Tragedy of Titus Andronicus (version 2)

Perhaps no play in William Shakespeare's body of work is more divisive than his first tragedy Titus Andronicus, wherein the titular Roman general, freshly arrived back home after a decade-long crusade against the Goths, refuses to ascend to the emperorship and quickly sets off a bloody campaign of vengeance when he orders the death of the eldest son of Tamora, Queen of the Goths, to avenge the deaths of his own sons during the war. Violence gives way to more violence as more and more bodies are maimed, violated and dismembered in an agonizing symphony of bloodlust and retribution for the sins of both Titus and Tamora, with Shakespeare capitalizing on the success of other practitioners of the…