33 Facts About Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593, probably in collaboration with George Peele.

Titus Andronicus was initially very popular, but by the later 17th century it was not well esteemed.

Titus Andronicus subsequently arrives to much fanfare, bearing with him as prisoners Tamora, Queen of the Goths, her three sons Alarbus, Chiron, and Demetrius, and her secret lover, Aaron the Moor.

Meanwhile, Titus Andronicus refuses the offer of the throne, arguing that he is not fit to rule and instead supporting the claim of Saturninus, who then is duly elected.

Titus Andronicus agrees, although Lavinia is already betrothed to Saturninus's brother, Bassianus, who refuses to give her up.

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Titus Andronicus agrees and sends Marcus to invite Lucius to a reconciliatory feast.

When Tamora is gone, Titus Andronicus has them restrained, cuts their throats and drains their blood into a basin held by Lavinia.

Titus Andronicus morbidly tells Lavinia that he will "play the cook", grind the bones of Demetrius and Chiron into powder, and bake their heads into two pies.

Titus Andronicus then kills Tamora and is immediately killed by Saturninus, who is subsequently killed by Lucius to avenge his father's death.

Story of Titus Andronicus is fictional, not historical, unlike Shakespeare's other Roman plays, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, all of which are based on real historical events and people.

For example, Jonathan Bate has pointed out that the play begins with Titus Andronicus returning from a successful ten-year campaign against the Goths, as if at the height of the Roman Empire, but ends with Goths invading Rome, as if at its death.

Titus Andronicus asks Thyestes to return to Mycenae with his family, telling him that all past animosities are forgotten.

Titus Andronicus's rejects Claudius' advances, enraging him, and he has her abducted.

Scene where Aaron tricks Titus Andronicus into cutting off one of his hands, the primary source was probably an unnamed popular tale about a Moor's vengeance, published in various languages throughout the sixteenth century.

For example, Titus Andronicus could have been named after the Emperor Titus Andronicus Flavius Vespasianus, who ruled Rome from 79 to 81.

However, when a slave called Titus Andronicus is thrown to a lion, the lion lies down and embraces the man.

The emperor demands to know what has happened, and Titus Andronicus explains that he had once helped the lion by removing a thorn from its foot.

Any discussion of the sources of Titus Andronicus is complicated by the existence of two other versions of the story; a prose history and a ballad.

Prose was first published in chapbook form some time between 1736 and 1764 by Cluer Dicey under the title The History of Titus Andronicus, the Renowned Roman General, however it is believed to be much older than that.

In 1614, Ben Jonson wrote in a preface to Bartholomew Fair that "He that will swear, Jeronimo or Titus Andronicus are the best plays, yet shall pass unexcepted at, here, as a man whose judgement shows it is constant, and hath stood still these five and twenty, or thirty years.

An important piece of evidence relating to both the dating and text of Titus Andronicus is the so-called 'Peacham drawing' or 'Longleat manuscript'; the only surviving contemporary Shakespearean illustration, now residing in the library of the Marquess of Bath at Longleat.

Titus Andronicus is by no means the most brutal of Shakespeare's plays.

Titus Andronicus's findings led him to assert, with complete confidence, that Peele wrote Act 1, 2.

Language of Titus Andronicus has always had a central role in criticism of the play insofar as those who doubt Shakespeare's authorship have often pointed to the apparent deficiencies in the language as evidence of that claim.

Marcus' reference to Titus Andronicus' name is even itself an allusion to his nobility insofar as Titus Andronicus' full title is an honorary epitaph which "refers to his devotion to patriotic duty.

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Titus Andronicus finds no other tonally analogous speech in all of Shakespeare, concluding it is "a bundle of ill-matched conceits held together by sticky sentimentalism.

Dover Wilson further argues that the theory that Titus and Vespasian is Titus Andronicus probably originated in an 1865 English translation of a 1620 German translation of Titus, in which Lucius had been renamed Vespasian.

Saturninus was based on Benito Mussolini and all his followers dressed entirely in black; Titus Andronicus was modelled after a Prussian Army officer; the Andronici wore Nazi insignia and the Goths at the end of the play were dressed in Allied Forces uniforms; the murders in the last scene are all carried out by gunfire, and at the end of the play swastikas rained down onto the stage.

Titus Andronicus has proved itself to be political theatre in the truest sense.

In 2008, Muller's Anatomie Titus Andronicus was translated into English by Julian Hammond and performed at the Cremorne Theatre in Brisbane, the Canberra Theatre, the Playhouse in the Sydney Opera House and the Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne by the Bell Shakespeare Company and the Queensland Theatre Company.

In 1999, Julie Taymor directed an adaptation entitled Titus Andronicus, starring Anthony Hopkins as Titus Andronicus, Jessica Lange as Tamora, Harry Lennix as Aaron and Laura Fraser as Lavinia.

William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, directed by Richard Griffin and starring Nigel Gore as Titus, Zoya Pierson as Tamora, Kevin Butler as Aaron and Molly Lloyd as Lavinia, was released direct to video in 2000.

In 2017, Titus Andronicus was adapted as The Hungry by director Bornilla Chatterjee set in contemporary New Delhi, India.