Review (PDF) Titus Andronicus (The Pelican Shakespeare)
The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series edited by A. R. Braunmuller and Stephen Orgel The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare’s time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken since the original series, edited by Alfred Harbage, appeared between 1956 and 1967. With definitive texts and illuminating essays, the Pelican Shakespeare will remain a valued resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals for many years to come. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Paperback: 106 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics; Revised ed. edition (January 1, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 014071491X
ISBN-13: 978-0140714913
Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.4 x 7.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #238,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #150 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Dramas & Plays > Ancient & Classical #401 in Books > Literature & Fiction > British & Irish > Dramas & Plays #407 in Books > Literature & Fiction > British & Irish > Shakespeare > Works
This play by Shakespeare is a founding play in his career. He will never accumulate that much physical cruelty in another play, preferring psychological or mental cruelty to such gross and even sickening horror.One element has to be emphasized. The role of “pairs of brothers” in this play. Titus Andronicus has a brother Marcus Andronicus who plays a major role in the plot. Titus Andronicus had twenty-five sons and only four (presented as two pairs: Martius-Mutis and Lucius-Quintus) come back from war alive accompanying one dead brother to represent the twenty-one who died. Tamora, the Queen of the Goths, is Titus’s prisoner and she has three sons: Alarbus, Chiron and Demetrius. The late Emperor had two sons, and the two brothers are crucial since they want to succeed their father. They are Saturninus and Bassianus.The play starts with the decision of Titus Andronicus to have Tamora’s eldest son, Alarbus, sacrificed to pacify the spirits of his dead sons. Alarbus is then, off stage, dismembered alive and then disemboweled alive and the arms and legs, then the entrails are burned on a sacrificial pyre before the still not completely dead body of Alarbus is burned hence still alive, as a full report tells us. We can note it is close to what happened to William Wallace. This reduces the triplet to a simple pair of brothersTitus Andronicus chooses Saturninus to succeed his father and Saturninus then announces he chooses Lavinia, Titus’s daughter, as his future wife. Titus then offers Tamora and her two remaining sons to Saturninus who decides to make Tamora his mistress, maybe more, with Lavinia’s agreement. Bassianus then declares Lavinia his betrothed and seizes her with the agreement of her brothers but against Titus’s own decision to return her to Saturninus.
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