SOURCE: "The Aesthetics of Mutilation in 'Titus Andronicus,'" in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakepearian Study and Production, Vol. 27, 1974, pp. 11-19.

In the following excerpt, Tricomi remarks on the close relationship between metaphor and action in the play and suggests that Titus Andronicus represents an experiment in unifying poetic language and dramatic action.

When T. S. Eliot so flamboyantly denounced Titus Andronicus as 'one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written' [in Selected Essays, 1917-1932, 1932], he naturally invited rebuttal. But while an apology for Titus can certainly be erected, the fact is that the imputed stupidities of the tragedy attract far more interest than any of its mediocre achievements. Indeed, if we would only persist in the study of those very 'stupidities' that many critics would rather forget, we would discover that the ways in which the figurative language imitates the literal events of...