He'd Stand Up, Except He's Been Dead for 400 Years

by Peter Gorman

Over the past few years Eminem has been the subject of controversy for his explicit lyrics, yet he still hasn't topped Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus (1593?) for graphic sex and violence. Though many have tried to dismiss the play as either Shakespeare's youthful first attempt at a play or the work of someone else altogether, literary scholar Harold Bloom believes that not only was it assuredly written by Shakespeare, it was also written several years after he wrote several of his classic plays. Why did Shakespeare do it? For the money perhaps, as Bloom has determined that Titus Andronicus was extremely popular in London at the time.

So what does Shakespeare have to do with rock and roll? Well, John Lydon admits to using Laurence Olivier's performance in King Richard III to develop his own persona, and the title for Nick Lowe's "Cruel to be Kind" comes from Hamlet, and there's surely more though I haven't looked into it. I could say that I want to show that the Eminem controversy is nothing new, but really the main reason for doing this is that it's fun to every so often take potshots at the Immortal Bard.

A summary of the five acts of William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (comes with warning sticker).

Act I: Titus is mourning the loss of several sons in a war. A surviving son, Lucius, says it's time for a human sacrifice. He nominates Tamara's son, who is then killed. Titus chooses the new emperor, who in a show of gratitude agrees to marry Titus' daughter, Lavinia. However Bassianus is having none of it, and he takes Lavinia away by force, planning to marry her. The Emperor, seeing his bride-to-be is now taken, decides instead to marry the mother of the man who was killed in the human sacrifice. A double wedding is planned.

Act 2: The two couples are married. During a hunt after the wedding, Lavinia is carried off and raped, her tongue cut out and her arms cut off, then abandoned. The sons of Titus are framed for the crime, though it's really the sons of Tamara who are guilty.

Act 3: The Emperor announces that the sons of Titus will be executed, though he does declare that he will accept Titus' severed hand as ransom. Titus agrees to this, and his hand is cut off and delivered to the Emperor. However the Emperor has tricked Titus, and he delivers to him on a platter the heads of his two sons, plus Titus' own recently removed hand.

Act 4: Lavinia, sans tongue and arms, uses one of her stumps to write the names of her attackers in the sand. Titus sees this and vows revenge. A clown, bearing two pigeons, visits the Emperor, who has the clown hanged.

Act 5: Tamora and her sons disguise themselves and visit Titus, planning to take revenge on him. Titus recognizes them but pretends that he doesn't, and he asks Tamora to bring the Emperor to a banquet. Tamora leaves to get the Emperor. After she leaves, Titus cuts the throats of her sons. The Emperor and Tamora arrive for the banquet. Titus welcomes them, then kills his daughter, Lavinia, before their eyes. He then reveals that the head's of Tamora's sons are baked into the meat pie that she has already sampled, so that the mother can realize that she has eaten her children before he stabs her to death, which he then does. The Emperor then kills Titus, which leads the surviving son of Titus to kill the Emperor and declare himself now in charge. He then orders Aaron, who arranged the mutilation of Lavinia and is one of the few characters in the play still alive, buried up to his neck and starved to death.

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