Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus

Introduction

"Titus Andronicus" is one of the greatest tragedies written by Shakespeare in the year 1590, reaching great heights of drama and one of the bloodiest end of them all. This was the first tragic piece from Shakespeare, although its authorship has been questioned in the past but there is no doubt about it anymore. Apparently it was written as a sort of tribute to Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), playwright in those years was very successful with works such as The Jew of Malta where cruelty and revenge were expressed to the fullest.

It seems that Shakespeare wants to show the decline and fall of the Roman Empire with the entrance to Rome from the Goths and is a play that very well could now qualify today as a surrealist work, as it passes the military victory and the definition of values, a decadent and absurd cut just at a party given by the goddess Blood Vengeance.

Discussion

Shakespeare wrote the tragedy probably between 1589 and 1591, published in 1594; it belongs to the early career of the great playwright and perhaps his first tragedy. The main characters are the Roman general Titus Andronicus and the queen of the Goths, Tamora. After winning the Goths, Titus has it that the eldest son of Tamora is publicly sacrificed. Tamora, who vainly implored mercy for her son, vows revenge. The opportunity for revenge presents itself after the new Roman emperor Saturninus chose Tamora as his bride.

The tragedy of the corruption of power is all the more violent the more it draws on the roots of hidden tensions: Titus Andronicus belongs to the early work of Shakespeare, yet it already possesses the passionate intensity of the characters and the strength of language which characterize the works more important. A nobler man, a braver warrior, Lives not this day within the city walls: He by the senate is accit'd home From weary wars against the barbarous Goths (Shakespeare, 1953).

The tragedy is set in ancient Rome of the decadence, when - despite the danger menace of barbarian invasions - the city was increasingly permeated by rampant lust for power often corrupt, bloodthirsty revenge for the wrongs of ruthless violence against opponents, but also - despite the lack of awareness of the immense disaster looming just around the corner of the empire - the patrician people, surrounded by horror, they had lost the atavistic sense of pride and heroism.

The visceral and frivolous atmosphere, can be identified with the decadent tone and absurdity of some decisions that are made, for example, when the emperor Saturninus, name, Queen Gothic-Tito brought by a prisoner of war, as its wife and empress of Rome, a fact that raises the tide there are strong waves, it is this Queen before anyone else that wants revenge on the general and his family. It does and it is dishonored and turned to dust, lying on the 'Via Appia Antica ", asking for charity, no one will listen more, who do not kill their children ...