SOURCE: “The Sacrificial Crisis in Titus Andronicus,” in University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 1, Fall, 1979, pp. 18-32.

In the following essay, Slights studies the role and nature of the cycle of revenge that commences when the boundaries between sacred violence and vengeful violence are blurred in Titus Andronicus.

In the first scene of Titus Andronicus one of Titus's sons—only four of twenty-five remain alive after ten years of Gotho-Roman wars—piously proposes to sacrifice the eldest son of the captured Gothic queen: ‘Let's hew his limbs till they be clean consum'd’ (I.i.129).¹ The Andronicus boys exit with their victim and return shortly with bloody swords, their hewing done. Such acts of violence spread like a blot through Shakespeare's first tragedy, and their dramatic function has been debated by generations of critics. Was Shakespeare competing for spectators in a bloody entertainment market that featured bear and dog...