By Alexander Leggatt
Starting with the rape of Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, this e-book strains the associated topics of violation and identification via seven Shakespearean tragedies. The surprise results of Lavinia's rape reverberate all through Shakespeare's later tragedies. This specific learn of Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth finds the best way acts of violence evoke questions about the identities of the sufferers, perpetrators, and the acts themselves. Written in a transparent, available type, it highlights the humanistic elements of Shakespearean tragedy.
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Sample text
35–45) Having in the previous scene told Marcus simply to “mark,” he now tells him to listen: he can reproduce Lavinia’s voice. But of course it is his own voice, and once again the speech he attributes to her is impossibly detailed. 18 He has been almost literally putting words in her mouth. 283). 45). 166). 19 Since her return to Rome Titus has struggled to read Lavinia, to give her a voice again. But in his very sympathy and concern there is something invasive, and the only voice he can give her is his own.
She is trying to feel his pain as he is trying to feel hers. 251–52). But at least she is coming back to life, no longer shrinking from contact, and her ruined mouth can still kiss. In offering a gesture that gets no response, she is once more mirroring Titus’ experience as he tries to mirror hers. Lavinia recovers language in a more obvious way when she uses writing, first Ovid’s and then her own, to report that she has been raped. 26) – but when he later asks, “Shall I speak for thee? 33) the answer, ungiven but understood, seems to be no.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love And I’ll no longer be a Capulet. 33–36) Not knowing he can hear (to that extent there is still a barrier between them) she speaks directly to him, imagining him not up in the sky but standing right in front of her. The context she speaks in is not religious or romantic but social and familial. In that context she makes an extraordinary demand: nothing less than the denial of the identity embodied in his name. No sooner has she made that demand than she imagines his refusal and leaps ahead to offer the denial of her own name.