Titus Andronicus
Titus AndronicusShakespeare's earliest and most notoriously violent tragedy, sensationally popular in his lifetime but only restored to critical favour in the late 20th century, may have had its first run of performances interrupted by plague. Henslowe's ‘Diary’ reports that a play called ‘titus & ondronicus’ was performed by Sussex's Men at the Rose theatre on 24 January 1594. The play was entered in the Stationers' Register on 6 February 1594, only a few days after the Rose theatre was closed down following an outbreak of plague. Recent editors disagree on the exact date of composition. Verbal parallels in The Troublesome Reign of King John, published in 1591, and A Knack to Know a Knave, performed on 10 June 1592, along with the listing of three different acting companies on the title page of the 1594 quarto, suggest composition around 1590–1. Both internal and external evidence in favour of this early date is, however, easily...
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