Staging the Literal in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus: Lavinia’s Suffering and Marcus’ Speech

Abstract

Discussions of Titus Andronicus have often treated myths as literalizations of metaphor, meaning the staged embodiment of Ovidian myth, despite the fact that a literal meaning is one still in letters. Distinctions between language and physical act or between mind and matter bear both on the aestheticizing and sensationalizing of physical violence and on the metaphor pervading Titus. The speech in Titus that has caused the strongest assertions about the disparity between poetic rhetoric, notably metaphorical symbolism, and the representation of physical violence and human suffering is uttered by Marcus when he unexpectedly sees Lavinia in the near distance, following her rape and mutilation. My essay focuses on this long speech, its rhetorical, poetical, and mythic context, and then its aftermath, the revenge of the Andronici and Lavinia’s death. It notes that Lavinia is conscious, not the dumb object of Marcus’ speech, as commonly assumed, and that her awareness is a game changer. In the aftermath of Marcus’ speech, Lavinia’s reception by Titus and her role in the Andronici’s revenge is again remarkably and mythically crucial. [J.A.]