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Coriolanus
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Candy
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Jun 07, 2012 06:11PM
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http://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers...
Here is an example of the thoughtful article:
Like symbols of language, economic images in Coriolanus chiefly represent internal, psychological concerns about self-evaluation. The play presents two basic models of economic activity. One is that of aristocratic hoarding: “storehouses cramm’d with grain” (I.1.79-80). The other is that of free trade in an open market. For example, much of the stage business of the play consists in Coriolanus going to and from “the marketplace31”. Menenius and Volumnia convince him to go there only much against his wishes, and, when what he calls the “price o’ th’ consulship” proves too high, he leaves it in a huff (II.3.74). He does not want to submit his goods to independent evaluation; he has a certain “price” in mind a priori, and he wants the market to bend to it. It is no accident therefore that the plebeians are referred to in contrast as “trades” (III.2.134, IV.1.13). Theirs is a tacit bargain, like that of a “marketplace”: I will honor you, if you will honor me. I will allow you to connect to me, if you will allow me to connect to you. Through healthy narcissistic transference, the burden of attaining the ideal is distributed and eased. Shakespeare shows this as an idyllic state of affairs. People acknowledge each other; each participant, “citizen”, or “neighbor” knows and is known; praises and is praised. After Coriolanus is banished, the tribune Sicinius rejoices to see “tradesmen singing in their shops and going / About their functions friendly” (IV.6.8-9). Coriolanus in contrast balks at the idea of participating in a “commonwealth” of mutually-reinforced self-esteem
It's complicated --- it's all tied in with the fact that the Roman Forum is referred to in North's translation as the marketplace (I don't think "Forum" is used in North, which is probably why S uses "Capitol" -- "marketplace" lacks the right sense of dignity.)Compare this is North,
They say that Castor and Pollux appeared in this battle, and how, incontinently after the battle, men saw them in the market-place at Rome, all their horses being on a white foam.
with the 19th century version I read,
This was the battle in which they say that the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, appeared, and immediately after the battle were soon in the Forum at Rome announcing the victory, with their horses dripping with sweat.
Martin, sent the dvd off yesterday morning.Candy, fascinating about trade and values. Wasn't any association with trade despised besides manual occupations being viewed as beneath contempt? Coriolanus refuses to 'sell himself' (I hate the modern trend for having to do that on application forms!)
The fight between Anf. and 'Martius' is intriguing, with that unwanted help for Anf. from his henchman which he bitterly resents and knows demeans him. 'Martius' beats all of them off.
Just read the scene between Cominus and now Coriolanus. Coriolanus is becomngly disconcerted by praise, even to the point of ungraciousness towards his superior officer, Cominus shows his complete contempt for the tribunes and the plebs.
Mod
I am saving the DVD but I am looking forward to seeing this switching out...
(Jessie, thanks for dvd, which has arrived.)
Martin, I should be thanking you! In Act Two Candy and Everyone, what did you make of Menenius' insults the tribunes? Is it meant to reveal them as craven and slow witted, if crafty? ? They really don't seem to have any argument in return apart from some vague talk about Menenius being 'Well known'.
Menenius seems to work himself up, or maybe it is intended as entertainment, a bit like when Lafeu insults Parolles in 'All's Well'. At least Parolles was outraged, which added to the fun,but the inability of the tribunes to have any real bluster detracts from any fun. Perhaps it's meant to show the tribunes being turned further against Coriolanus by Menenius going over the top?
In the BBC version, they were really craven, continuing to eat greedily as he insulted them (presumably they set this in Menenius' house).
I thought Coriolanus was sympathetic when greeting his mother,his 'gracious silence'(with such a mother-in-law, is it any wonder?) and Valeria. It is a shame he doesn't have more scenes were he acts like this; -"Ah, my dear...'
In the next scene, I assume the Second Officer is menat to be giving the audience a balanced view of Coriolanus?; - 'For Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in their disposition, and out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly see't.'
Mod
Menenius seems to give us an argument (if this play is like a lot of literature, classical it is an essay, or a possible argument...if one approaches literature in a traditional manner)
Menenius says two things. One that the Roman country is one large whole energy/fortress:
"Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them
Against the Roman state, whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder than can ever
Appear in your impediment. "
Then he gives the metaphor of the stomach trying to take over the body...within a kind of "urban myth" or folktale...about the body...
"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--"
In a traditional sense of reading, i am seeing an argument presented, and then it being portrayed as also other body parts and functions. The idea that a group of people or (a country, nation, tribe, sports team) is one body. We see a blame pushed upon the general population as the stomach...and then now we are seeing "the head" s being a force too. When the "body" works as separate forces the body is not healthy and holistic. The argument presented that a state or country might have to be cooperative and careful for all its parts and not self centered on its own functions (and needs?)
I am only at the end of Act 1, but this is the driving force I am seeing so far in the set up of the action...not much but it is capturing my attention.
And also, for the second time in a group reading I am remembering a Norman O. Brown work...this time, "Love's Body". A sort of out-of-fashion 1966 essay on this idea of the state as a living body. (I am wondering if he references this play in that work, its been 20 years since i read it so I simpy don't remember that aspect)
Does anyone else have one of these pathologies to do with self-effacement, that make you cringe with Coriolanus when he is getting too much attention? I got too much attention once (not in fighting. Pity) and I was as embarrassed as he is, and that slid into anger – genuine anger, a sort of outrage. It's peculiar but he's not putting any of this on.And – this is a question – has his heroism softened you towards him? Does that not work on people? Was that assumed back when, that the audience join in a little of the love of the army for Coriolanus? --Not to mention his care for the poor resident of Corioles who used him kindly. (Then he forgets his name: a real touch, like Aufidius fumbling for his papers, that Martin admired?) His commander certainly knows this trait in him, but onlookers won't fully understand it, and Cominius ought to have known his moves disastrous for this peculiar soldier he's got. Cominius' exasperation comes out: he's tempted to put him in manacles.
Beginning to like the Oxford notes. Of a flustered, blustering Coriolanus in 1.10, “Again, Martius' incoherence when in the grip of strong emotion”. Of Menenius to the tribunes, at his bisson conspectuities (one of his nonce-words, I'm glad to see), “Perhaps he is a little tipsy in this scene”.
And when his friends count up his wounds – and for a purpose, for this publicity stunt he has to undergo – that's repulsive. It makes me share Coriolanus' attitude to this wounds-exhibition, the first I hear of it. -Me, I'd follow First Citizen into a revolution; but I hate what Coriolanus is required to do, as much as he does.
In the tribunes' plotting we start to see how easily Coriolanus is worked against – like the sheep he is oddly called. As easily as that. He's so unfitted for politics it's not funny.
The lines Jessie quotes, neither to care whether they love or hate him: I see this as true of popularity – class issues quite aside. Stupid, herd-instinct popularity: he refuses to court it, and bully for him.
We have to keep in mind he doesn't even want to be consul.
Again, the citizens themselves are generous, and indeed civic-minded. It's the manipulators of the people who are faulted.
To go back to Jessie's point, I think there are a range of possible interpretations for Menenius, from the genial and disinterested elder statesman, to the bigoted schemer. What we make of him depends on the stage realisation. The BBC version, I note (watching parts of it again after it came back from Jessie), makes substantial cuts in the text, and in paticular removes many lines that that make Menenius appear partisan -- his insults to 1st citizen in 1.1 for example. Joss Ackland (great actor!) then gives us a Menenius of generous good sense. With a different director he might have been encouraged to add a bit of Chuck De Nomolos craziness.In 1.2, the Tribunes are surely just refusing to be drawn into a pointless argument, and so make neutral remarks ("Well, well, sir, well"). Menenius' rancour therefore increases.
I find Coriolanus has been described as S's most political play. Actually I don't think it is. I think the reader/viewer is drawn to these political considerations because of our lack of interest in the central tragic hero, relative to the interest we take in the characters of Hamlet, Cleopatra, Macbeth and the rest. Again (Granville-Barker) it has been described as showing a weakening of S's powers, and I don't see that either. Surely S's intention was to create a different kind of tragedy.
I think of it as a soldier's tragedy - over and above the politics. In fact for me the politics are there to set our soldier against, contrast him with. It's his most military play, no? Soldiers: loved at war, hated at home. Old story. It includes satire of militarism of course, along with a straight soldierly heroics I can't think of elsewhere in Sh. Women and the military. The notorious politics of soldiers. It covers the issues.
Mod
Oh gosh, YES! I feel like an idiot for not seeing this on my own. So true Bryn. And one of the reasons I value these reads with this group. The insights and wisdom of other readers is so inspiring!
I am seeing that I feel as Martin, that it might be a terrible mistake for me to believe this is a political play.
In some ways I think it may be now I am seeing it as a brother play to Timon. These could be plays that Shakespeare is experimenting with how to live as a leader, as a public servant. I believe they are probably criticisms underneath, of Elizabeth (but then, I always feel this don't i?)
Anyways...as usual, I feel like I am reading this play for the first time. How does that happen...something is so mutable and profound in S that I always feel there is something new.
Martin said..."Surely S's intention was to create a different kind of tragedy. "
Yes, I think this is true. And...also Coriolanus and Timon are his last tragedies. Again, I feel he stopped writing tragedies because Elizabeth was gone, and he had the hope of King James and he became lighter hearted, and/or let go of his sense of responsibility as an artist to analyse the government.
But...anyways back to the text of Coriolanus for me, sorry to ramble broadly...
It's been the best part of Goodreads (in my six months here): group reads with Shakespeare Fans. I don't know Timon well - now I feel the need to go watch the BBC at least
Great notes above Bryn. And yes, with Candy, Jessie and Bryn, the best place to be in goodreads. (I wish we had a few more blokes though ...)Despite the leisurely pace, I find I'm slipping behind in the read.
The wound counting is strange, as if in the primitive society it corresponds to exam results and University degrees valued by our age,
He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i' the body.
MENENIUS: One i' the neck, and two i' the thigh,--there's nine that I know.
VOLUMNIA: He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him.
MENENIUS: Now it's twenty-seven ...
There are severeal refences to Tarquin in the play. (After the expulsion of the Tarquins, the King tried to recapture Rome with force, but was repulsed.) A reference back to Lucrece, perhaps?
The name Junius Brutus of one of the tribunes is a bit of a puzzle. I don't imagine S identified this one with the heroic Junius Brutus who expelled Tarquin in Lucrece, though clearly from the same family. (The earlier Brutus became consul, and you didn't go on from a consul to become a tribune.) I remember in Livy the tribunes are not named. The name occurs in Plutarch.
Mod
I am getting behind too here and there...but bear with me. I am really into this. My sad excuses are that I was working doubles last week or so...plus my sis-in-law is getting married this weekend so I'm juggling. I did however manage to buy a second hand bike ( I wrote about getting my bike here http://gnosticminx.blogspot.com/2012/...)
So I have this week off from work but am trying to juggle reading, with bike excursions...but my heart is here even if I am not saying too much.
I love the wound counting. there are always strange obsessions with numbers in Shakespeare. What is that I wonder? I believe it is a format for memory exercises...but that is another story for another day right? I also think the structure of using a tribune in a story could also help with memory, and memorizing complex sets of dialogues and soliloquies.
Meanwhile..I found this video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXoh6v...
Hey, I'm slipping behind a bit too, excuses of various sorts,none as excellent as double shifts, fill in whatever seems best out of: - 'persecuted by wizard' 'turned into a dungbeetle' or 'forgot how to read for a few days'...Martin, re; Menenius, and interpretations, that is interesting, because it seemed to me pure foolishness to make the already hostile tribunes more hostile to Coriolanus by insulting them so excessively. Accusing him of having every sort of fault wasn't fair, but their accusation of pride was quite true, and Menenius would have done better to try and reconcile them to him by admitting it.
But in the BBC version, for them to remain at the table after being so insulted does seem mean spirited, or anyway, unassertive...Are they passive/aggressive?
I enjoyed the scene with Coriolanus being sarcastic and the reactions of the plebians, I assume it was meant to be comic?
Apropos the play being political or not, I suppose it's hard to know how far Shakespeare intended that, overtly political stuff must have been far too dodgy in that age when you consider how repressive was the state, when Kidd actually later died from the torture he got from having 'an atheistic pamphlet' in his rooms (which may perhaps have been left by Christopher Marlowe).
Martin made an interesting comment on the BBC Coriolanus thread suggesting that Shakespeare might have been interested in democracy. I had assumed it would not be an idea to which his age could relate but I could be wrong there. Or perhaps they had a concept of democracy on the lines of 'more equal than others'as in the democracy of Ancient Greece, precluding women and slaves?
Candy, yes that counting of wounds is bizarre.
I'll be spending a week at an internet-free zone, so will catch up with you guys later ...
Mod
MENENIUS
I know you can do very little alone; for your helps
are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous
single: your abilities are too infant-like for
doing much alone. You talk of pride: O that you
could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks,
and make but an interior survey of your good selves!
O that you could!
and wow:
I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that
loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying
Tiber in't; said to be something imperfect in
favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like
upon too trivial motion; one that converses more
with the buttock of the night than with the forehead
of the morning:
Hello again, Candy and everyone. Menenius is very loyal to Coroialanus, for sure, and he does try and calm him down when he loses his temper after hearing the 'rabble' have gone back on their word to elect him consul. But I don't think he does him any favours with the tribunes by ripping their own characters to shreds; still, I sometimes wonder if it wasn't Shakespeare's way of illustrating someone's character from an 'objective' source besides raising a laugh, ie Lafeu tearing into Parolles. Sometimes Menenius can seemm to be a bit arrogant (as later, when he thinks that if he can't get round Coriolanus, the women stand no chance).
Well, read Act 111. Coriolanus falls into the tribunes' mean trap like a good 'un, with in another outburst about 'Hydra' and the 'mutable, rank-scented meinie'fears of anarchy and disgust with the base masses 'the crows to peck the eagles'.
A lot of his disgust with the masses seems to be physical revulsion because he thinks they don't wash often enough, perhaps he should have funded a public bath house?
He seems to have a lower opinion of them through their 'mutiinies and revolts' in the wars.
Menenius here is soothing to no avail, which I find an interesting contrast with his own outburst in the previous act against the characters of the tribunes, but perhaps that was controlled, whereas Coriolanus is meant to be so furious he starts a brawl.
I had to laugh at 'Hence, old goat!' I can't remember if at this point in the BBC version Coriolanus was outraged when the tribunes try to 'arrest' him, and the scuffle broke out. Cominus says the same thing more politely, 'Aged sir, hands off'.
Interestingly, Shakespeare's directions (I assume, his? It isn't clear from the text) specifies 'Enter
a rabble of plebians with the Aediles.' Their being 'rabble' seems to be insisted on.
The wish of the tribunes to have Coriolanus thrown from the Tarpeian rock seems a wildly extreme punishment and to have nothing to do with justice and be incredibly short sighted besides, a bit like sacrificing your Queen in chess?
Mod
Mod
And like other reads...finding differnt/new ways to use a word. Sometimes I haven't understood what I've read like Menenius "I will make my house reel ronight"
Oh get drunk stagger..reel!
Lockram...linen.
I like Brutus here and how women will wear their richest linen=lockram and risk sunburns to see the pagentry or confrontation....
"To win a vulgar station (rubbernecking?)Our veiled dames commit the war of white and damask in their niely gaurded cheeks to the wanton spoil of Phoebus burning kisses-such a pother"
And later...this usage "the napless vesture of humility" I had to think about that one for a while. Napless would be smooth...the idea that umility is easy, smooth, not rough or jarring...not against a grain.
Cominus makes another example of the body used in this play
"make a head for Rome, he fought beyond the mark of others. Our then dictator whom we all praise I point at saw him fight when with his Amazonian chin he drove the bristled lips before him. ..."
I think what is a hot term in this play is the term "common body". I think this idea that a town opposed, of leaders and citizens opposed is like a body split apart. I believe the term "common body" is key here that the best citizens and community is common. The metphor of the stomach ruling the body, then the counting of wounds...and more indicate this polarity between happiness and peace and the body....over and over again.
....
And I return the complement, Candy! Fascinating insights. Lol about your losing 'Coriolanus' 'on public transit' (he won't like that, too many of the common rabblement near to hand).Menenius is intriguing; your comments about him and vocabulary, particularly. It is interesting the way he sometimes abrasive to the tribunes, sometimes concilatory; Shakespeare's main characters give me the impression of being cohesive (with possibly Hamlet as an exception), I wonder if his minor ones were less so? (for instance, Casca in 'Julius Ceasar' seems to act in a contradictory way, as I remember, though I may well be mistaken here.)
Coriolanus' hot temper and abuse of both the commoners and the tribunes struck me as funny,but I don't know if its meant to be.
I suppose the body metaphor was really solidly rooted in political concepts for centuries?Menenius: 'Oh, he's a limb that has but a disease: mortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.'
Voluminia doesn't seem to think it particularly dreadful for him to play a humble part 'Thy knee bussing tht stones...humble as the ripest mulberry..
Perform a part thou hast not done before'.
And poor Coriolanus does try to behave 'mildly' though he says before, 'Let them accuse me by invention'.
Sicinius says, 'Answer to us' and he says, 'Say then: 'tis true; I ought so' but it only needs the abuse 'traitor' to be hurled at him for him to forget his promises altogether, despite Menenius' plea. 'You common cry of curs!'
Mod
I think there is an inversion of central characters and for es in this play. In some ways the characters of Coriolanus and Volumnia are rather small seeming compared to Menenius.
This queen is one of the sickest ones I remember. I feel she would be labeled a control freak in todays jargon. Shakespeare has really nailed an evil mother and unhealthy family and culture.
There is some kind of terrible power and sickness in this family. I now see that the references to breast milk are part ironic and part tragic. As breast milk is nourishment...we see that the human being needs more than physical nourishment. As do the citizens of the country under Coriolanus. they need grain and food but they also need emotional and leadership nourishment.
the corelation between the basic duty of a mother to provide protein and food for a child with leaderships doing duty for distributing goods is beyond brilliant in this play.
We do not live on food alone (bread alone?). We need other layers of caring and nourishment to become well adjusted rounded humans.
I think the idea of masculine power is totally revealed to be a ploy of a matriarchy here. The womans power is so bound up in mental powers and emotional powers over men (rather than brute strength) her control is absolute. To raise a boy as a soldier and only focus on his worth as a warrior is a kind of sadistic female slave game.
Volumnia is a powerful female role model of matriarchy's fascist aspect. She is the very worst part of Matriarchy as an economic and social construct. she is the counter part of our worst feminist and contemporary fears about Patriarchy.
"Better that now it lies on you to speak to the people, not by your own instruction, nor by the matter which your heart prompts yo. But with such words that are but roted in your tongue, though but bastards and syllables of no allowance to your boson's truth."
In some ways we see Volumnia's talents with the "double bind"...a terribly damaging strategy of control.
This is such an evil queen!
I don't feel so much sorry for Coriolanus as I do a kind of distant compassion because he never had a chance to be a true healthy temperate leader. he was a pawn for politics and for a sadistic woman who was powermad. She utterly owns him and the country.
I haven't read past Act 4...but will be reading that final set of scenes later today.
and here is a wki note about "the double bind"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind
Candy wrote: "...To raise a boy as a soldier and only focus on his worth as a warrior is a kind of sadistic female slave game..."Wowee, I like that sentence, Candy.
I think you're onto a hell of a lot in this post. Drags me back to the play, I've been remiss.
(Me, I'm sorry-as for Coriolanus)
Fascinating, Candy, particularly those metaphors. Part of the problem with Voluminia is clearly that it being a patriarchal culture, Voluminia herself is debarred from any power except such as she wields through her male family members; thus, she, who obviously was ideally suited to being a warrior herself, is living out her violent fantasy life as a soldier and of political power through Coriolanus. Sublimating people are menaces. Virgilia is so much less dominant, for whatever reason, that she is satisfied with her bland role as an appendage of Coriolanus and his fame.
I got my act together and read Acts 3-5 today. That means tomorrow I'm allowed to dip into the Oxford introduction.
The Oxford intro's take on Coriolanus as tragedy (R.B. Parker):"Rome's weakness is traced not to later degeneration and vice... but to the very characteristics that made Rome great."
"a feeling of inevitability [from] social and psychological conditioning"
"its insight into the mutual influence of psychology and politics"
and this line of thought winds up: "the way that family relationships shape individual identity, and the dependence of those relationships in their turn on the wider values and expectations of society... [leads to] the tragic question of whether there can ever be such things as human freedom or 'individuality'".
"What is on trial is the Roman way of life itself."
Rome made his mother; his mother made him. He sees mother as "as much the victim as the agent of the Roman emphasis on virtus"
Very worthwhile intro
The Tragedy of Coriolanus
That is so true, Bryn. I am interested in Candy's comments on Menenius particularly, and his language; I am not particularly fond of him myself (except in so far as I do like loyal people), but can see that in comparison, for instance, Coriolanus is drawn with wide brush strokes generally.
Aufidius' love hate relationship with Coriolanus is fascinating and I was struck by the interpretation - fairly lovestruck - of that Shakespearean actor in the BBC version, what was his name, Tim something.
He does seem to go from magnaminious sympathy with Corioalnus' plight to scheming very quickly. For sure, it is sadly in line with human nature that he might, but it is a pity it doesn't receive more attention. I suppose Shakespeare is always economical with motivation etc, it's there, but not hammered out in italics as in modern writing.
Again, Coriolanus' about face from totally honourable to being prepared to join forces with Rome's enemies and even raze the city is abrupt. I suppose his character makes this inevitable?
I've got a prosaic query here - obviously, if he took his family with him, that would hinder the plot where they have to plead for Rome - but surely it would have been the natural thing to do? Why does he leave them in a place he decides to attack? Even before that, why wouldn't he bring them with him to his 'country house' (whereever that was)and friends possibly on an extended visit? Didn't the law allow this?
I can't believe he really means them to be slaughtered, which would make him into a complete monster? Surely, he would give instructions against that. It is hard to say where hyperbole begins and what is implied ends in this play.
I have only read half of Shakespeare's source in North so far, I believe he didin't mention Coriolanus intending to have Rome set light.
Now re-read up to Act V, Scene 11, the meeting between Coriolanus and his family; last time I thought Voluminia's speeches too long compared to those of the others (to make a dreadful joke, she's voluable).
I felt a bit for everyone, Coriolanus particularly over the mean plot and cowwardly behaviour, Virgilia for being separated from him, Voluminia to some extent in her baffled disappointment at the catastrophe, Cominius and Menenius in their humiliation and Aufidius in his torn feelings.
Hoewver, this does seem to be limited, I suppose it has somethig to do with the structure of the play, the way the characters are depicted, etc. Epic?
Candy, this is off topic but how is it arranged for the discussion of All's Well (I think you said, September)? Looking forward to that, my favourite play, as I am sure Martin is well aware after that long long discussion on motivation, etc.
Off for stay in Nottingham for few days. I hope to finish Act IV asap, back Tuesday.
Hi, I'd have posted sooner, but illness followed the holiday ...I am reading this play without notes, and find the maddening obscurity of S's late style retards progress. This for example,
. . . No, take more:
What may be sworn by, both divine and human,
Seal what I end withal! This double worship,
Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
Insult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom,
Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
Of general ignorance,--it must omit
Real necessities, and give way the while
To unstable slightness . . .
Is anyone else finding it a tough read?
On the play as a whole, and the excellent notes above, there is so much to say .... but a couple of points:
I see Jessica is searching for character consistency and motive, but I think S is (as usual) deliberately withholding them. In S's sources, Coriolanus' program is fairly evident: in Livy his plan is to withhold a grain dole in time of need unless the plebs give up their rights in the state. As Livy bluntly puts it, the people had to choose between slavery or starvation. In S, Coriolanus merely expresses undemocratic opinions. Where they come from or what he would do as consul we are not told. Menenius may be a contradictory fellow, but as we get to know him we understand him. He is like an eccentric schoolmaster, seen as a "character" by the boys under his charge. Coriolanus hides nothing, he always says what he thinks -- "his heart is his mouth" as Menenius says. But do we therefore get to know him? I think not. Jonathan Bate makes the perceptive observation that by not explaining motive (Leontes' jealousy or Macbeth's ambition for example) we concentrate more on the emotions the characters exemplify.
The other point is the way we are shown Roman history. The Coriolanus story is an early story, partly legendary, which comes to us through the eyes of the late republic/early empire. I think S understood this well. For example, the plebs don't relish fighting. But S must have known that in the early republic all armies were made up by the people volunteering. The men under Coriolanus' command would have been the same as the men he found down at the Forum/marketplace. The "professional" army only came in later, after 100BC. S, I think, is mixing elements of early Rome with later Rome. But more important I think is that the play equally addresses the Tudor/Jacobean world (as Candy suspects).
So in Tudor times, talking against the monarch was treason and enough to get you executed. But suppose sovereignty lay with the people. Then talking against them was treason. I think this is the idea S is exploring.
Would the tribunes have had the power to demand execution? I think not, but an attempt to overthrow the state could lead to execution -- Catiline for example.
Another point of Jessica's: Coriolanus in exile not taking his family would have been normal. (Cicero in exile left his family behind.) Exile seems easy to us, compared with execution, but to a Roman it was seen as a terrible punishment. The children needed the chance to be part of the Roman state, so an exiled father would naturally leave them behind.
SICINIUS: Have you a catalogueOf all the voices that we have procured
Set down by the poll?
AEdile: I have; 'tis ready.
SICINIUS: Have you collected them by tribes?
AEdile: I have.
-- I got so excited when I read this. It shows he real depth of S's understanding of the Roman system. The point would surely have been lost on S's original audience, as it is on a general audience today. I put a note about it in "Rome for dummies".
Back from Nottingham. Truly horrendous journey from Birmingham (she whinged). Didn't get time to finish re-reading Coriolanus in Nottingham - but will get down to it now. Think what should be the high point of the drama with Vol persuading Cor somehow seems to go on too long for me - not sure why, but I thought this about the scene of Lear's madness on the heath. Is this the result of the culture of hurry?Interesting point you make about the horrors of Romans becoming stateless and that being why Coriolanus didn't take his family, Martin. Also about the poll and tribes,etc, this was mentioned in a footnote and does seem intriguing...
Martin (we wondered what had become of you) - I want to study further this incoherence of speech that he seems to use often in this one. Particularly after what my Oxford intro has to say on this inability to order thoughts, or disorderly emotion. Quotes from R.B. Parker The Tragedy of Coriolanus: Coriolanus "has several examples of such grammatical confusion. The obscurity of his lines... 1.10.42-7, for instance, conveys the incoherence of his indignation... The way language fails him is explicit at 2.3.47-9; and at 3.3.89-91 his anger overrides grammar." Aufidius at 1.11.17-27 has a similar "irregularity" from "mental confusion." Both "creating a choked, passionate effect in the sentence structure... with a driven sense of energy, resolutely pushing to get through despite grammatical obscurities... the way [Coriolanus] seems to fight his way through language in such speeches as 3.1.69-77 or 3.3.121ff... Such 'driven' syntax contrasts strikingly with the Ciceronic... public style of Menenius and the Tribunes and... Volumnia."
Aside from these clumsily-spoken soliders he talks about the "sense of encroachment by the city" in the jampacked descriptions and an ongoing background noise, that "helps to create the impression that Coriolanus is crowded urban play, where individuality is invaded by the pressures of community and by the physical city itself: a kind of a stylistic agoraphobia."
I'm fascinated by this deliberately ugly, choppy, clumsy poetry as creation of effects and as a mental window, not to mention a way to suggest theme. Is this an experimentalism in his 'late style'?
Bryn, hi, very interesting quotes out of the Oxford edition. I think it's almost a characteristic of his late style. When we read Winter's Tale a few years back, I got the same impression of linguistic congestion, especially in the speeches of Leontes. Candy and I were both struggling. There's a nice chapter "the development of S's style" in G.B. Harrison's "Introducing Shakespeare". He marks the year 1606 as the move to this late style, the year of Lear and Macbeth. He says of Lear, "It is not so much that S uses a strange vocabulary or difficult words, as that he combines words and images to express thoughts that are in themselves almost beyond expression."I would not have said Coriolanus himself is that much more obscure than the rest, as R.B. Parker seems to be saying. Volumnia says,
If it be honour in your wars to seem
The same you are not, which, for your best ends,
You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse,
That it shall hold companionship in peace
With honour, as in war, since that to both
It stands in like request?
Her argument, I take it, being that in war you win by valour (honour) combined with strategy (policy), so you can combine strategy (as deception) with honour in peacetime too. In other words she is encouraging Coriolanus, for his own sake, to be disingenuous. The obscurity of the lines seem to demand some sort of mental paraphrase. Perhaps the point is that everyone will paraphrase slightly differently, and so discover slighty different meanings.
The tribunes, as Jessie says, are a mean-spirited pair:COMINIUS: Let me speak:
I have been consul, and can show for Rome
Her enemies' marks upon me. I do love
My country's good with a respect more tender,
More holy and profound, than mine own life,
My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase,
And treasure of my loins; then if I would
Speak that,--
SICINIUS: We know your drift: speak what?
BRUTUS: There's no more to be said, but he is banish'd,
Here they are like Menenius' description of them, a pair of narrow, provincial magistrates, cutting off a heartfelt plea because it slows down business. And here perhaps we see the structure of early 17th century England: the aristocracy, in Menenius and Cominius, the lower gentry, in Sicinius and Brutus, the artisans and tradesmen of London as the people of Rome.
You get the effect of a "crowded urban play", as Bryn says, yet it's done with the smallest of forces. 1st citizen, 2nd citizen etc are the entire people, two tribunes are their leaders, Cominius and Lartius the army command, Menenius the voice of the Senate. It would be interesting to see it acted with a minumum cast.
I think a wonderfully human touch is the tribunes' opinion of Volumnia, "they say she's mad". Also act 4 scene 3 is a delight, where two friendly men readily exchange the sort of information Aufidius gets from spies. In the next scene, Coriolanus, disguised and in the city of Antium, and for the only time in the play (?), seems to find a natural and human voice. Because he is talking to himself? Because he is disguise and can stop being himself? Because he is cut off from Rome and Volumnia?
Antium has its general and senators, just like Rome. It seems to be a reflection of Rome. But the servants we meet there are warlike enough to be candidates for the Volscan army. S doesn't give us the common Roman soldier.
Oh dear, I'm ill in bed myself now, one thing after another. Have finished the play, though, and am reading North's account.
Mod
Sorry to hear you were sick Martin...and now Jessie...get well!
Martin wrote: "Bryn, hi, very interesting quotes out of the Oxford edition. I think it's almost a characteristic of his late style...I would not have said Coriolanus himself is that much more obscure than the rest, as R.B. Parker seems to be saying."That's true!
Anyhow, if you've found this 'linguistic congestion' technique - I like that phrase of yours - you won't exercise it only on one character. (Let's do more late plays).
I invest my feelings in Coriolanus-Aufidius almost as I do in Brutus-Cassius, where I follow that friendship as the emotional lure through the play. It's tough on my sentimental side when they have a worse quarrel than Brutus and Cassius do. I have to wish they burnt Rome together and soldiered on through Italy.
Mod
When he is talking to the roman he seems so unaware of why the citizens have rejected him. He seems to not even realize he is flawed or a sad broken piece of history. In this way I felt a little sympathy for him...as I have felt a tiny bit of sympathy for Nixon. He never saw his behave
Iour as wrong or corrupt.
Oansutely love the discussion about war between the two guys. I will copy it here later when I'm not posting from my phone.
I'm assuming the play is read, looking at the reading schedule, and have been awaiting general comments ... unwilling to go first since I find Coriolanus such a puzzle. But to start things off ------ SPOILERS ---
I think none of our ideas above really help understand this play. Volumnia as psychomom fails to fit with her final role as saviour of her country, Menenius as partisan reactionary works against his genial urbanity, Coriolanus as pathological case fails to explain the love and loyalty he inspires in others.
There must be some significance in S's choice of Coriolanus out of Plutarch. After Marius and Sulla, all the Roman lives read like blueprints for writing tragedies. All of the protagonists come to violent ends, and the end, with its built up, is all-important. This is true for Sertorius, Caesar, Brutus, Antony, Cicero, Crassus, Pompey, Cato. But S didn't take one life and turn it into a tragedy. Julius Caesar is a composite tragedy for Caesar and others. Antony and Cleopatra is a double tragedy. But late in life he created from Plutarch a pure tragedy, and went back to the earliest times. Why Coriolanus? Coriolanus is perhaps the most extreme of the Romans in fighting against his native Rome with foreign troops. (Sertorius came by his Spaniards through accidents of civil war.) It also seems to carry in it all the basic themes of later Roman history: the corn dole, the struggle between the classes, the "march on Rome", civil war, sacrifice for one's country.
Early Rome is full of legends of extraordinary military achievement and personal sacrifice: Horatio at the bridge, Brutus endorsing his sons' execution, the Horatii. In composition (not of course in subject matter) David's oath of tha Horatii captures for me the world of the three V's visiting Coriolanus in his camp. Three figures on the left, a figure to their right, and background observers on the far right.
In the play, Coriolanus is the military achievement, Volumnia the sacrificer, since after Coriolanus turns away from Rome his life, in a sense, is already ended. He has nowhere to go.
But so many things about the play are strange. If Martius is martial, Aufidius is perhaps perfidious. He analyses Coriolanus like a literary critic examining the flaws of character that cause the hero's downfall,... whether 'twas pride,
Which out of daily fortune ever taints
The happy man; whether defect of judgment,
To fail in the disposing of those chances
Which he was lord of; or whether nature,
Not to be other than one thing ...
pride, misjudgement, stubbornness. The complex and congested mix of these is expressed in the complex and congested language we find in this play,
. . . not moving
From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace
Even with the same austerity and garb
As he controll'd the war; but one of these --
As he hath spices of them all, not all,
For I dare so far free him --
But this would never happen in the earlier tragedies: the character faults studied on stage. And of course Coriolanus repeats his tragedy. Pride + misjudgement + stubbornness cause first his exile from Rome, then his death from the Volscians. I think it is in this sense that Coriolanus has nowhere to go. To have left the Volscians would be to repeat his mistakes again somewhere else.
What Brynn calls the "infamous butterfly story" describes Coriolanus' son destroying a butterfly, and you realise it's introduced for contrast with Coriolanus destroying the Romans,
". . . they follow him,
Against us brats, with no less confidence
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies . . ."
But finally, and this I find strange, it is Coriolanus who is the butterfly,
"There is differency between a grub and a butterfly; yet your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown from man to dragon: he has wings; he's more than a creeping thing."
Incidentally, there is a interesting comparison between cruelty to insects and war in Coleridge's "Fears in Solutude",
". . . Boys and girls,
And women, that would groan to see a child
Pull off an insect's wing, all read of war,
The best amusement for our morning meal!"
(newspapers at the breakfast table.)
I found in a bookshop the Oxford edition Brynn has, and was very interested in the range of interpretations it reports, attempted in the play's history.
I found this in Louis Marder's his exits and his entrances,
"A production of Coriolanus at the Comedie Francaise in 1934 caused near riots because the harangues of Coriolanus against the people appealed to the antidemocratic groups and displeased professional agitators who apparently came to the theatre to cause trouble."
Just come back on to say how reading the play a second time, I found the Coriolanus character much more tragic.Yes, Coriolanus can't see his own faults and his elitism is very unsympathetic if sometimes ludicrous but because he is certainly betrayed by Aufidus in particular in a very shabby way when he DOES admit to tenderness and human feeling for his family, putting it before the martial values he has worshipped before,and this leads to his being treated with an undeserved contempt a second time, it makes it a true tragedy.
Aufidus goes from calling him 'You Mars' and being overcome with admiration and awe to really letting himself down with that shabby conspiracy (I found the BBC version bizarre; whatever is meant to be happening there? ).
Martin, I think you joke when you say you half wish that Coriolanus and Aufidus had attacked Rome together, but what a waste of the respect they start of having for each other in the way things turn out. Thaks for information on banishment aspect.
Byrn, The Cassius and Brutus aspect is intriguing.
Intriguing about that audience reaction in France.
Candy, you are so right, he never sees himself I love that picture! Oh, and wish to repeat my tedious enquiry about how we arrange at a later date to do 'All's Well'.
Mod
I've posted this quote here before many times...but it came to mind recently and so...Nortrop Frye...25 years ago...
“I’ve talked about Hamlet as the central Shakespeare play for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when so many cultural factors revolved around the difficulties of uniting action and the consciousness of action. In the existentialist period of this century this theme was still in the foreground, but, with a growing sense of the absurdity of trying to rationalize a world set up for the benefit of predatory rulers, King Lear began to move into the centre in it’s place. I don’t know what play will look most central in the twenty-first century, assuming we get there, but Antony and Cleopatrais, I think, the play that looks most like the kind of world we seem to be moving into now.
“History goes in cycles to a large extent, and in our day we’re back to the Roman phase of the cycle again. Its amazing how vividly shakespeare has imagined a world so much like ours than like his. There’s no Tudor anxiety about who the Lord’s anointed is or who his successor should be. We can see what the power relations are like in the conference on Pompey’s galley. The Roman Empire has reached the stage of the second “triumvirate”, or control by three leaders, Antony, Caesar and lepidus. Lepidus who holds a third of the world but not his liquor, is only a cipher, and as soon as the time is right he is swept into prison on a trumped up charge by Caesar. Caesar and Antony are making an alliance, to be cemented by Antony’s marriage to Caesar’s sister,Octavia, but we realize that they are only postponing a showdown. Enobarbus says so, speaking on Anton’s side; Antony tells him to be quiet, but Caesar expresses his agreement, and remarks again after Antony’s death that two such leaders “could not stall together” in the same world. After the conference ends, the triumvirate goes off the ship, because Pompey lacks the nerve to murder the lot of them and become master of the world himself. Having missed his chance, the officer who suggested it to him deserts him in disgust.
“The defeat of Antony by Caesar does not centralize authority in the way that, for example, the defeat of Richard III centralizes authority in the House of Tudor. We’re not in a closely knit kingdom anymore: there’s only one world, so there’s no patriotism, only more or less loyalty to the competing leaders. Late in the play the demoralized Antony challenges Caesar to a duel, and we see how clearly the creator of Tybalt understands that in this world personal dueling is an impossiblely corny notion.There are any number of messengers in the play, and the air is thick information and news, but nothing much seems to be getting communicated, although when something does happen it affects the whole world at once. But while while there is one world, there are two aspects of it: the aspect of “law and order” represented by Rome, and the aspect of sexual extravagance and licenced represented by Egypt. The lives and fortunes of millions depend quite simply on the whims and motivations of three people. The fact that two of them are lovers means that what is normally a private matter, the sexual relation, becomes an illuminated focus of contemporary history”
Mod
Jessie, that was certainly me and not Martin who half-wished Coriolanus and Aufidius had attacked Rome together. I'm not quite joking - those are my feelings; I'm begging him not to give in to his petitioners but keep to his intentions. The tragedy happens for me when he gives in, with his death a tail-piece.Candy, I'll be in All's Well, whenever.
Martin asks the question: why did Sh. choose this figure for a tragedy instead of the others with tragic potential in Plutarch? I have no idea and is the general consensus, nobody does? Isn't this one of his least liked - one that doesn't work for most people? I can only say what I've said: I see a soldier's tragedy -- but I know that's where my head is right now (what I have to think about, quite outside Shakespeare). I see: they made him the perfect soldier, and he is, but then they reject him for what he is. He is destroyed by that which he serves. I know this is simple, and because of what's on my mind.
I like Coriolanus, the person. His thickheadedness, the fact he has no idea when to use that soldierly bluntness and when to keep his trap shut, is a naivety I like against the politics of Rome. He's a soldier, yes, but at least he isn't a politician.
I feel he's used and abused by Rome, and for me Rome comes poorly out of this play - from his perspective, and from that of the citizens.
When he does yield to his petitioners... he can't go home again. Was Rome ever home? But he has failed to leave, too. It's not just that he has failed to leave his mother's skirts. More that she stands for Rome here - hm, and what does Rome stand for?
I haven't got far, then, but I like this play, I'll keep at it.
Candy wrote: "I've posted this quote here before many times...but it came to mind recently and so...Northrop Frye...25 years ago..."Maybe I wasn't here yet. What book's this from, Candy? I'd like to read Northrop Frye on the politics in Sh.
How about Coriolanus on screen, people? So, who's seen the new one and what do they think?
I admire the BBC's, if partly for the photography. Thought mother was too stately and dignified and without wickedness (which I've heard about mother in the new one, too: not a negative portrait). As for the Coriolanus-Aufidius goings-on, if I thought that was daring I was disabused by the Oxford intro - there's been a few interpretations like this. And when I read the speeches, I know why. (Excuse me, Aufidius, what did you say?) To me... oh I liked the sexualization at first, but on second thoughts, it trivializes the thing. You don't need outright sexualization when you have these speeches. Sh. puts into their mouths how much he wants to: no more and no less. The emotional involvement between them leads to the metaphors they themselves use, but getting Freudian doesn't, for me, deepen our Shakespeare.
Mod
Candy, it was me nagging about 'All's Well'. Fascinating comments, everyone.
Bryn, intriguing you wish they had sacked Rome (I hope, sparing women and children ill treatment).
I have to give a philistine sort of criticism (as above) of the BBC version, which Martin was kind enough to lend to me some weeks back. I suppose because I am involved in weight training and body shaping, and once was a Sportsfighter, the warriors weren't physical enough for me, too slight and no bounce in their walk, even apart from the fight scenes.
Apart from that, I noted they had cut out scenes that provide light relief (Coriolanus being abused by the servants, their nonsensical talk, etc) I suppose from timetabling problems. I was interested in the tormented admiration of that actor's (was it Franks, forgotten?) admiration of Corioalanus...The killing of Coriolanus and who was involved was bizarre. I couldn't see if Aufidus was doing it on his own, or there were meant to be others off camera...
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