This month we’re looking at two Roman sources for Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Join us!
THYESTES by Seneca, and
METAMORPHOSES (excerpt) by Ovid
Thursday October 30th at 8pm on Zoom
Our guest curator Cassandra Marcus Davey has put together an incredible list of resources to help you find copies of both Thyestes and Metamorphoses in various formats. Find it here: Fall Ruff Reads resources
DM us or contact christine@shakespeareintheruff.com for the Zoom link. (Don’t have time to read but still interested in the conversation? Join us anyway!)
**CW: Thyestes and Metamorphoses contains scenes of violence, rape, mutilation, and cannibalism.
From the RSC about the sources for Titus Andronicus:
“It owes much to the tale of […] Philomel in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and a copy of this is actually used by Lavinia in the play to explain what has happened to her.
Shakespeare is also indebted to Seneca’s Thyestes, in which Thyestes is served his two sons for supper by his brother Atreus in revenge for his adultery.
Classical tragedy such as that by Seneca was very popular with the Elizabethans, including as it did revenge, bloody murders, brutality, ghosts and long, bombastic speeches.”