Scene Division in Titus Andronicus

Abstract

THE modern editor of early modern drama is often faced with the task of dividing a play into scenes, as subdivisions of either pre-existing acts signalled in the earliest printed text(s) or as part of act and/or scene divisions introduced to otherwise undivided texts; for the most part editorial consensus prevails and disagreement over the number of scenes in a play or the placing of scene divisions, though hardly unknown, is comparatively rare. In the case of Titus Andronicus there is one such consensus over scene division in the second act, specifically the pivotal moment in the play where Bassianus is murdered by Tamora’s sons, Demetrius and Chiron, his killers with their mother’s encouragement then abducting Lavinia to rape and mutilate her. It is with this event, a reciprocal act of revenge for Titus’s killing of Tamora’s other son, Alarbus, in the opening scene, that the play sets in train the ensuing conflict. However, in this case the editorial tradition, built on consensus dating from the early eighteenth century, is open to challenge.