SOURCE: “The Alphabet of Speechless Complaint: A Study of the Mangled Daughter in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus,” in The Triple Bond: Plays, Mainly Shakespearean, in Performance, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975, pp. 255-73.

In the following essay, Stamm explores Lavinia's role in Titus Andronicus, viewing her as a “stimulus” for the expressions of violence performed by her relatives. Finding that Shakespeare endowed Lavinia with individuality, Stamm further demonstrates that Shakespeare used Lavinia to refine his theatrical techniques, specifically the non-verbal portrayal of emotion.

In a recent article on Shakespeare's mirror technique in Titus Andronicus¹ I tried to show how the young playwright, conscious of his power of language and his sense of the theatre and stimulated by the competition of Kyd and Marlowe, experimented in this play with various methods of coordinating speech and gesture, elaborate poetical patterns, and effective stage situations to create a poetic tragedy capable of...