Titus Andronicus (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series) | 
| Author: William Shakespeare
Creator: Jonathan Bate
Publisher: Arden
Category: Book
List Price: $14.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 160014
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3rd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 324
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 1903436052
Dewey Decimal Number: 820
EAN: 9781903436059
ASIN: 1903436052
Publication Date: March 16, 1995
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Product Description
After centuries of vilification and neglect by both scholars and actors, Titus Andronicus has at last come to be recognized as one of Shakespeares early masterpieces. In this powerful and ground-breaking edition, Bate offers a complete and radical reappraisal of Shakespeares bloodiest tragedy, seeing it as one of the dramatists most inventive plays, a complex and self-conscious improvisation upon classical sources. Bates introduction does full justice to the plays artfulness and sophistication, puts forward new arguments regarding the plays date, sources and early stage history, and devotes extended discussion to great modern productions such as those of Peter Brook and Deborah Warner. In an age in which dramatic representation of violence has become an issue of enormous controversy, Titus Andronicus is the essential play; Bates seminal edition indicates just how far, with this early work, the young Shakespeare has already travelled towards the masterpiece of his maturity, King Lear. 'a great edition of a great play' Julie Taymor, Director TITUS, 20th Century Fox, 1999 "Bate makes a really positive virtue of his treatment of the play in performance...putting a vigorous account of Titus on stage at very stage-centre in his Introduction. Using this section as a means for raising fundamental questions as to the plays style, coherence, and meaning, Bate achieves a remarkable fusion between performance history and criticism." John Jowett, Shakespeare Survey 'impressive and exciting' Barry Gaines, University of New Mexico, Shakespeare Quarterly 'This is an outstanding edition of Titus, especially for its treatment of textual questions and of recent performance history. It supersedes all previous editions' Dr P Hartle, St Catherines College, Cambridge
Book Description
John Dover Wilson's New Shakespeare, published between 1921 and 1966, became the classic Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems until the 1980s. The series, long since out-of-print, is now reissued. Each work contains a lengthy and lively introduction, main text, and substantial notes and glossary.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews...
 Great service October 25, 2008
Everything was in order and I was glad that it came just a few days later. Thank you.
 ARDEN NEARLY IMPECCABLE IN ITS DEFENSIBLE EDITION; YET HALF OF COMMENTS DISPOSABLE September 19, 2008
Titus is the play for our day of crumbling and self-destructing empire; this fable has much to teach us now. As the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. warned us: Either we learn to live together as brothers or we die apart as fools.
Here we find fool brother killing brother, citizen killing citizen, the extreme abuse of the most vulnerable and pure, the excessive cruelty of wealth and power, a fable for our age.
Here in the Third revision series from Arden (the first presentation nearly one hundred years old and thus this represents one of the most ancient, traditional and continual series of Shakespearean texts, unlike certain far more recent and much less reliable usurpers of the "traditional" crown) we may discover a nearly impeccable edition of this four hundred year old much maligned and frequently orphaned text, a fable for our present times.
The editor Jonathan Bate presents strong and nearly undeniable reasons for his selection of readings from Quarto, Folio and emended editions, including of course Theobald and Capell but also the most recent scholarship and productions. His use, for example of "Muly lives" rather than "Mulietus" is admirable, as is his conflation of false starts, later additions, and other lines always clearly indicated in other typeface and explained fully in the footnotes and introduction.
Nevertheless, I found some of his interpretation unfortunate. I believe this play not a comedy but an exposure of the absolute corruption to which power and wealth lead us. It is not comedy but an exposure of our depravity. It is not to laugh but to weep, and to repent, and to resolve to live in peace and communal cooperation and compassionate concern, to learn to live together as brothers, although not as these. It is thus a morality play, not a comedy; yet we now have no concept of such a thing, and thus laugh where we must repent, and revolt.
His continual praising and uncritical reference in the footnotes to the televised BBC and to the Warner productions also calls into question his judgment. I cannot imagine, for example, admiring bringing in the cannibal banquet table singing as did the Warner = "Heigh ho it's off to work we go!" as anything other than an inappropriate, anachronistic indulgence.
In short about half of the footnotes might easily and gratefully find blue pencil from a compassionate and wise editor of this edition who can distinguish personal interpretation and opinion from scholarly fact. As well, a basic rule for those who wish to define or explain words is never to make the definition more complex nor obscure than the word being defined, nor make the definition so general as to be useless. Thus we find the terms suffrages and tyrannies in Act Four defined completely as "key terms in the political lexicon" rather than explaining their significance in terms of Act One. This is neither helpful nor necessary.
In short, about half of the footnotes may be eliminated to the benefit of this great book, as they cast doubt upon the reliability of the edition itself, and this edition seems nearly impeccable.
wild ride for a shakespeare play January 25, 2008
this is a very violent play, but there are actually a lot of crude humor (think of it as a Quintin taratino film, except it's a book). it takes on ancient dicotomy between civilization and wilderness. the movie is good as well
Titus December 26, 2007
I'm a shakespeare fan and I love the story that this one tells.
Sure, gore, blood, and a great deal of depression around the middle, but what story now-a-days isn't?
Great story, love it!
The First Wizard of Gore September 25, 2004
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is perhaps The Bard's least well known work, but a classic nonetheless. If H. G. Lewis had been a playwrite living in Old England, this is no doubt the kind of drama he might have produced. It has more blood & violence than the most exploitive exploitation film. Heads severed off, murdered children baked into a stew & served to their father, rape, vengeance, mayhem, insanity... all served up in the guise of classic literature. PERFECT!
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