Titus Andronicus and Timon of Athens (Signet Classic Shakespeare Series) Book

Titus Adronicus is the first play I read for my class on Shakespearean Tragedy. The lowdown from the prof is that there's been controversey over whether Shakespeare even wrote the thing, the fallout resulting in the lack of a Titus-Adronicus-only edition on Goodreads for my reviewing purposes. So, this review is a lie, as I likely won't get to Timon of Athens until I take on my copy of the Complete Works in one fell swoop. The important thing is, contention or not, said Complete Works has this proto-bloodfest of a play, so whatever quibbles about authenticity were worked out by 1988 or thereabouts (leastwise in the places that use the £ on the front bookflap. I've no clue about the ones that make use of $ or €).

I won't ruin anyone's fun by mentioning the play contains cannibalism. It's only a spoiler if I let you in on the specifics. Between this and that there's a whole gamut to run of the baleful, ludicrous, doomed, gnawing-off-your-leg-naked-in-the-dark that is the mean and methodology of tragedy.

Exhibit A: Human cannibalism is taboo.

Exhibit B: Human incest is taboo.

Exhibit B.1: Incest has some weighty, but not guaranteed, biological inhibitors.

Exhibit A.1: Beyond the natural consequences of same species infection, cannibalism has none.

Exhibit A.1.a: Or does it?

Exhibit A.1.b: You see, to truly know the limits of the inherent laws of cannibalism, one cannot presume one would know at any instant where one, as a human being, was consuming human flesh. It can be baked. It can be brewed. It can be the gelatin of the marshmellows in your hot cocoa, something I'm miffed at TV series Hannibal for not conjuring up; perhaps it was too pedestrian, but never mind that. The point is, to prepare to prevent onself from ever engaging in same species consumption, one would have to give full rein to the appetite for as long as it takes with some far off guarantee that, eventually, one would stop.

Exhibit C: If rape and murder and enslavement can be assumed to follow the same evolutionary track of crime and punishment, there's not much hope for us, is there.

Maybe it's cause I'm no Shakespeare/theatre scholar and this was the last play I read before TA, but so many parts of Adronicus' plot screamed LEAR, LEAR, LEAR. Banishment, misguided giving up of ultimate power, doomed patriarch, fools, madness, escalation of revenge, entrapment, evil. Awful lot of Othello as well in a weirdly composite sense, but that's another analysis. I'll know for sure when I tackle them both later in the quarter. Might not do much on the test taking level, but it'd make for a damn fine paper.