The Cook and the Cannibal: Titus Andronicus and the New World.

CANNIBALISM in literature; TITUS Andronicus (Play : Shakespeare); ENGLISH discovery of America; GRECO-Roman civilization; CLASSICAL drama (Tragedy); ENGLISH drama (Tragedy); ELIZABETHAN (Literary period); 17TH century (Literary period)

The article analyzes concepts of cannibalism in the play "Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare. Lore about the New World was rife with tales of cannibalism. The author identifies two different concepts of the eating of human flesh, one called cannibalism and the other anthropophagy. Anthropophagy is a concept linked with Greco-Roman tragedy and emphasizes the physical act of eating. Representations of New World cannibalism from the time focus on the spectacle of dismemberment and cooking, which displace the actual eating in historic accounts. It notes that in "Titus Andronicus," both kinds of flesh-eating are portrayed and provide a mechanism for mutual debasement of victims and victors yielding no sustenance and thus revealing inhumanity.