Re-editing Non-Shakespeare for the Modern Reader: The Murder of Mutius in Titus Andronicus

Abstract

It has long been suspected that Titus Andronicus is a co-authored play, though it has never been edited as one. A century and more of attribution scholarship has determined that George Peele is the author of the long opening scene of the play, but no recent editor of the play has treated the issue of co-authorship seriously and edited the opening scene with Peelean, rather than Shakespearean, parallels in mind. However, all editors of the play must confront the many difficult editorial cruces in the scene, not least those involving staging. One particularly troublesome passage involves Titus’s killing of his son, Mutius. Building upon evidence for Peele’s authorship of the opening scene, Brian Boyd proposed that this murder was a late addition by Peele after Shakespeare had written the rest of the play. This essay challenges Boyd’s late addition theory, offers new evidence about Shakespeare’s light revision of the opening scene, and provides an account about how these issues impact upon editorial decision-making.