Titus Andronicus: Act I

[Scheherazade]

Please post your thoughts and comments on Act I here.

Act I

[Virgil]

Ah, the new play has started!! I'll have to get ging with it. Hope others join.

[Scheherazade]

I'll have to get ging with it.

Is that a new hip expression you youngsters use these days?? Or is it something from your days in Brooklyn, Virgil?

[Virgil]

Is that a new hip expression you youngsters use these days?? Or is it something from your days in Brooklyn, Virgil?

No, just my very poor typing skills.

[papayahed]

Alll Right, I dig this one. Loved the movie as well.

[Basil]

I believe the phrase is gettin' jiggy with it. When referring to Shakespeare specifically, it's called gettin' jiggy with Willy.

[aeroport]

Mixed feelings, really. I certainly think it's pretty cool how most of the tragic (if they really may be called so) events of the rest of the play seem to stem from this act. Certainly one feels a good deal of the righteous indignation towards old T.A. after the stuff he does and says - particularly with regard to his son. (Is it Mutius? It's been a few months since I read the play.) But I guess he was sort of doing what he had to do to avoid capital punishment. The business with Tamora is pretty absurd, it seems to me. His failure to consider how she must really feel about him after the execution of her son is kind of bizarre... Befitting a soldier, I suppose. But maybe he has just been "steeled" against that kind of parental attachment - he would about have to, considering that he outlives upwards of twenty sons due to the war!

Alll Right, I dig this one. Loved the movie as well.

If it is the Hopkins film you refer to, based on the exerpts we watched in class I certainly agree. Interesting ending.

[xman]

The blood begins early. Some hundred and forty lines in. Titus is on for all of five minutes and the gore fest begins. Although the the text only has the executioners returning with bloody swords, I like to imagine them each bearing the several pieces of Alarbus' corpse to toss recklessly centre stage. It's a good idea to let the audience in on the kind of play they're in for which is a ridiculous romp through butchery. They should become desensitised as quickly as possible so that the laughter can start. Titus Andronicus is a hilarious tragedy, a roller coaster ride where, if approached correctly, the viewer may be honestly confused as to whether the tears in her eyes are tears of grief or laughter, or where the pain in his stomach could equally be from repetitive tense laughing or a sickening indigestion. Cementing awesome confusion, Titus slays his own son at a moment's provocation. We are introduced to this man and instantly believe him capable of surprising us with virtually any action. Ah, Titus. There is no one quite like you among your brother and sister characters throughout the entire canon of Shakespeare's plays.*

X

*Except perhaps the necrophiliac Tyrant of The Second Maiden's Tragedy, an anonymous play, but a strong contender for Shakespeare's "lost" play Cardenio.

[Virgil]

Will you be reading this Xman? I just started last night and skimmed Act I. I need to re-read it to have any worthwhile comment. Hopefully several will be reading this for a good discussion.

[xman]

Yes Virgil, I will be reading along. On to Act II!

X

[Virgil]

Well, I'm still on Act I. Some thoughts.

The act that sets in motion the events, the killing of tamora's son, is motivated as a religious sacrifice:

LUCIUS
Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,
That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile
Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh,
Before this earthy prison of their bones;
That so the shadows be not unappeased,
Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.

and when Tamora pleads for his life, Titus responds:

TITUS ANDRONICUS
Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.
These are their brethren, whom you Goths beheld
Alive and dead, and for their brethren slain
Religiously they ask a sacrifice:
To this your son is mark'd, and die he must,
To appease their groaning shadows that are gone.

The war, the bitter fighting that has reached this point, the deaths of "our side" requires some ritual killing of "their" side for closure. In a way, the framing of the killing in religious, ritual terms recalls the way Brutus wishes to kill Julius Ceasar in "Julius ceasar."

Another thought. So much of this play seems to revolve around parent's love for their sons. Tamora's pleading:

TAMORA
Stay, Roman brethren! Gracious conqueror,
Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,
A mother's tears in passion for her son:
And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,
O, think my son to be as dear to me!
Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome,
To beautify thy triumphs and return,
Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke,
But must my sons be slaughter'd in the streets,
For valiant doings in their country's cause?
O, if to fight for king and commonweal
Were piety in thine, it is in these.
Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood:
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge:
Thrice noble Titus, spare my first-born son.

The Bible says, "an eye for an eye." The vengence in this play says a son for a son.

[Redzeppelin]

A troubling play - one that many scholars see as derivative of Marlowe's ferocity. It lacks Shakespeare's subtle revelation of character - I'd have rather spent more time on Taming! The violence is numbing.

[xman]

Another thought. So much of this play seems to revolve around parent's love for their sons.

And daughters too, but the opposite is true as well. A moment later Titus slays one of his sons for defying the new Emperor.

Ultimately, I think you're right about violence in this play and would go you one step further. It is an act of vengeance one minute and one of mercy the next. These Thracians have a violent culture and are very accustomed to it.

X

[xman]

The violence is numbing.

I'm sure that's the point. I saw a videotape of one stage production where blood was everywhere, literally spraying on the audience. They draped the terrified front row in plastic before the performance. By Act III they were roaring with approval.

X

[Scheherazade]

Finally got my copy of Norton Tragedies and will be starting to read the play asap!