Cannibalism in Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" : Exploring its Representation with special reference to Classical sources

Titus Andronicus, one of William Shakespeare’s earliest tragedies, had made way for an array of criticism as well as delight among audiences in the 1590s. Although T.S. Eliot remarked the tragedy to be one of the ‘most uninspired plays ever’ (Mauss 491), it is in fact inspired by several classical literary sources. With early modern school curriculums focusing firmly on Latin literature and history, accessibility to classical Roman stories through works like those of Ovid or Seneca was made readily possible. Even those who did not understand Latin were aware of these stories possibly because of their widely available English translations. It is therefore discernible that Shakespeare too had read these stories during his school days which eventually made them primary sources of inspiration for his later works. Out of the varied classical source texts of Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare owes his inspiration for the representation of cannibalism in this tragedy primarily to the works of the two previously mentioned literary antecedents significant during his time- Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Seneca’s Thyestes. 

In Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare writes in a way evoking the “Rome effect” by an ‘eclectic process of extracting and combining motifs from a wide variety of classical stories.’ (Mauss 492) Right from the opening scene till the very moment when Titus reveals his cannibalistic vengeance, there are mentions of several figures from popular classical tales. It, therefore, becomes impossible to analyze elements of the tragedy without taking into consideration these classical tales and the similarities in the characters’ trajectory in Titus Andronicus. The tale of Philomela and Procne finds the most number of mentions in the play, repeated by multiple characters throughout- first Aaron, then Marcus, and finally by Titus who also effectively acts it out. The tale says that Procne, sister to Philomela, was married to Tereus, a king of Thrace in Greek legend. On one occasion, Tereus tricked Philomela by pretending Procne was dead and then raped her. To keep his crime a secret, he even cut off Philomela’s tongue and hands. However, Philomela later revealed the crime to Procne by weaving a detailed embroidery. Procne avenged her sister by slaying her only son Itys and serving his flesh as supper for Tereus. 

This story appears in Book VI of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and is used in Titus Andronicus not only through literary allusions but also as a tool to reveal the crime acted upon Lavinia. Ovid’s text does not operate behind the scenes but is continuously evoked by Shakespeare to keep the audience aware of his inspiration. (Weber 699) Lavina finds herself in a condition exactly similar to Philomela and finding the perfect opportunity, points out to Ovid’s book suggesting how she had ended up with mutilated limbs. It can be said that while a ‘bulk of the play’s gore focuses on the figure of Lavinia, most of the play’s allusive activity centers on her Ovidian counterpart, Philomela. Without Ovid’s model, there would be no rape, no mutilation, and no cannibalistic revenge.’ (Weber 699) 

In fact, when Marcus discovers his maimed niece in the forest, he refers to Philomela to make the audience aware of the early modern tale while himself being unaware of what really happened to Lavinia. It is only after the physical portrayal of the book of Metamorphoses that both Marcus and Titus finally understand that the tale of Philomela was exacted on Lavinia. It is to be noted that before this when Aaron tells Tamora ‘His Philomel must lose her tongue/ Thy sons make pillage of her chastity’ (2.3.43-44), it was meant to suggest the rape and mutilation and not the cannibalistic revenge that takes place after. Aaron’s evocation of Tereus’ rape of Philomela, meant to bring out the irony of Tamora’s lustful sons, quite ironically turns out to be alluding not to the lustful Tereus but in fact to Procne’s vengeance. (Chaudhuri 795) The full effect of this irony is seen in the final act when Titus addresses Tamora and Saturninus ‘For worse than Philomel you used my daughter, / And worse than Progne I will be revenged’. (5.2.195-196) Like Procne, Titus feeds Tamora her own sons and avenges her daughter’s rape by propagating cannibalism. 

Shakespeare also conflates the act of cannibalism by immediately killing off Tamora in Titus Andronicus. In Philomela’s story, Tereus discovers what Procne had done and then pursues the two sisters with an axe. Shakespeare’s play barely allows any time for Tamora to comprehend the seriousness of the situation after she unknowingly performs cannibalism. Given that Shakespeare was following the Senecan model, as was evident in many of his earlier works, the abruptness of the two consequent deaths during the revenge scene could barely be registered by the characters and challenged later critics. As a result of this abruptness, within the gap of just a few lines, two deaths take place. The revenging victim in Seneca’s tragedy Thyestes, who unwittingly eats his own children after being served by his brother Atrius during a banquet, gets ample time to process the act, while Shakespeare, although following the Senecan preset of forced cannibalism, does not allow that to Tamora in Titus Andronicus. However, Shakespeare consciously follows Seneca’s instruction, ‘An act is not revenged unless it is surpassed’ and doubles every revenge element from his literary sources. While one man rapes Philomela in Metamorphoses, two men rape Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, while one child is cooked by Procne, and two sons are cooked by Titus. The cannibalistic element consistently exceeds its prototype and Shakespeare’s characters, quite competitively, fit into the Roman tradition by only surpassing their paradigms. (Mauss 493) 

The cannibalism in Titus Andronicus, when gendered with respect to that in its classical sources, can be said to have no regenerative value as Tamora ends up ‘Eating the flesh that she herself bred’ (5.3.62), thus, forming a full circle of eating the flesh of the sons she herself produced. The consumption only uncovers one’s own inhumanity that too ending in an unaware death and a half-eaten pie made of human flesh and blood. Although Titus explains how he would grind the bones, make pasties with the heads of Tamora’s sons and feed her, (5.2.187-190) description of the physical act of eating is not accounted in the play. It is rather the visual and verbal depictions of cannibalism that take place as a leftover of the killing that has already taken place. Through the invocation of the Roman cultural legacy, the essence of cannibalism is meant to make sharp demarcations between the ‘barbaric’ and the ‘civilized’ (Noble 678) and equally between the old pagan methods of revenge and the newer Christian methods of justice in a transitioning England when Shakespeare was writing. Although Titus would be considered a revenging hero as well as a revenging villain in modern times, the Roman times would see him mostly as just a revenging victim. The ‘banquet of human flesh’ in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus thus, depicts not just a representation of cannibalism but also the ushering of the ‘new world’ in a sense that creates an understanding of a jarring difference for the audience between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’.