Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus is a spectacular and unsettling play of murder, mayhem and revenge. It is precisely these aspects that made it sensationally popular in its lifetime. Probably composed between 1590 and 1591, when English revenge tragedies were in their ascendancy, the play’s first performance was not recorded until 1594, when the Sussex’s Men staged it at the Rose Theatre. Into this blood-curdling Roman drama, Shakespeare weaves sexual assault, mutilation and cannibalism, drawing directly on classical writing, such as Ovid’s story of Philomel and Tereus, but adding shocking twists and transformations. Through his own metamorphoses of his sources, he seems to be asking: just how far can we take this, and just how much terror and heartache can an audience bear?

To the modern reader, the play presents an opportunity to consider the ethics of revenge and violence, succession and just rule, race and cruelty, and, above all, tyranny and chaos. 

• Co-facilitated by Jane Wymark and Julie Sutherland
• Six-meeting virtual study via Zoom
• Mondays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK), 17 and 24 October, 7, 14, 21 and 28 November (N.B. no meeting on 31 October)
• £200, includes opening notes and resources
• Recommended edition: Oxford World’s Classics, The Oxford Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, ISBN: 9780199536108