Department of the english language and literature course paper

Critical history
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Although Titus was extremely popular in its day, over the course of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries it became perhaps Shakespeare's most maligned play, and it was only in the latter half of the 20th century that this pattern of denigration showed any signs of subsiding.[57]


One of the earliest critical disparagements of the play occurred in 1687, in the introduction to Edward Ravenscroft's theatrical adaptation, Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia. A Tragedy, Alter'd from Mr. Shakespeare's Works. Speaking of the original play, Ravenscroft wrote, "'tis the most incorrect and indigested piece in all his works. It seems rather a heap of rubbish than a structure."[58] In 1765, Samuel Johnson questioned the possibility of even staging the play, pointing out that "the barbarity of the spectacles, and the general massacre which are here exhibited, can scarcely be conceived tolerable to any audience."[59] In 1811, August Wilhelm Schlegel wrote that the play was "framed according to a false idea of the tragic, which by an accumulation of cruelties and enormities, degenerated into the horrible and yet leaves no deep impression behind."[60] In 1927, T. S. Eliot argued that it was "one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written, a play in which it is incredible that Shakespeare had any hand at all, a play in which the best passages would be too highly honoured by the signature of Peele."[61] In 1948, John Dover Wilson wrote that the play "seems to jolt and bump along like some broken-down cart, laden with bleeding corpses from an Elizabethan scaffold, and driven by an executioner from Bedlam dressed in cap and bells."[62] He goes on to say that if the play had been by anyone other than Shakespeare, it would have been lost and forgotten; it is only because tradition holds that Shakespeare wrote it (which Dover Wilson highly suspects) that it is remembered, not for any intrinsic qualities of its own.
However, although the play continued to have its detractors, it began to acquire its champions as well. In his 1998 book, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom defended Titus from various critical attacks it has had over the years, insisting the play is meant to be a "parody" and it is only bad "if you take it straight". He claims the uneven reactions audiences have had are a result of directors misunderstanding Shakespeare's intent, which was "mocking and exploiting Marlowe", and its only suitable director would be Mel Brooks.[63]


Another champion came in 2001, when Jacques Berthoud pointed out that until shortly after World War II, "Titus Andronicus was taken seriously only by a handful of textual and bibliographic scholars. Readers, when they could be found, mostly regarded it as a contemptible farrago of violence and bombast, while theatrical managers treated it as either a script in need of radical rewriting, or as a show-biz opportunity for a star actor."[2] By 2001 however, this was no longer the case, as many prominent scholars had come out in defence of the play.