Titus Andronicus

Question 1

Titus Andronicus Significance

Answer 1

First Roman and Revenge Tragedy

Question 2

Livy: History of Rome (Source for TA)

Answer 2

-History of Rome
- Magistrate (Appius) kidnaps Verginia, Father Verginius mercy kills her (she was working at a brothel) and revolts against officials

Question 3

Shakespeare: Lucrece (Source for TA)

Answer 3

• Roman History
• Tarquin (Prince) rapes Lucrece (wife of soldier, Collatinus), rebellion insues, Rome Republic

Question 4

Ovid: Metamorphoses (Source for TA)

Answer 4

• Tereus and Philomela, cut out tongue, weave story, cook son

Question 5

Shakespeare’s Revenge Tragedies

Answer 5

Titus and Hamlet: Prince of Denmark avenging father from uncle Claudius

Question 6

Defining Tradgedy

Answer 6

Main Influences from Seneca, Morality play traditions, and “De Casibus” Narratives (Downfall of powerful/ great men)

Question 7

Revenge Tragedy

Answer 7

• Main influence from Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy
• Popular genre of Elizabethan and Jacobean stage
• Similar to Seneca tragedy: bloody excesses, appearance of a ghost depending revenge and revenger’s madness

Question 8

Influence of Spanish Tragedy (5)

Answer 8

1- Personification of Revenge
2- Revenger’s madness
3- Ghost Calling for revenge
4- Bloody Murders
5- Rhetoric of “Horror”

Question 9

Revenge Throughout the play

Answer 9

• Every revenger dies in the end
• Is order restored by Lucius?

Question 10

Commentary on Rome

Answer 10

Rome is out of touch with its founding values, it is corrupt
- flawed ideas of “mercy” and “justice”

Question 11

Roman Values

Answer 11

• Ideas of Rome being civilized (The most civilized)
• founding values are distorted in the play (duty, honour, self-discipline, justice, freedom)

Question 12

Piety/ Pietas

Answer 12

• Key word: from Virgil, Roman sense of duty, also religious sense

Question 13

Civilized vs Barbarous

Answer 13

• Binary, Rome Civility vs Goth Barbarity
• used to describe people who were not greek
• further away from Rome (culturally/ geographically) more barbarous

Question 14

Barbarous

Answer 14

• also a geographical term (talking about North Africa)
• Means primitive and uncivilized, also cruel or savage
• Roman Term > cultural opposition to Rome

Question 15

Justice vs Revenge

Answer 15

Revenger’s pursuit of justice brings conflict (especially as legal system fails)
- Have to take justice into their own hands

Question 16

Aaron the Moor

Answer 16

• First Shakespearean Moore
• Muslim/ Dark Skin
• stereotype of plotting villainous etc
• ## (would have been blackface)