without recognizing the pity of it; in King Lear, the evil consumes itself, and a clear morning follows the storm of passion and tragedy. But in Titus Andronicus it is all
'Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day.'
The tragic energy all goes for nothing; Titus's madness is without any redeeming element. Shakespeare might have been capable of producing the bad lines of the play, its crude construction, its feeble characterization, and its poor workmanship in general, but that he could have written at any time a play so wholly unlike any of his other work seems incredible. If Titus Andronicus be Shakespeare's, we shall have to posit a complete change in his mental, spiritual, and artistic processes and attitudes between the time of its composition and the date when he began to produce his other dramatic work.
If Shakespeare, then, did not write Titus, who was the author of the piece? Any one of a half-dozen of his contemporaries is a more likely candidate for the questionable honor. Its Senecanism and melodrama it has in common with a score of other tragedies of the time. Its mannerisms of style, versification, and vocabulary are those of Kyd, Marlowe, Greene. Peele, and Lodge. Accordingly, four at least of these have been suggested as its possible author, and none of them has wanted defenders among the critics to make good his claim.
In the process of looking for specific traces of different hands in the play, however, many difficulties present themselves. Some idea of the general state of criticism with regard to this particular matter may be gained from a glance at the various interpretations placed on a single passage from Aaron's speech (II. i. 1–9):
