CRITICISM

Barker, Francis. “Treasures of Culture: Titus Andronicus and Death by Hanging.” In The Production of English Renaissance Culture, edited by David Lee Miller, Sharon O'Dair, and Harold Weber, pp. 226-261. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Focuses on the play's exploration of ritual acts, ceremonial spectacles, and the fetishistic and taboo characterization of the sacred.

Hattaway, Michael. “Titus Andronicus: Strange Images of Death.” In Elizabethan Popular Theatre: Plays in Performance, pp. 186-207. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.

Maintains that the violence in Titus Andronicus is not simply a bloody display of “classical horrors,” but rather that it makes a political statement.

Kahn, Coppélia. “The Daughter's Seduction in Titus Andronicus, or, Writing Is the Best Revenge.” In Roman Shakespeare: Warriors, Wounds, and Women, pp. 46-76. London: Routledge, 1997.

Argues that the play demonstrates a deep understanding of the “politics of textuality,” in its Ovidian and Senecan overtones. This awareness, Kahn states, is connected to the play's concern with sexual politics and the role of Titus and Lavinia in the Roman patriarchal system.

Kendall, Gillian Murray. “‘Lend Me Thy Hand,’: Metaphor and Mayhem in Titus Andronicus.” Shakespeare Quarterly 40, No. 3 (Fall 1989): 299-316.

Studies the way language is violated in Titus Andronicus.

Parker, Douglas H. “Shakespeare's Use of Comic Conventions in Titus Andronicus.” University of Toronto Quarterly 56, No. 4 (Summer 1987): 486-97.

Contends that formal comic conventions, such as those used within Shakespeare's romantic comedies, strengthen the tragic elements in Titus Andronicus.

Rowe, Katherine. “‘Effectless Use’: Dismembering and Forgetting in Titus Andronicus.” In Dead Hands: Fictions of Agency, Renaissance to Modern, pp. 52-86. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.

Examines the relationship between the severed hands in Titus Andronicus and both political action and personal agency, focusing in particular on the pertinence of hand imagery to Renaissance conceptions of the “body politic.”

Waith, Eugene M. “The Metamorphosis of Violence in Titus Andronicus.” Shakespeare Survey 10 (1957): 39-49.

Argues that the play attempts, but ultimately fails, to dramatize the detached narrative style of Ovid. Waith concludes that the concept Shakespeare borrowed from Ovid—the idea that individuals may be transformed through passion and suffering—cannot be presented successfully onstage.

———. Introduction to Titus Andronicus, by William Shakespeare, edited by Eugene M. Waith, pp. 1-69. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984.

Offers a detailed overview of the play, discussing its date of composition, the authorship controversy, sources, textual issues, performance issues, and the critical reception and interpretation of Titus Andronicus.

Young, Anthony. “‘Ripen Justice in This Commonweal’: Political Decay and Regeneration in Titus Andronicus.” Renaissance Papers (1998): 39-51.

Maintains that while the political content of Titus Andronicus is often ignored, this aspect of the play foreshadows similar issues that Shakespeare explored in later plays.