Reason Writers Around Town: Who Speaks for Titus Andronicus? Nick Gillespie on his favorite Shakespeare play at National Review Online

I participate in a Shakespeare's birthday symposium over at National Review Online, where contributors range from Mark Bauerlein (Reason contributor and Reason.tv web-video phenom!) to Heather MacDonald (Reason sparring partner over the years!) to Joe Queenan (Reason contributor back in the good old days when Hershey bars only cost a quarter, I tells ya, and earlier than our online archive covers!).

The question put to these noble few, this band of brothers: Pick your favorite Shakespeare play and explain why you love it.

The final medal count, btw, was: King Lear (with about 4.5 votes, depending on whether you're counting ballots in South Florida or not) and bunch of single-interest protest votes for wacky third-party candidates, including my own for Titus Andronicus (which, when you think about it, is kind of like the Ron Paul of the First Folio!). To wit:

Titus Andronicus is not only Shakespeare's first tragedy but by common acclamation his least accomplished drama. Indeed, Bardolators in past centuries routinely claimed that there was no way Shakespeare could have ever authored a dog so nasty as this; more recently, Harold Bloom argued it can be salvaged only as a parody of mediocre Elizabethan revenge tragedies.

Yet the play, based on a story of rape and revenge in Ovid's Metamorphoses and shamelessly pinching from Jasper Heywood's English-language version of Seneca's Thyestes, still speaks to modern audiences for reasons that go far beyond its over-the-top violence (think Quentin Tarantino with an unlimited budget for ketchup) and bizarre fixation on torture and dismemberment (think, um, Quentin Tarantino with an unlimited budget for ketchup). Set in ancient Rome and chock-full of human pies, Titus Andronicus tells a story in which all political and martial power is wielded bluntly and horrifically and in which everyone is doomed by the limits of gender, race, and rage. It brilliantly depicts and reveals the aristocratic, pre-modern world in which the individual is given no room to flourish and no meaningful representation in the public or private sphere. First staged at the very dawn of the modern era, in which the individual would finally (if imperfectly) be allowed to create his or her own future, Titus Andronicus remains a bizarre, stomach-turning, and wonderful reminder of a universal, stultifying social order that the world was fast putting behind itself in favor of something approaching liberty for all.

Yes, I do like my art politicized.

More words, words, words here.

Given the bardolatrous subject matter, it's not surprising that the ghost at this buffet is literary critic Harold Bloom, whose The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages I reviewed 15 years ago (!) in Reason.

Comments

[robc]

How did the Bard continue to produce so many plays without copyright protection to encourage it?

Oops, sorry, didnt mean to carry over yesterdays thread to today. Nevermind, nothing to see here.

[Cabeza De Vaca]

Macbeth is my personal favorite. Titus Andronicus is a good & gory choice though.

[P Brooks]

I had completely forgotten about it, but now I want to watch Titus, the Anthony Hopkins movie version, again.

I saw it late at night, so my recollection is imperfect, but I remember being pretty much astounded, from beginning to end.

[robc]

2nd vote for Macbeth.

[Colin]

I’ve had a soft spot for Titus Andronicus ever since I wrote a paper on it long ago in college.

A few years back, I read the complete works of Shakespeare, and I have to say while it’s certainly not his best play, it’s by far the most enjoyable to read.

[Pro Libertate]

Quiet, robc, you monarchist.

It’s telling that people seem to want to avoid Hamlet, which really is a great play. I’d throw in Macbeth and Henry V, too.

My favorite speech–as opposed to soliloquy–is from Julius Caesar:

ANTONY

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

[?]

Don’t tell me you think that illiterate actor wrote those plays.

[libertarian democrat]

Pro Lib – That’s probably my favorite overall too.

[creech]

Did the Earl of Oxford, de Vere, write “Titus” too?

[Episiarch]

Julius Caesar and Corialanus. I think I’ve previously outed myself as a Rome geek.

[Citizen Nothing]

I’m not to proud to admit to “Hamlet.”

[SugarFree]

Me neither, CN. I love Hamlet.

I once had a wet-brain English professor try and argue that Hamlet was really about about poor put-upon Claudius having to deal with his crazy nephew. I asked him if he also sided with Creon instead of that crazy Antigone chick.

[Naga Sadow]

Bind up my wounds! Give me another horse!

Oil, boil, toil and trouble.

Awesome.

I don’t really have a favorite. Though I do give special consideration for Henry V.

Defiance! Scorn! Add unto that contempt and slight regard!

[Brian Sorgatz]

Threadjacking: This is not only Shakespeare’s birthday but also mine. I’m 37, though I’m told I look about ten years younger. To see what I looked like almost a year ago, click here.

[Pro Libertate]

Naga,

You left out the best bit:

DAUPHIN

For the Dauphin,
I stand here for him: what to him from England?

EXETER

Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Thus says my king; an’ if your father’s highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He’ll call you to so hot an answer of it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
In second accent of his ordnance.

Back to Julius Caesar, I thought Brando did an excellent job as Antony.

As for Hamlet, one thing that I don’t like is the common belief that Hamlet was being indecisive. No, he was being cautious, because Claudius was a popular king and apparently offed his brother and predecessor to get the job. In addition, if some ghost claiming to be your father came calling, wouldn’t you want some independent evidence, just in case the ghost was an impostor or a hallucination?

[ed]

How did the Bard continue to produce so many plays without copyright protection

Believe it or not, robc, Elizabethan-era Englishmen did have property rights. Shakespeare’s works were “protected” by the historical nature of his times. His plays were intended (as all plays are) to be performed, not read, and as most of lower-class England was functionally illiterate, there was little inducement for anyone to publish unauthorized versions of his plays, except as working manuscripts for illicit performances by backwater acting companies. And Shakespeare and his business partners were not without legal recourse to pursue them if it suited their interests.

[Naga Sadow]

Pro Lib,

Somehow I just knew you were gonna pick up my slack and highlight the “womby vaultages” in your reply. Say . . . exactly what was your minor at Gainesville? 😉

[Pro Libertate]

My minors were History and Womby Vaultages. Why do you ask?

My major was Finance, in strict defiance of the Protocols of Pre-Law. I should’ve been more defiant by majoring in physics or engineering, but I was young and foolish.

[anon]

Titus with anthony hopkins, jessica lange and alan cummings is really worth watching.

[robc]

Pro Lib,

Quiet, robc, you monarchist.

Revenge for calling you a statist?

[Pro Libertate]

You called me a statist? What did I say?

[robc]

Pro Lib,

Was that not you? Someone left HUD off of cabinet depts to be cut, and I called them a statist for it.

[Xeones]

Someone left HUD off of cabinet depts to be cut

That was J sub D, i believe.

[Pro Libertate]

That wasn’t me. I simply repeated my suggestion that most of the agencies should have to send their heads into Thunderdome. Two go in, one comes out. . .you know the drill.

[robc]

JsudD, Pro Lib, whats the diff? 🙂

Sorry about that.

Oh well, being called a monarchist probably isnt that bad, but I dont understand how the English put up with it.

[Naga Sadow]

Is a monarchist also a papist agent? I forget.

[SugarFree]

“I am but mad north-north-west:
when the wind is southerly
I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

So densely layered with meaning in the context of the play and the time it was performed, it barely counts as being the language the rest of us speak. Have all the Shakespeare identity wars you want, I’m just here for the words.

[Naga Sadow]

SugarFree,

I read an interesting article about Shakespeare’s “real” identity. I believe it was the History Quarterly or some such. Shakespeare had a cousin who was much higher ranked than him. The cousin went all throughout the Mediterranean region which would explain how he got his hands on all those Italian stories.

[P Brooks]

just in case the ghost was an impostor

!!!!!

[Syd]

I’d say Macbeth, too. It’s a pleasure to read (especially read aloud), has a strong and compelling story, scenes of true weirdness. It also struck me that Macbeth doesn’t have to kill Duncan at all if he believes the witches’ prophecies. All he has to do is wait for Duncan to drop dead. These Scottish thanes are so impatient.

People who think someone really well educated wrote Shakespeare need to explain why he thought Bohemia has a coastline.

[Pro Libertate]

Shakespeare’s plays were written by a guy named William Shakespeare. There’s all sorts of evidence that has to be ignored to think otherwise.

Except for Julius Caesar, which was written by Francis Bacon.

P Brooks,

Sure. Especially back then, there was every reason to worry about whether the ghost was dear old Dad or a minion of Satan. Or a psychotic episode.

[Episiarch]

Who has seen Polanski’s Macbeth? Fucking great stuff.

[Naga Sadow]

P Brooks,

What Pro Lib said. Even then, hearing voices or seeing ghosts was something you didn’t go around telling people about.

Syd,

The argument I was reading was that this cousin of his couldn’t be known as a common playwright. It would have been scandalous. So he gave most of them to his low born cousin, Shakespeare. When the cousin was imprisoned for a while, Shakespeare’s poetry was correspondingly dark. Pretty interesting stuff. Sorta how some people argue that The Man in the Iron Mask was D’Artagnan.

[ClubMedSux]

I like Titus Andronicus, but I kind of wish they had a slightly cleaner production value on their debut album. I mean, I’m down with lo-fi and reverb and distortion and all that, but halfway through the album I feel like I’m listening to it in the shower.

Oh, wait… You’re talking about the play? Never mind.

[Pro Libertate]

Haven’t seen that one. I saw Welles’ version and I’d like to see this one with Ian McKellan and Judi Dench.

Naga,

How can D’Artagnan have been the Man in the Iron Mask? The real one and the fictional one were doing other stuff in public while that guy was locked up.

[Franklin Harris]

3rd vote for the Scottish play.

[Naga Sadow]

Pro Lib,

Dumas was pretty awful when it came to acknowleding where his sources where from for his stories. I don’t know the timeline for the real D’Artagnan but I’ll try to sum it up.

Dumas checked out a book from Marseille titled “The memoirs of D’Artagnan”(he never returned it). The book, however, was written by a doctor who had never come into contact with D’Artagnan. The doctor was, however, imprisoned for a number of years. The prison was at one point used to house the man in the iron mask. Apparantly they were incarcerated at the same prison for a number of years. The only way he could have written such a book was if the doctor and D’Artagnan had communicated in prison. D’Artagnan was supposedly killed in a siege but it would have been good cover for his identity to make that announcement. Apparantly D’Artagnan had pissed off Louis XIV over disobeying some orders he thought were dishonorable. Additionally, D’Artagnan may have come to the conclusion that Louis XIV wasn’t the real heir as his “father” was Louis XIII who was a homosexual.

[mediageek]

Believe it or not, robc, Elizabethan-era Englishmen did have property rights. Shakespeare’s works were “protected” by the historical nature of his times. His plays were intended (as all plays are) to be performed, not read, and as most of lower-class England was functionally illiterate,

So, does this mean the RIAA will soon be arguing that literacy leads to copyright infringement?

[BakedPenguin]

If we’re talking film versions, I prefer Akira Kurosawa’s version of Macbeth.

[Pro Libertate]

If we’re not talking film versions, I went to a local performance of Macbeth that reversed the gender roles. So, Macbeth was a woman, and Lady Macbeth was Mr. Lady Macbeth.

It was kind of surreal, really.

[P Brooks]

Who has seen Polanski’s Macbeth? Fucking great stuff.

Fucking awesome.

There’s a line, after they kill the king- something like:

“Who’d have thought the old man had so much blood in him”

It sends chills down your spine.

[Warren]

What a sorry sack of posers. True bardophiles love the comedies. I don’t know if I could pick a favorite, they are all so glorious. The tragedies are all overly bloviated. They’re appeal is strictly limited to the self-aggrandizing semi-literate liberal arts crowd.

[Fred]

Gillespie — you should write a book on The Western Canon so that people would stop reading that useless windbag called “Harold Bloom.” I would buy 10 copies of your book, if you write it, and also burn 10 copies of Bloom’s.

[Warren]

Pro Lib
Posthumous praise for a tyrant? Are you kidding me? BLECH 😛

Not even in the top five. I nominate Henry V for best speech.

KING HENRY V
What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

[MNG]

I vote Measure for Measure, a blow against government enforcement of morals laws.

And the pimp is funny.

[Naga Sadow]

MNG,

I’m surprisingly impressed. Not my cup of tea but a decent play none the less that rarely recieves it’s due.

[Mad Max]

The problem with Shakespeare’s plays is that they’re full of cliches.

[Pro Libertate]

Warren,

You counter praise for a monarch with praise by a monarch? Ha!

That’s a great speech, too, but the Antony speech is awesome in how it insults the assassins without seeming to for a good while.

[Cabeza De Vaca]

“Who has seen Polanski’s Macbeth? Fucking great stuff.”

Yeah, that was Polanski at his best.

[Salvius]

I think my favorite is The Tempest, the story of a man voluntarily relinquishing power over others. Though I may favor that one just because Prospero’s Books is my favorite film adaptation of any Shakespeare play.

[Pro Libertate]

The Tempest is a good one.

[Warren]

Pro Lib,
the Antony speech is awesome in how it insults the assassins without seeming to for a good while.

That’s the way every deluded actor plays it. But I find Antony to be transparent, blatantly so. I’ve always thought his speech would play better with maximum sarcasm. Picture Steve Martin delivering this line:
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
Buuuuuuttt Nooooooooooo
Brutus says he was ambitious;

[jester]

http://www.titusandronicus.net/

Libertarian indie band? Or poseurs?

Check out the tell-tale flag.

[Pro Libertate]

Warren,

Watch the version with Brando, Mason, and Gielgud. I thought Brando did an excellent job. Why, I still want to avenge Caesar’s death!

Speaking of movies, which is better, Branagh’s or Olivier’s Henry V? I vote Branagh.

[Syd]

Polanski’s Macbeth is the best Shakespeare adaptation I’ve seen.

The BBC adaptation of Measure for Measure may be the best comedy adaptation, although I saw a very funny stage adaptation of As You Like It and I’ve never seen a bad production of Much Ado About Nothing

The two film adaptations of Henry V are amazing films and it’s hard to choose which is better.

[Jeff P]

From vast and musty chambers of memory there emerges, unbidden, the fond recollection of a man who, verily, hailed from Nantucket…

[Hazel Meade]

I give my vote to Julius Ceasar, with Richard III as runner-up.

The Branaugh Henry V film is great. Speaking of film adaptations, the 1953 adaptation of Julius Ceasar is also fantastic.

[Mad Max]

I like Shakespeare’s underappreciated classic, the autobiographical Like You Want It. It’s the story of a struggling artist who sells out and writes plays and sonnets, when what he *really* wanted to do was write a joke book: Ye Booke of Truely Tastelesse Jestes, Quips & Merry Prankes, With ye Particular Attencion to ye Polackes (on Ice).

[Matthew]

As usual, I’m probably too late–but remember it was comparatively affordable firearms that made modern democracy possible. Otherwise, Might Makes Right.

[MDK]

As a resident in the greater DC metro area (not sure where the lesser Dc metro area is located) I have the luxury of being close to the Shakespeare theatre, a great theatre for both The Bard and other plays. I have tried to catch every Shakespeare play they have done over the past 2 years and by far the best production I have seen (and they have all been great) has been Titus Andronicus.

(Really looking forward to their King Lear!)

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