William ShakespeareS

In Shakespeare’s later tragedies, such as Hamlet, characters are revealed through the use of soliloquy or speech rather than spectacle. However, in Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare uncharacteristically uses action in order to reveal the characters. An example of this can be found in Act 4, Scene 1. It begins with young Lucius fleeing from his aunt Lavinia, fearing that she is crazed. However, she merely wants to get to the book he is carrying, Ovid’s Metamorphoses. She turns through its pages until she reaches the story of Philomela and Tereus (Tereus rapes his sister-in-law Philomela and then cuts off her tongue so that she cannot reveal the crime), which she shows to her father and uncle to indicate what has been done to her. Marcus urges her to carve the name of the culprits in the sand. Holding the staff with her mouth and guiding it with her stumps, she writes, “Stuprum [Latin for rape] — Chiron — Demetrius.” They all kneel and take a vow to not rest until the treacherous Goths have been made to pay with their blood. Here it can be seen that like Aristotle’s poetics, plot is of first importance. The events, which take place and the actions committed by all of the characters, are the determining factors as to how each of them acts individually. As Lavinia is physically pared down, her narrative and thematic importance escalates, drawing our attention to the importance of spectacle on the stage.