Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus." Black comedy for a dark era.

The most successful of Shakespeare's plays during his time and, in modern day, the most dismissed and controversial, "Titus Andronicus" provides its audience with an intimate and powerfully shocking view of what was considered humorous in the Elizabethan age. Shakespeare use of humour in this play depicts how the people of this violent time dealt with the day-to-day tragedy of living. During the Elizabethan age, people were well accustomed to public executions, beheadings at the …

…Elizabethan audiences because it so accurately mirrored their reality and understanding of violence and need for humour in their world. "Titus Andronicus" is a depiction of a world that is not so far removed from the realities of Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." Why then is it that we are appalled by the violence in the former but entertained by it in the latter. Perhaps because "Titus Andronicus" was written by Shakespeare and "Pulp Fiction" was not?