Warning: this play by Shakespeare may include violence

CAMBRIDGE University academics have hit out at “trigger warnings” after students were warned that Shakespeare’s plays contain potentially distressing topics.

English literature undergraduates had been advised that a lecture which focuses on Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and The Comedy of Errors would include “discussions of sexual violence” and “sexual assault”.

The trigger warnings were published in the English Faculty’s “Notes on Lectures” document, which is circulated to students.

Gill Evans, emeritus professor of medieval theology and intellectual history at Cambridge University, said that the move would leave academics “very annoyed”. She said it was “likely to be motivated by a genuine wish not to risk upsetting students” but added that it is part of a trend to appease today’s “hyper-sensitive” students.

“Obviously one would not want to be heartless. But you’ve got to learn to be a bit resilient,” she said. “Trigger warnings” were printed alongside the description of at least one English literature lecture and one seminar due to take place this term.

One was a lecture on “Violence”, focusing particularly on Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and Titus Andronicus and Sarah Kane’s Blasted.

Another seminar titled “Inhibiting the Body” carried a warning about discussions of “sexually explicit scenes” and “sexual assault” and was based on Euripides’ Hippolytus and The Bacchae and Sarah Kane’s Phaedra’s Love.

Dr David Crilly, the artistic director at The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, said: “If a student of English Literature doesn’t know that Titus Andronicus contains scenes of violence they shouldn’t be on the course. This degree of sensitivity will inevitably curtail academic freedom.”

Cambridge is the latest of universities to issue trigger warnings to students. The University of Glasgow alerted theology students that they may see distressing images of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ and gave them the opportunity to leave the room.