an avoidance of what was both more subtle and more complex; he is a little more ambitious when he sketches Richard II; but many years will pass before he ventures upon such marvellous creations as Hamlet and Iago.

(11) TITUS ANDRONICUS, 1590

Historical Particulars

We begin with the Quarto of 1600, which has the following title: "The most lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus. As it hath sundry times been playde by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembrooke, the Earle of Darbie, the Earle of Sussex, and the Lorde Chamberlaine theyr Servants. At London, Printed by I. R. for Edward White, . . . 1600.”

...

This was followed in 1611 by the Second Quarto, which differs but slightly from the former, and states on the title-page, "As has sundry times been playde by the King's Maiestie's Servants."

Next, in the Folio of 1623, the play appears between "Coriolanus" and "Romeo and Juliet," with the heading, "The lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus."

Between this Folio version and the two Quartos there are considerable differences, evidently due to supervision by the author; only the Folio gives us the second scene of the third act; this scene is of much interest to the reader, but is not so essential to the theatre, and might even raise a laugh if put on the stage.

We have now to bring forward some references to this, or to kindred plays previous to 1600. These are, in order of date: 1591. "tittus and vespacia" (as a new play; Henslowe's Diary). 1593. (January 23) “titus and ondronicus," acted for the first time by "the Earle of Essex, his men,” January 23rd (Henslowe's Diary). 1593, February 6th. "John Danter. . . . a booke intituled a Noble Roman Historye of Tytus Andronicus." "Entord also with

him, by warrant from Mr. Woodcock, the ballad thereof" (Stationers' Register). 1594. "Titus Andronicus," first printed in Quarto and acted by the servants of the "Earle of Darbie, Pembroke, and Essex" (Gerard Langbaine, 'Account of the English Dramatic Poets," 1691); and in 1598 it is mentioned by Meres.

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To the above must be added the following passage from the Induction to Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair": "He that will swear that Jeronimo or Andronicus are the best plays yet shall pass unexcepted at here, as a man whose judgment shows it is constant and has stood still these twenty-five or thirty years."

On this we remark that Kyd's "Jeronimo, or The Spanish Tragedie," was licensed in 1592 (first extant edition, 1594), and that if we choose Jonson's twenty-five years, and take them somewhat generally, they will carry us back to 1591 or perhaps 1590, which furnish, as I think, an approximate date for the composition of Shakespeare's play.

There are yet to be mentioned Dutch and German versions of Titus Andronicus, none of which seem to have been founded on Shakespeare's drama, but they were possibly indebted to the "tittus and vespacia" in the above list, as Shakespeare also may have been. Nor have we any certain knowledge as to the authorship of “titus and ondronicus" of 1593. As regards the play mentioned by Langbaine, that is most probably Shakespeare's, but how far it differs from the Quartos, and again, from the Folio version, it is impossible to say. It will be noticed that "Essex," in the title of this play of 1594, is changed to "Sussex" in 1600, a change which is doubtless due to the fall of Essex. Finally, as regards the ballad of 1593, which may have been extant for some time previous, it is probably the one included in Percy's "Reliques," and to this ballad Shakespeare's play might appear to be indebted:

He, being slain, was cast in cruel wise
Into a darksome den from light of skies:
The cruel Moore did come that way as then

With my three sonnes, who fell into the den.

Here we have the doubtful incident of the "subtle hole

Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing briars" (II. iii. 198, 9); also, the somewhat inexplicable line of the ballad, "I shot my arrowes towards heaven hie" finds its counterpart in Act IV, Scene iii. And, generally, the play follows the ballad (or the ballad the play) with faithfulness to incident.

If we trace the subject of "Titus Andronicus" to some earlier sources, we find, as so often, that the main stream of story is fed by tributaries. Apart from the affluents from classic ground1 which will be mentioned later, we have a conjunction of the "Moore which did murders, like was nere before," and of the unkindly alliance of black (especially Moor) with white, "And soe in time a blackamore she bred." The former of these stories exists in Pontano, Bandello, Belleforest, and others, and the latter, or part of it, appears frequently in early or contemporary literature, and is best known to us by Shakespeare's “Othello.”

In regard to Shakespeare's authorship of "Titus Andronicus," too much has been made of a statement by Edward Ravenscroft, who "about the time of the Popish Plot revised and altered" Shakespeare's drama; “I have been told," says Ravenscroft, "by some anciently conversant with the stage, that it was not originally his (Shakespeare's), but brought by a private author to be acted, and he only gave some master touches to one or two of the principal characters.”

As a matter of literary history this may be worth mentioning, but Ravenscroft's tradition is by no means trustworthy, as we may discover in the following section.

1 The scene is Rome (not in Folio), but there is little enough of Roman history. Of classical authors Ovid and Seneca are most fully represented in the play.

It may be added that a 1594 Quarto of "Titus Andronicus" is said to have been discovered quite recently in Sweden.

The time analysis is: 1st day, I.; II. i. 2nd., II. ii.-iv.; III. i. Interval. 3rd day, III. ii. Interval. 4th day, IV. v.

Critical Remarks

After referring to the Introductory remarks in Chapter V, I shall state briefly with regard to the production and the authorship of "Titus Andronicus," that I consider it to be in great part the work of Shakespeare. Possibly he has revised an older play; it might be by the author of Selimus, Emperor of the Turks" (1594), where the blank verse and some of the incidents have resemblances to "Titus Andronicus." Further, the author of "Selimus" (some say Greene) may be responsible for the original draft of "Henry VI," Part I ; and Shakespeare's relation to that play may be repeated in the case of "Titus Andronicus."

Or if Shakespeare wrote the whole of the play, we might date his first draft about 1590, and presume that he revised it some three or four years later, when he may have adorned his work with such fragments of contemporary material as are found, for example, in Peele's "Honour of the Garter," 1593.

Either theory, of revision, or of authorship and revision (and I prefer the former), will account for the two styles of verse that we seem to discover in "Titus Andronicus"; and, finally, I am disposed to accept every line as Shakespeare's, or as chosen by him from some original or originals. Moreover, when comparing it with contemporary work of the kind, I think favourably of the performance as a whole; and I regard "Titus Andronicus " as Shakespeare's first essay in tragic drama; I omit piece-work that may have fallen to his lot.

The wonder is that the play is so good; there is little enough that might not have come from the pen of Shake

speare at this early time, and there is a great deal that could scarcely have been written by any other writer at any time, and no one, as I think, but Shakespeare, could have written the play as a whole; it compares at many points-points of manner, treatment, thought, phrase, rhythm, diction-with other plays by the same author; moreover it discovers to us the germs of many of the poet's later tragic characters, incidents and situations; and although in the main it is experimental, Marlowesque, laboured, and adapted to a contemporary taste for the cruder devices and effects of tragedy, it nevertheless ascends not seldom to Shakespeare's higher heaven of invention, and displays his power of informing the body of a type with the soul of an individual, of infusing into the conventional puppet an original life; and finally, it sets forth his purpose or his practice of rounding off a feast of horrors with Aristotle's saving grace of pity and fear, his purpose or his practice of subordinating the action to the actors, the fable to the moral, of teaching us that vengeance is wrong, and love is right, because kind nature doth require it so (V. iii. 168).

The play, as I firmly believe, does all this, and does it so unequivocally that it may fairly stand as a genuine example of Shakespeare's early attempts at tragedy.

But I must give some space to an objection put forward by critics who might otherwise accept the play as genuine ; it was impossible, they tell us, that Shakespeare should have chosen a theme so repulsive; but let me point out first of all that their admission of his joint or part authorship involves the same difficulty; surely he would not have lent his hand to an enterprise that was repugnant to his tastes and his convictions! But I think that our judgement under this head should be based on the following considerations; Shakespeare was a beginner; he was more ready to respond to popular taste and demand-and this was the heyday of the drama of horrors as Dryden's was