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Between Pages and Stages:The Banquet Scene in Titus Andronicus

大学院英文学専攻課程協議会　第40回研究発表会
発表要旨

Between Pages and Stages:
The Banquet Scene in Titus Andronicus

Takuo Yoneda

In Act 3 Scene 2, the miserable Andronici sit around a banquet table: one-handed Titus, Marcus, tongue-cut Lavinia and a boy (young Lucius). Titus laments for his own and his family’s fate, especially for Lavinia’s. On the dismal banquet table, Marcus suddenly tries to kill a fly. Titus is taken aback and reprehends his brother’s brutish deed. Marcus offers an excuse that the fly reminded him of “a coal-black Moor.” Convinced of his excuse, one-handed Titus awkwardly and furiously starts to attack the fly with his knife.

This memorable scene, however, doesn’t appear in all of Quarto versions: Q1 (1594), Q2 (1600) and Q3 (1611). After the author’s death, this scene firstly appeared in F1 (1623). Then, inevitable questions arise. Was this scene accidentally dropped from the Quartos? Did someone, or perhaps Shakespeare himself, intentionally delete from, or add to, foul papers?

In Imagining Shakespeare, Stephen Orgel says that plays exist through “the tension between text and performance.” I agree with him. In this case, the scene exists in the tension between text’s’ and performance, i.e. between pages and stages. Where did this scene appear or disappear in the course of the play making? This scene introduces some tension into the play not only dramatically but also dramaturgically.

Titus Andronicus has many problems in the texts other than this example. I want to discuss those textual problems in terms of performance, focusing on the banquet scene.

※私は、本論を英語で発表いたしますが、プロジェクターやハンドアウトを有効に利用し、聴衆に分かりやすいものにするように心がけたいと思っております。

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