the end of the play.
Shakespeare wrote “Titus Andronicus” a few decades after Seneca’s writings had been translated into English. Seneca was a Greek philosopher and teacher of the young Roman emperor Nero, and he wrote a series of essays, satires and gruesome tragedies that became very popular in Elizabethan England. Allusions to Seneca are echoed in the tapestry of revenge, later becoming a common thread in many of Shakespeare’s plays. Ovid’s works are mentioned directly in “Titus Andronicus”, when Lavinia refers to her work “Metamorphoses” to tell her father of the rape and mutilation by the children of the Gothic queen. When Titus decides to kill his daughter after her rape, Shakespeare alludes to the story of Livy’s Virginia from his Ab Urbe Condita.
Professors and actors have been studying Shakespeare for centuries. He had a great talent for telling the story and painting the dialogue with multifaceted allusions and aspersions to other words and works. Shakespeare never revealed his specific sources for “Titus Andronicus,” but students of his work have discovered hints of Plutarch, Horace, Virgil, the Bible, and others. The play is also influenced by the successful methods of its peers, as Shakespeare seems to echo the theme of revenge in Thomas Kyd’s ‘The Spanish Tragedy’ and Marlowe’s villains in ‘The Jew of Malta’.
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