** spoiler alert ** Perfect until the last few lines. I'd put this as Shakespeare's fourth best tragedy: 1) Hamlet 2) King Lear 3) Othello 4) Coriolanus 5) Julius Caesar 6) Macbeth 7) Antony & Cleopatra. Of course, if it had been written by anyone else we would recognize its greatness, but, as it is by the greatest writer in history, it is overshadowed and goes unread.

It is commonly said that Coriolanus is a classical (rather than Renaissance) tragic figure, and that his hamartia is hubris. But that is precisely the opposite of the problem. Nor is it that he is wrathful! This is the difficulty, the complication that Shakespeare gives us to chew on: it is Coriolanus' mercy that leads to his death; it is his compassion, his love for his family that stays his hand from destroying Rome and thereby leading to his murder. It is far more interesting than a simple "pride before the fall" story. In fact, this is closer to what Julius Caesar should have been, had Shakespeare not focused on Brutus (which should have been the real name of the play) over Julius Caesar. Coriolanus, like Julius Caesar, has mercy on his enemies and does not destroy them when he has the chance, and they both end up publicly stabbed to death by dozens of conspirators.

So, it is morally problematic. It raises the question, "is it better to die honorably or conquer dishonorably?" Or, more precisely, "is it better to die having done the right thing or reign having reached the throne wading through your enemies' blood?"

The first scene of the play is legendary:

"MENENIUS
There was a time when all the body's members
Rebell'd against the belly, thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive,
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
Like labour with the rest, where the other instruments
Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
And, mutually participate, did minister
Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body. The belly answer'd--
First Citizen
Well, sir, what answer made the belly?
MENENIUS
Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,
Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus--
For, look you, I may make the belly smile
As well as speak--it tauntingly replied
To the discontented members, the mutinous parts
That envied his receipt; even so most fitly
As you malign our senators for that
They are not such as you.
First Citizen
Your belly's answer? What!
The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,
The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,
Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter.
With other muniments and petty helps
In this our fabric, if that they--
MENENIUS
What then?
'Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? what then?
First Citizen
Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,
Who is the sink o' the body,--
MENENIUS
Well, what then?
First Citizen
The former agents, if they did complain,
What could the belly answer?
MENENIUS
I will tell you
If you'll bestow a small--of what you have little--
Patience awhile, you'll hear the belly's answer.
First Citizen
Ye're long about it.
MENENIUS
Note me this, good friend;
Your most grave belly was deliberate,
Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd:
'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he,
'That I receive the general food at first,
Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
Because I am the store-house and the shop
Of the whole body: but, if you do remember,
I send it through the rivers of your blood,
Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain;
And, through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves and small inferior veins
From me receive that natural competency
Whereby they live: and though that all at once,
You, my good friends,'--this says the belly, mark me,--
First Citizen
Ay, sir; well, well.
MENENIUS
'Though all at once cannot
See what I do deliver out to each,
Yet I can make my audit up, that all
From me do back receive the flour of all,
And leave me but the bran.' What say you to't?
First Citizen
It was an answer: how apply you this?
MENENIUS
The senators of Rome are this good belly,
And you the mutinous members; for examine
Their counsels and their cares, digest things rightly
Touching the weal o' the common, you shall find
No public benefit which you receive
But it proceeds or comes from them to you
And no way from yourselves. What do you think,
You, the great toe of this assembly?
First Citizen
I the great toe! why the great toe?
MENENIUS
For that, being one o' the lowest, basest, poorest,
Of this most wise rebellion, thou go'st foremost:"

As you can see, this play is, among other things, an apologia for the aristocracy. So I think the play's unpopularity in our time may have something to do with its ambivalence about democracy and freedom. It is an inescapably right-wing work (which may be why Eliot preferred it to Hamlet).

Coriolanus starts as a kind of John McCain figure or a McChrystal: he is a war hero who tells it like it is, who refuses to play the political head-games and "sell out," and for that the fickle "monster of the multitude." And this is how Shakespeare wins us sympathy--who can stomach the self-promotion, the advertising required for political success? It's no wonder we don't have good politicians when to get elected requires you sell your soul. Indeed, this is Shakespeare's most political play; while politics is in the background for so many of his plays, this is the one most "about" politics and man as a political animal. Hamlet is not about Danish customs of succession; King Lear is also not "about" succession; Coriolanus is largely (to be frank) borderline-fascistic: it portrays the honest truth (the only honest truth fascists have) that most people are stupid, don't know what they want, and change their minds a lot because they never think deeply in the first place. Coriolanus (and fascists) ask, "do you really want THESE people voting?" It is no surprise that Coriolanus is the only Shakespeare play ever to be banned or censored in a DEMOCRACY.

Volumnia, Coriolanus' mother, is one of the most interesting women in all of Shakespeare. In the early parts of the play, she is more bloodthirsty than any of the men and praises warfare, conquest, and loves nothing better than toughness in her men, including her son. But we last see her entering Rome in triumph at having brought peace with her tears, having interceded on behalf of the city with Coriolanus. No one could persuade him not to burn the city but his mother--the very person from whom he got his warrior-ethic, his worship of strength. This woman, the Romans say, should have a statue built in her honor, yet (here's the rub), it is her achievement [worth of consuls, senators, patricians, A city full; of tribunes, such as you, A sea and land full.":] that kills her son. She saves her city and kills her son, which was just what she was trying to prevent: " for either thou
Must, as a foreign recreant, be led
With manacles thorough our streets, or else
triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin,
And bear the palm for having bravely shed
Thy wife and children's blood."

This is the work of a master craftsman, a thing to behold.

I also like (for personal reasons) the reference to Coriolanus being cranky when he's hungry:

MENENIUS

I'll undertake 't:
I think he'll hear me. Yet, to bite his lip
And hum at good Cominius, much unhearts me.
He was not taken well; he had not dined:
The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then
We pout upon the morning, are unapt
To give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd
These and these conveyances of our blood
With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
Than in our priest-like fasts: therefore I'll watch him
Till he be dieted to my request,
And then I'll set upon him.

As for the flawed ending, it is completely false. The Volsces murder Coriolanus, and before the blood has even dried, feel sorry for him. This just wouldn't happen, and it actually makes the play less dark than it ought to be. If I had written it (vanity alert), I'd have had the Volsces, who are earlier portrayed as ungrateful scum, triumph at the end and celebrate. It would turn the stomach far more than having them immediately repent and carry out the body in honor. But as for the other 3000 lines, they are worthy of no one less than Shakespeare, that pinnacle human literary achievement.