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Coriolanus
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You never know, but thinking of the dreadful sort of fate awaiting subversives of any sort in Tudor England, Shakespeare would have had to be very brave...I may be wrong here, but wasn't Coriolanus suppossed to be killed on the stage so the BBC version was, I hoped, unusual? The stage directions include Aufidus standing on the body, which wasn't shown either. In the BBC version he wasn't shown being killed, only Aufidius striking out, it was really weird. I agree there is something anti-climatic about his death, for sure. It's particularly dismal to see Aufidus let himself down so.
Coriolanus isn't one of Shakespeare's most sympathetic protagonists, but I prefer him to Hamlet, say, with his abuse of Ophelia.
Did people during that age maybe not require symapthetic protagonists?
Mod
I think Coriolanus is better off in some ways not bowing to the public. I think he was destined to be screwed over no matter what. I don't love the guy but I think the play shows us how there isn't any kind of easy path for a leader/politician. Coriolanus is rude to his citizens but overall the metaphor of the king/leader being the head and the citizens being the body is one that i being challenged in the play. Isn't the play showing us sides of public outrage set against a leader who can be toppled and then what happens to the citizens? I don't know I don't think I'm stating what I mean very clearly at all. There is something difficult to accept about a side of this play...sort of philosophically difficult to accept about a country and a leader.
Interesting points,Candy. I wonder if we find it so hard to accept the treatment of the citizens, the absolute contempt all the patricians seemed to have for them because we belong to a democratic age (supposedly)? Yes, it would be so much better if Coriolanus said more. I felt really sorry for him at this point; having redisvovered his humanity, he is jeered at by Aufidius as 'roaring' over 'drops of women's rheum'.
Mod
Yes...I think that is a major aspect of how we can analyse our own responses and begin BEGIN to look at this play.
I say begin.....because I feel that there is a potential to latch on to this idea of how terrible Coriolanus is to be so above and supierior to the citizens.
I feel as if this may be less of a political play than I first thought.
I think it may also function as a brilliant cosmological exercise too. In the way that Coriolanus is like a God...a God of the kind that is part ruler and part tempter. A Hermetic type of god, a trickster in the style of Eastern metaphysics too. Not a god beneovolent like we'd fantisize of a heavenly kind parent.
I see Vhis mother as representing that poer of life and why we see metaphrs of milk and blood and "moisture" of swampy female insults and her power to give birth to a god. And so her pwoer to have a old on Coriolanus.
coriolanus is immovable with his beliefs and his strength and as mere mortals we are in the weakest position in nature. God, or nature makes hurricanes. The kind of democracy of nature is what we might see at work with Coriolanus, not a democracy that we think of as touchy feely and contemporary. The kind of democracy that doesn't bend to an individual and could wipe out populations like hurricanes and destructive nature. Both life giving and life taking...seeming not to care for "the citizens". coriolanus is also seductive because he can touch the hearts of former enemies and gain their trust. Is this a devil or a god...or a more ancient definition of diety? Being both?
Has Coriolanus rediscovered his humanity? Or is he accepting of being a god whose job was always to restore peace and control over the citizens and make nature "balance" in a way that is not touchy feely but all encompassing and much larger scale of duty than human?
aufidus does try to insult him with the comment (great comment) "drops of womans rheum" but really Aufidius is grandstanding isnt he? Coriolanus was much more endeared to is troops than he was, no?
the womans rheum is a silly insult ultimately because after all the mother is who gave birth and raised such a poweful force like Corioanus and who also had influence over his mercy on Rome? The woman rheum is the life force.
Mod
Hi all - just finished reading and my first post here!I still think of Coriolanus as a tragic hero and I like this assessment from Menenius:
"Consider this: he has been bred i'th' wars
Since a could draw a sword, and is ill-schooled
In bolted language." [3.1.323-325]
And a couple of other lines from Menenius drove home the change in Coriolanus, perhaps triggered by that flaw... a change driven (to me) by the fickleness of the crowd and political shenanigans of the nobles - which is one reason I think the play is relevant today.
"We loved him, but like beasts and cowardly nobles
Gave way unto your clusters, who did hoot
Him out o'th' city. [4.6.129-131]
Followed an act later by one of my favorite lines
"...This Martius is
grown from man to dragon. He has wings, he's more
than a creeping thing. [5.4.12-14]
Not the easiest Shakespeare play to read, and wasn't originally on my summer reading list, but seeing Ralph Fiennes' movie inspired me to give it another shot and glad I did :)
Glad to have you here, Craig. So, was the Ralph Fiennes a sympathetic portrait of him? He works as a tragic hero for me, too.
Welcome Craig. I'll have to mull over those comments by you and by Candy and Bryn before responding. I haven't seent he film yet.
Mod
I found this play very difficult to relate to for most of the reading...but the funny thing is...once i got to the end I felt like it was very satisfying after all and has given me much to think about. I made a mistake by continuing to forget why Coriolanus was so stubborn. His attitude is unbecoming because I am so used to the idea of fair game or goodsportship. Today with the upcoming Summer Olympics if coriolanus was an athlete competing and acted so arrogant after winning a gold medal he would be offputting. But his manner of not answering to the politicians, magistrates, the citizens was in so many ways his "right" as a proper Platonian man of virtue. I see him now as actually believing it would be rude for him to follow the political pressure to talk "nice" to the public.
Now, it seems to me that the argument in this play offers the idea that it is impossible to follow ones own guidance or sense of honour, or doing the right thing...and making it also fit to the whole population. This is the situation many leaders and politicians are in today..or many people in authority.
Idealistically, I would like to believe that the court of public opinion, of civil servants and open dialogue was a benefit (which i actually do believe) but the idea that we expect impossible things from representatives and that no one can live by their own beliefs in a community.
It took me a really long time to have the feeling that the reason this play is a tragedy is because like him or not, agree with his seeming arrogance, Coriolanus was trying to take the higer ground. In his belief system he "did the right thing" according to the laws, customs of Platonian Republic and philosophy...yet this backfired on him. Everyone became a pawn. He is a hero because of Volumnia saving the country and restoring peace...via his backing down.
A few weeks ago someone mentioned menopause...maybe regarding MacBeth or this play..I cant remember right now. But this does turn out to relevant...Volumnia is a fabulous female character. AGAIN Shakespeare has done it. Hes made a powerful woman, older in age...normally a total has-been in most cultures and contemporary society a heroine and smart, powerful, cunning and wise. He's broken stereotypes of "the crone".
Candy, you are so right about Shakespeare and his understanding of the psyche (though when we get on to Bertram in All's Well, now there we do have an enigma); if only Voluminia had been able to stand back and see the forces driving her to make her son a monster hero.
The more I think about that last scene and Coriolanus' ignominus end, the sadder I find it, and Aufidius' betrayal too. You are right about the hyperbole about the scornful references to'women's rheum'. I do think that Coriolanus is never more of a man then when he is cut down; I assume that was Shakespeare's intention?
Mod
thats a great question. And I think the trick is that we have to remember all the notes at "Rome for Dummies" topic thread. Coriolanus is a man who is living the full depth of Plato's Republic and philosophy about poetry, virtue and a caste system.
I've been reading J.L. Simmons "Shakespeare's Pagan World"...and I'm just getting reading to post some excerpts from it, they are pretty interesting...biab
You erudite thing, Candy, I am looking forward those, haven't read that thread yet, tied up with e book publication, but will get onto it. Another sad thing; we may assume that there was both massive public and private mourning over Coriolanus' death, but we don't see it in the play, which finishes before that begins; thinking about 'finding time' makes me think of Brutus' words over Cassius,and he in turn is praised generously by his former enemy that oddly contradictory Mark Anthony;but nobody gives such an oration over Corioalus, with Aufidus standing contemputuously on the body...
Jessie wrote: "...nobody gives such an oration over Corioalus, with Aufidus standing contemputuously on the body..."But, Jessie, the moment after he's done the deed, Aufidius swings back to his old admiration:
...My rage is gone
And I am struck with sorrow.
Only a line, but a significant one. It'd be horrid without this.
I don't think he ever feels contempt, although he might try to. He cannot think so lowly of C.
Just wanted to mention that I just got a very nice (small, but not expensive) Shakespeare poster for my college classroom at a site called posterenvy or something like that.Shelley
Rain, A Dust Bowl Story
http://dustbowlpoetry.wordpress.com
Bryn wrote: "Jessie wrote: "...nobody gives such an oration over Corioalus, with Aufidus standing contemputuously on the body..."But, Jessie, the moment after he's done the deed, Aufidius swings back to his o..."
Shelley wrote: "Just wanted to mention that I just got a very nice (small, but not expensive) Shakespeare poster for my college classroom at a site called posterenvy or something like that.
Shelley
Rain, A Dust B..."
Yes, that's true, Bryn, that does give back human feeling to the ending...
Bryn wrote: "Jessie wrote: "...nobody gives such an oration over Corioalus, with Aufidus standing contemputuously on the body..."But, Jessie, the moment after he's done the deed, Aufidius swings back to his o..."
Shelley wrote: "Just wanted to mention that I just got a very nice (small, but not expensive) Shakespeare poster for my college classroom at a site called posterenvy or something like that.
Shelley
Rain, A Dust B..."
Yes, that's true, Bryn, that does give back human feeling to the ending...
Mod
"Perhaps no scene in shakespeare more challenges the judgement and sympathy of the audience than that in which Coriolanus stands before the people in the gown of humility. We must not, first of all, discount the strangeness of the antique form itself. Even an age electioneering has not dulled the dramtic grotesqurie of the situation. The custom is palliated no more for us than for coriolanus when Menenius assures the canidaris that his predecessors have accepted it. From Plutarch's bland repor, shakespeare create as it were an emblematic representation of coriolanus's moral plight, generating for the tragic victim the sympathy one wins merely from being forced into an impossible situatio. It is impossible, to be sure, especially for Coriolanus, but one can not imagine any of shakespeare's noble characters meeting this test morally unscathed. Yet many critics have assumed coriolanus's perversity to be intolerably reprehensible.
The scene exposes not only aristocratic inflexibility but democratic instability and ineffectiveness. the people on their own are clearly incapable of making the election meaningful. It is obvious why this custom, before the establishment of the Tribunes, has been no threat to the aristocratic status quo. To say that the people are incapable is not exactly to charge them with ignorance or to insist upon an elizabethan view of democracy.Although latr ages have struggled idealistically to ward off such doubts, the Third citizen in his naivete succinctly acknowleges the impotence of the individual:
We have no power in orselves to do it, but it is a power that we have no power to do
Are you all resolved to give your voices? But that's no matter, the greater part carries it.
The individual not without justification, feels neither responsible for nor capable of affecting "the greater part". Only the leadership of the Tribunes brings about any meaningful action-action that, however, Sicinius and Brutus entirely determine and control.
There is nevertheless an indication that the custom of granting the people their voice at least assumes, in spite of evidence to the contrary, a "golden age." The ideal form of the election is intended to proclaim the worthiest. The Third citizen understands that the custom is, or hiterto has been, cntrolled by a perfect decorum that would prevent idiosyncratic breaches. The people's voices, the language of public honour, must sound an exact representation of the candidate's worth:
If he show us his wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues into those wounds and speak for them; so if he tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him our noble acceptance of them.
Mod
"In the cluster of wound-mouth-tongue imagery, the word and the thing are literally at one. The communalaction attempts a ritual in which the outward sign transubstantiates the inner grace. This action, in which the hero must show his woundsin the spirit of humility and self-sacrifice begs with tragic operative irony the blessed "other case" -mankind's accepting, and therefore participating in, the benefits of christ's Passion. As the acceptance of that nobel sacrifice is mankind's nobility, so here the Citizen's voice will be a "noble acceptance." The communion allows both to share the honour: For he that sanctieth, &they which are sactified, all are one: wherefore he is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Hebrews ii11). But such typological allusiveness as the political situation and imagery generate only anticipates the ultimate limitation of Rome and it's morality. In shakespeare's pagan world the image is not sacramental but grotesque. Nevertheless, all aspects of civil life must normaltively assume that language mirrors reality; and that the people will name the best man is all that Rome has assumed.
But Coriolanus cannot accept the inevitability of decorum. For him the form of the election is itself indecorous, and the indecorous, being dishonest, cannot yield what is honest."
Mod
"The custom thrusts upon coriolanus a role for which he is ridiculously ill-suited:
It is a part that I shall blush in acting
Out of the literal situation Shakespeare's favourite metaphor emerges effortlessly, that all the worlds\'s a stage, all men and women are merely players. But the action, words, and even costume assigned in Coriolanus are, he feels, absurdly indecorous, creating an insidious discrepancy between the role and his natural capacities. Coriolanus will therefore fail, both as actor and as man, to meet the standard for decorum that Cicero himself urged by theatrical analogy: "For that beecommeth each man, which is most of alleach mans owne. Let eurie man therefore knowhis own disposition...least plaiers may seeme to have more discretion than wee. For they dooe choose not the best Enterludes, but the fittest for themselves." Coriolanus would give a perfectly decorous performeance to reflect his essential self: "Rather say I play/The man I am" But volumnia, in her advice to the stubborn player, allows for a dishonest relationship between the man and the part, between matter and manner. For her the theatrical metaphor affirms not Ciceronian decorum but Machiviallian deceit:
now it lies you on to speak
to the people, not by your own instruction
nor by the matter which your heart prompts you
but with such words that are but rooted in
your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
of no allowance to your bosoms truth
But Coriolanus cannot make the separation between heart and tongue sufficient to create the actor's illusion of reality. He plays the part not of a humble petitioner, a beggar, a harlot, or a mountebank but an actor playing these parts.To shield himself in the compromising situation, he mocks both his performance and his audience. In the process his theatrical irony disorients the people by corrupting language and action. Distrusting the public form, he assures the breakdown of form."
Very fascinating quote, Candy. The others all see a neccessity in having a sop which the people indistinctly recognise as a mere ritual, a travesty of real democracy, an outward show which is degrading in its dishonesty. Nobody seems very fond of honesty, one way or another, but Coriolanus and what he says is disconcerting.
Hey everyone Im writing a paper on the Nature vs. Nurture aspects in Coriolanus here is my rough thesis any and all comments or critiques are welcome!Thesis: Though Coriolanus is commonly seen as a tragedy centered around the downfalls of pride in the individual the tragedy actually is found in the faults of a culture and society that cultivates such extreme pride to such extent that it breeds contempt among its people.
Mod
I wish you the best of luck on your paper and I hope we can read it some day.
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Is this play a tragedy? I'm having second thoughts.
First of all...I got a surprise. Coriolanus is a false protagonist. I had a feeling this play using him as "central figure" might be shakespeareup to some tricks...and I think he was.
I was surprised that Coriolanus was a z classic false protagonist. How do we know this? He was killed about off stage.
So who is the star of this play? I wonder if it's not the citizens. Sure
The bloodlust for Coriolanus was not sated with his death on stage! Someone here mentions that a performance of this play brought riots be Use of Coriolanus attitude towards the citizens. His capture described is an anticimax then death must have been truly anti climatic for the audience. Is Shakespeare giving the audience a kind of meta fiction comeuppance?