SOURCE: "'Scars Can Witness': Trials by Ordeal and Lavinia's Body in Titus Andronicus," in Women and Violence in Literature: An Essay Collection, edited by Katherine Anne Ackley, Garland Publishing, 1990, pp. 139-62.

In the following essay, Cunningham explores the interpretive implications of Lavinia 's role as a literal victim of violence and "as the site of political rivalry" in Titus Andronicus.

Criticized as immature and sensational dramaturgy for its bloodbaths, Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus recently has begun to be retrieved from the dustbin where Ravenscroft's indictment of it as "a heap of Rubbish" sent it centuries ago.¹ At its center stands the particularly troublesome figure of Lavinia, her multilated body blazoning forth her own victimization and visually uniting scenes in which limbs are lopped, entrails burned, trunks decapitated, hands amputated, throats slit, and bones pulverized. In this context of horror, the violence to Lavinia may seem relatively indistinguishable from other...