Our Corpus

The general themes of this play include violence, revenge, insanity, and power. General Titus Andronicus comes home with his sons from a victorious war against the Goths. They have captured Queen Tamora and her sons, and when they arrive back to Rome, he kills Alarbus, Tamora's oldest son, in a ritual sacrifice which sets off the entire cycle of renvenge. As revenge, Queen Tamora and Aaron the Moor, the Queen's lover, incite Chiron and Demetrius, twin sons of Tamora, to kill Bassianus, brother of the Emperor, and implicate two of titus sons in the murder. They also rape Lavinia, Titus's daughter, cutting off her hands and tongue. This drives Titus insane with grief, and he plots his revenge. In the final scene of the play, he captures and kills Chiron and Demetrius, baking them in a pie which he serves to Emperor Saturnius and Queen Tamora (who got married early on as another strategy of revenge). Over the course of this dinner, he reveals what he did, kills his own daughter Lavinia and kills Queen Tamora. Emperor Saturnius then kills Titus, and Lucius, Titus's son, kills Saturnius, succeeding him as Emperor.

Sonnets 127 to 152 are grouped together by scholars due to a dark woman that is referenced throughout. Mentions of black wiry hair and dun-colored skin, as well as generally sexual descriptions. In Sonnet 18 on the other hand he describes the Fair Youth, comparing it to a beautiful summer day. There is a clear contrast between the Dark Lady and the Fair Youth in Shakespeare's Sonnets, both in their characterizations and general content. Historians have made attempts to identify a real individual that he was referencing, but general opinion was that she is an imaginary construct of Shakespeare's imagination.