Shadow and Substance: Structural Unity in Titus Andronicus

Abstract

If our discussion of Titus Andronicus we may put aside the vexed authorship question and to do so is certainly fraught with great difficulties since even the champions of Shakespeare's authorship the main are reluctant to dismiss particular the shades of Peele then there is, it seems to me, a dramatic pattern established which tends to belie the theories of co-authorship. As this pattern emerges, it will become evident that it is based on the renaissance topos which frequently finds representation iconography: the mistaking of the shadow for the substance. This topos was frequently drawn upon by Shakespeare throughout his career. 1 I should like therefore to cite two examples from iconography as a point of reference for my discussion this paper. The first, from Fables D'Esope (Paris, 1689), shows a wolf mistaking symbol for substance as he attacks a sculptor's representation of a human head. 2 The second, from Geoffrey Whitney's A Choice of Emblemes (Leyden, 1587), illustrates a greedie dogge losing his bone when he is deceived by its shaddow the brooke (p. 39) . Significantly, Whitney's use of the topos is specifically directed against ambition, which ultimately pulls a man down rather than lifts him up. The result of mistaking the shadow for substance is quite liable to be tragedy, as indeed is the case Titus Andronicus. When we return to Shakespeare's earliest Roman tragedy with the shadow-substance topos mind, we must confront a startling fact: Titus taking false shadows for true substances (III.ii.80) 3 is by no means aware that his seeing has all along been at fault and still is. His lack of understanding remains even the grief-wrought scene consequent on the mockery of his left-handed sacrifice sent back with the heads of his two sons, Martius and Quintus, who are later symbolized by the Clown's two pigeons a basket. That his eyes begin to dazzle (III.iii.85) he fobs off more as the excuse of age than of fault. That his right hand did not know what his left was doing and is thus as useless as the lopped-off hand is ironically reinforced by his using only his mouth and his feet to guide the staff whereby he writes his name sand in the dust [he] write[s]/[His] heart's deep languor and [his] soul's sad tears (III.i.12-13). Like a