Play by William Shakespeare
Coriolanus
(
or
[1]
) is a
tragedy
by
William Shakespeare
, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary
Roman
leader
Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus
. Shakespeare worked on it during the same years he wrote
Antony and Cleopatra
, making them his last two tragedies.
Coriolanus is the name given to a Roman general after his military feats against the
Volscians
at
Corioli
. Following his success he seeks to be
consul
, but his disdain for the
plebeians
and mutual hostility with the
tribunes
lead to his banishment from Rome. In exile, he presents himself to the Volscians, then leads them against Rome. After he relents and agrees to a peace with Rome, he is killed by his previous Volscian allies.
Synopsis
[
edit
]
The play opens in Rome shortly after the expulsion of the
Tarquin
kings. There are riots in progress after stores of grain have been withheld from ordinary citizens. The rioters are particularly angry at
Caius Marcius
,
[2]
a brilliant Roman general whom they blame for the loss of their grain. The rioters encounter a
patrician
named
Menenius Agrippa
, as well as Caius Marcius himself. Menenius tries to calm the rioters, while Marcius is openly contemptuous, and says that the
plebeians
are not worthy of the grain because of their lack of military service. Two of the
tribunes
of Rome, Brutus and Sicinius, privately denounce Marcius. Marcius leaves Rome after news arrives that a
Volscian
army is in the field.
The commander of the Volscian army,
Tullus Aufidius
, has fought Marcius on several occasions and considers him a blood enemy. The Roman army is commanded by Cominius, with Marcius as his deputy. While Cominius takes his soldiers to meet Aufidius's army, Marcius leads a rally against the Volscian city of
Corioli
. The siege of Corioli is initially unsuccessful, but the Romans conquer it when Marcius is able to force open the gates of the city. Even though he is exhausted from the fighting, Marcius marches quickly to join Cominius and fight the other Volscian forces. Marcius and Aufidius meet in single combat, fighting until Aufidius's own soldiers drag him away from the battle.
In recognition of his great courage, Cominius gives Caius Marcius the
agnomen
, or "official
nickname
", of
Coriolanus
. When they return to Rome, Coriolanus's mother Volumnia encourages her son to run for
consul
. Coriolanus is hesitant to do this, but he bows to his mother's wishes. He effortlessly wins the support of the
Roman Senate
, and seems at first to have won over the plebeians as well. However, Brutus and Sicinius scheme to defeat Coriolanus and instigate another plebeian riot in opposition to his becoming consul. Faced with this opposition, Coriolanus flies into a rage and rails against the concept of
popular rule
. He compares allowing plebeians to have power over the patricians to allowing "crows to peck the eagles". The two tribunes condemn Coriolanus as a traitor for his words and order him to be banished. Coriolanus retorts that it is he who banishes Rome from his presence.
After his exile from Rome, Coriolanus makes his way to the Volscian capital of
Antium
, and asks Aufidius's help to wreak revenge upon Rome for banishing him. Moved by his plight and honoured to fight alongside the great general, Aufidius and his superiors embrace Coriolanus, allowing him to lead a new assault on Rome.
Rome, in its panic, tries desperately to persuade Coriolanus to halt his crusade for vengeance, but both Cominius and Menenius fail. Finally, Volumnia is sent to meet her son, along with Coriolanus's wife Virgilia and their child, and the chaste gentlewoman Valeria. Volumnia succeeds in dissuading her son from destroying Rome, urging him instead to clear his name by reconciling the Volscians with the Romans and creating peace.
Coriolanus concludes a peace treaty between the Volscians and the Romans. When he returns to the Volscian capital, conspirators, organised by Aufidius, kill him for his betrayal.
Characters
[
edit
]
Romans
Volscians
- Tullus Aufidius
? general of the
Volscian
army
- Aufidius' Lieutenant
- Aufidius' Servingmen
- Conspirators with Aufidius
- Adrian ? Volscian spy
- Nicanor ? Roman traitor
- Volscian Lords
- Volscian Citizens
- Volscian Soldiers
Other
- Gentlewoman
- Usher
- Volscian senators and nobles
- Roman captains
- Officers
- Messengers
- Lictors
- Aediles
Sources
[
edit
]
Coriolanus
is largely based on the "Life of Coriolanus" in
Thomas North
's translation of
Plutarch
's
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
(1579). The wording of
Menenius
's speech about the
body politic
is derived from
William Camden
's
Remaines of a Greater Worke Concerning Britaine
(1605),
[3]
[4]
where
Pope Adrian IV
compares a well-run government to a body in which "all parts performed their functions, only the stomach lay idle and consumed all"; the fable is also alluded to in
John of Salisbury
's
Policraticus
(Camden's source) and
William Averell
's
A Marvailous Combat of Contrarieties
(1588).
[5]
Other sources have been suggested, but are less certain. Shakespeare might also have drawn on
Livy
's
Ab Urbe condita
, as translated by
Philemon Holland
, and possibly a digest of Livy by
Lucius Annaeus Florus
; both of these were commonly used texts in Elizabethan schools.
Machiavelli
's
Discourses on Livy
were available in manuscript translations, and could also have been used by Shakespeare.
[6]
He might also have made use of Plutarch's original source, the
Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus
,
[7]
as well as on his own knowledge of Roman custom and law.
[5]
Date and text
[
edit
]
Most scholars date
Coriolanus
to the period 1605?10, with 1608?09 being considered the most likely, although the available evidence does not permit great certainty.
The earliest date for the play rests on the fact that Menenius's fable of the belly is derived from
William Camden
's
Remaines
, published in 1605. The later date derives from the fact that several other texts from 1610 or thereabouts seem to allude to
Coriolanus
, including
Ben Jonson
's
Epicoene
,
Robert Armin
's
Phantasma
and
John Fletcher
's
The Woman's Prize, or the Tamer Tamed
.
[8]
Some scholars note evidence that may narrow down the dating to the period 1607?09. One line may be inspired by
George Chapman
's translation of the
Iliad
(late 1608).
[9]
References to "the coal of fire upon the ice" (I.i) and to squabbles over ownership of channels of water (III.i) could be inspired by
Thomas Dekker
's description of the freezing of the
Thames
in 1607?08 and
Hugh Myddleton
's project to bring water to London by channels in 1608?09 respectively.
[10]
Another possible connection with 1608 is that the surviving text of the play is divided into acts; this suggests that it could have been written for the indoor
Blackfriars Theatre
, at which Shakespeare's company began to perform in 1608, although the act-breaks could instead have been introduced later.
[11]
The play's themes of popular discontent with government have been connected by scholars with the
Midland Revolt
, a series of peasant riots in 1607 that would have affected Shakespeare as an owner of land in
Stratford-upon-Avon
; and the debates over the charter for the
City of London
, which Shakespeare would have been aware of, as it affected the legal status of the area surrounding the Blackfriars Theatre.
[12]
The riots in the Midlands were caused by hunger because of the enclosure of common land.
For these reasons, R.B. Parker suggests "late 1608 ... to early 1609" as the likeliest date of composition, while Lee Bliss suggests composition by late 1608, and the first public performances in "late December 1609 or February 1610". Parker acknowledges that the evidence is "scanty ... and mostly inferential".
[13]
The play was first published in the
First Folio
of 1623. Elements of the text, such as the uncommonly detailed stage directions, lead some Shakespeare scholars to believe the text was prepared from a theatrical
prompt book
.
Analysis and criticism
[
edit
]
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. You can help by
adding to it
.
(
February 2021
)
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A. C. Bradley
described this play as "built on the grand scale,"
[14]
like
King Lear
and
Macbeth,
but it differs from those two masterpieces in an important way. The warrior Coriolanus is perhaps the most opaque of Shakespeare's tragic heroes, rarely pausing to
soliloquise
or reveal the motives behind his proud isolation from Roman society. In this way, he is less like the effervescent and reflective Shakespearean heroes/heroines such as
Macbeth
,
Hamlet
,
Lear
and
Cleopatra
, and more like figures from ancient classical literature such as
Achilles
,
Odysseus
, and
Aeneas
?or, to turn to literary creations from Shakespeare's time, the
Marlovian
conqueror
Tamburlaine
, whose militaristic pride finds its parallel in Coriolanus. Readers and playgoers have often found him an unsympathetic character, as his caustic pride is strangely, almost delicately balanced at times by a reluctance to be praised by his compatriots and an unwillingness to exploit and slander for political gain. His dislike of being praised might be seen as an expression of his pride; all he cares about is his own self-image, whereas acceptance of praise might imply that his value is affected by others' opinion of him. The play is less frequently produced than the other tragedies of the later period, and is not so universally regarded as great. (Bradley, for instance, declined to number it among his famous four in the landmark critical work
Shakespearean Tragedy.
) In his book
Shakespeare's Language
,
Frank Kermode
described
Coriolanus
as "probably the most fiercely and ingeniously planned and expressed of all the tragedies".
[15]
T. S. Eliot
famously proclaimed
Coriolanus
superior to
Hamlet
in
The Sacred Wood
, in which he calls the former play, along with
Antony and Cleopatra
, the Bard's greatest tragic achievement. Eliot wrote a two-part poem about Coriolanus, "Coriolan" (an alternative spelling of Coriolanus); he also alluded to
Coriolanus
in a passage from his own
The Waste Land
when he wrote, "Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus."
[16]
Coriolanus
has the distinction of being among the few Shakespeare plays banned in a democracy in modern times.
[17]
It was briefly suppressed in France in the late 1930s because of its use by the fascist element, and
Slavoj ?i?ek
noted its prohibition in Post-War Germany due to its intense militarism.
[18]
Performance history
[
edit
]
Like some of Shakespeare's other plays (
All's Well That Ends Well
;
Antony and Cleopatra
;
Timon of Athens
), there is no recorded performance of
Coriolanus
prior to the
Restoration
. After 1660, however, its themes made it a natural choice for times of political turmoil. The first known performance was
Nahum Tate
's bloody 1682 adaptation at
Drury Lane
. Seemingly undeterred by the earlier suppression of his
Richard II
, Tate offered a
Coriolanus
that was faithful to Shakespeare through four acts before becoming a
Websterian
bloodbath in the fifth act. A later adaptation,
John Dennis
's
The Invader of His Country, or The Fatal Resentment
, was booed off the stage after three performances in 1719. The title and date indicate Dennis's intent, a vitriolic attack on the Jacobite
'Fifteen
. (Similar intentions motivated
James Thomson
's 1745 version, though this bears only a very slight resemblance to Shakespeare's play. Its principal connection to Shakespeare is indirect;
Thomas Sheridan
's 1752 production at
Smock Alley
used some passages of Thomson's.
David Garrick
returned to Shakespeare's text in a 1754 Drury Lane production.
[19]
Laurence Olivier
first played the part at
The Old Vic
in 1937 and again at the
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
in 1959. In that production, he performed Coriolanus's death scene by dropping backwards from a high platform and being suspended upside-down without the aid of wires.
[20]
In 1971, the play returned to the Old Vic in a National Theatre production directed by
Manfred Wekwerth
and Joachim Tenschert with stage design by
Karl von Appen
.
Anthony Hopkins
played Coriolanus, with
Constance Cummings
as Volumnia and
Anna Carteret
as Virgilia.
[
citation needed
]
Other performances of Coriolanus include
Alan Howard
,
Paul Scofield
,
Ian McKellen
,
Ian Richardson
,
Toby Stephens
,
Robert Ryan
,
Christopher Walken
,
Morgan Freeman
,
Colm Feore
,
Ralph Fiennes
and
Tom Hiddleston
.
[
citation needed
]
In 2012,
National Theatre Wales
produced a composite of Shakespeare's
Coriolanus
with
Bertolt Brecht
's
Coriolan
, entitled Coriolan/us, in a disused hangar at
MOD St Athan
.
[21]
Directed by Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson, the production used
silent disco
headsets to permit the text to be heard while the dramatic action moved throughout the large space. The production was well received by critics.
[22]
[23]
In December 2013,
Donmar Warehouse
opened their new production. It was directed by
Josie Rourke
, starring
Tom Hiddleston
in the title role, along with
Mark Gatiss
,
Deborah Findlay
,
Hadley Fraser
, and
Birgitte Hjort Sørensen
.
[24]
[25]
The production received very strong reviews.
Michael Billington
with
The Guardian
wrote "A fast, witty, intelligent production that, in Tom Hiddleston, boasts a fine Coriolanus."
[26]
He also credited Mark Gatiss as excellent as Menenius, the "humorous patrician".
[26]
In
Variety
, David Benedict wrote that
Deborah Findlay
in her commanding maternal pride, held beautifully in opposition by
Birgitte Hjort Sørensen
as Coriolanus's wife Virgilia.
[27]
Helen Lewis, in her review of
Coriolanus
, along with two other concurrently running sold-out Shakespeare productions with celebrity leads?
David Tennant
's
Richard II
and
Jude Law
's
Henry V
?concludes "if you can beg, borrow or plunder a ticket to one of these plays, let it be
Coriolanus
."
[28]
The play was broadcast in cinemas in the UK and internationally on 30 January 2014 as part of the
National Theatre Live
programme.
[29]
[30]
Adaptations
[
edit
]
Bertolt Brecht
adapted Shakespeare's play in 1952?55, as
Coriolan
for the
Berliner Ensemble
. He intended to make it a tragedy of the workers, not the individual, and introduce the
alienation effect
; his journal notes showing that he found many of his own effects already in the text, he considered staging the play with only minimal changes. The adaptation was unfinished at Brecht's death in 1956; it was completed by Manfred Wekwerth and Joachim Tenschert and staged in
Frankfurt
in 1962.
[31]
In 1963, the BBC included Coriolanus in
The Spread of the Eagle
.
Slovak composer
Jan Cikker
adapted the play into an opera which premiered in 1974 in
Prague
.
In 1983, the
BBC Television Shakespeare
series produced a version of the play. It starred
Alan Howard
and was directed by
Elijah Moshinsky
.
In 2003, the
Royal Shakespeare Company
performed a new staging of
Coriolanus
(along with two other plays) starring
Greg Hicks
at the
University of Michigan
. The director, David Farr, saw the play as depicting the modernisation of an ancient ritualised culture, and drew on
samurai
influences to illustrate that view. He described it as "in essence, a modern production. The play is basically about the birth of democracy."
[32]
In 2011,
Ralph Fiennes
directed and starred as Coriolanus with
Gerard Butler
as Aufidius and
Vanessa Redgrave
as Volumnia in a modern-day film adaptation
Coriolanus
. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray in May, 2012. It has a 93% rating on the film review site Rottentomatoes.com.
[33]
Slavoj ?i?ek
argued that unlike preceding adaptations, Fiennes' film portrayed Coriolanus without trying to rationalise his behaviour, "outlining the unique figure of a radical freedom fighter" whom he compares to Che Guevara, whom ?i?ek characterises as making clear that "a revolutionary also has to be a 'killing machine'".
[34]
In 2019, the
Tanghalang Pilipino
staged a Filipino translation of the tragedy. It was translated by Guelan Varela-Luarca and was directed by Carlos Siguion-Reyna. The play was led by TP Actors Company's senior member Marco Viana as Coriolanus, opposite to him is Brian Sy as Tullus Aufidius,
Frances Makil-Ignacio
and Sherry Lara alternating the role of Volumnia. Along with them are Jonathan Tadioan as Menenius, JV Ibesate as Velutus, Doray Dayao as Brutus, and the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company.
[35]
[36]
Parody
[
edit
]
While the title character's name's pronunciation in
classical Latin
has the
a
pronounced "[aː]" in the
IPA
, in English the a is usually pronounced "[e?]."
Ken Ludwig
's
Moon Over Buffalo
contains a joke dependent upon this pronunciation, and the parody
The Complete Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)
refers to it as "the
anus
play". Shakespeare pronunciation guides list both pronunciations as acceptable.
[37]
Cole Porter
's song "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from the musical
Kiss Me, Kate
includes the lines: "If she says your behaviour is heinous,/Kick her right in the Coriolanus".
Based on
Coriolanus
, and written in blank verse, "Complots of Mischief" is a satirical critique of those who dismiss conspiracy theories. Written by philosopher Charles Pigden, it was published in
Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate
(Ashgate 2006).
[38]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Jones, Daniel
(2003) [1917]. Roach, Peter; Hartmann, James; Setter, Jane (eds.).
English Pronouncing Dictionary
. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
.
ISBN
3-12-539683-2
.
- ^
Spelled Martius in the 1623 Folio, otherwise known as Marcius, i.e., a member of the
gens Marcia
.
- ^
R.B. Parker, ed.
Coriolanus
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 17?21.
- ^
[1]
Furness, Horace Howard,
The Tragedie of Coriolanus
(Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1928), p. 596.
- ^
a
b
University of Michigan, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Michigan Residency, 2003
Retrieved 15 March 2013.
- ^
Parker, 18?19
- ^
Parker, 18
- ^
Lee Bliss, ed.
Coriolanus
(Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 1?2; R.B. Parker,
Coriolanus
(Oxford University Press, 1994), 2?3.
- ^
Parker, 4?5; Bliss, 6?7.
- ^
Parker, 5?6; Bliss, 3?4.
- ^
Bliss, 4?7.
- ^
Parker, 6?7.
- ^
Parker, 7, 2; Bliss, 7
- ^
Bradley,
Shakespearean Tragedy
- ^
Kermode, Frank (2001).
Shakespeare's Language
. London: Penguin Books. p. 254.
ISBN
0-14-028592-X
.
- ^
Eliot, T. S. (1963).
Collected Poems
. Orlando: Harcourt. pp. 69, 125?129.
- ^
Maurois, Andre
(1948).
The Miracle of France
. Henri Lorin Binsse (trans.). New York: Harpers. p. 432.
- ^
Parker 123
- ^
F. E. Halliday,
A Shakespeare Companion 1564?1964,
Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; p. 116.
- ^
RSC.org.uk
Archived
15 February 2009 at the
Wayback Machine
Accessed 13 October 2008.
- ^
Dickson, Andrew (30 July 2012).
"National Theatre Wales's Coriolan/us: ready for take-off"
.
The Guardian
. UK.
- ^
Billington, Michael (10 August 2012).
"Coriolan/us ? review"
.
The Guardian
. UK.
- ^
Moore, Dylan (10 August 2012).
"Coriolan/us, National Theatre Wales, RAF St Athan, review"
.
Daily Telegraph
. UK.
Archived
from the original on 12 January 2022.
- ^
"Coriolanus 06 December 2013 ? 13 February 2014"
. Donmar Warehouse. Archived from
the original
on 12 November 2014
. Retrieved
27 January
2014
.
- ^
"Further casting for Donmar Warehouse's Coriolanus"
. London Theatre. 11 October 2013
. Retrieved
1 November
2013
.
- ^
a
b
Billington, Michael (17 December 2013).
"Coriolanus ? review"
.
The Guardian
. Retrieved
27 January
2014
.
- ^
Benedict, David (17 December 2013).
"London Theater Review: 'Coriolanus' Starring Tom Hiddleston"
. Variety
. Retrieved
27 January
2014
.
- ^
Lewis, Helen (16 December 2013).
"We three kings: David Tennant, Jude Law and Tom Hiddleston take on Shakespeare"
. New Statesman
. Retrieved
7 February
2014
.
- ^
"Coriolanus ? Donmar Warehouse"
. Donmar Warehouse. Archived from
the original
on 12 November 2014
. Retrieved
1 November
2013
.
- ^
"English theatre: Coriolanus"
. Savoy Kino Hamburg. Archived from
the original
on 23 January 2014
. Retrieved
20 January
2014
.
- ^
Brown, Langdon, ed. (1986).
Shakespeare Around the Globe: A Guide to Notable Postwar Revivals
. New York: Greenwood Press. p. 82.
- ^
Nesbit, Joanne (20 January 2003).
"U-M hosts Royal Shakespeare Company's U.S. premiere of "Midnight's Children"
"
.
The University Record Online
.
Ann Arbor
:
University of Michigan
. Archived from
the original
on 26 November 2007
. Retrieved
3 August
2017
.
Headlined by the U.S. premiere of the stage adaptation of Salman Rushdie's award-winning novel "Midnight's Children," the 16-day residency also offers new stagings of Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Coriolanus".
- ^
"Coriolanus"
.
Rottentomatoes.com
. Retrieved
29 July
2017
.
- ^
Wahnich, Sophie
(2001). "Foreword".
In Defence of the Terror: Liberty or Death in the French Revolution
. Verso Books. pp. xxiii?xxix.
ISBN
978-1844678624
.
- ^
Tan, Frida (7 February 2019).
"
"Coriolano" is the Latest William Shakespeare Adaptation"
.
TheaterFansManila.com
. Retrieved
25 May
2023
.
- ^
"Tanghalang Pilipino Stages William Shakespeare's Coriolanus"
.
cnn
. Archived from
the original
on 25 May 2023
. Retrieved
25 May
2023
.
- ^
Shakespeare, W. (1968).
Coriolanus: Special Illustrated Edition.
Starbooks Classics. Retrieved from
books.google.com
. Accessed 11 April 2014.
- ^
"Complots of Mischief: Coriolanus and conspiracy"
.
Odt.co.nz
. 21 November 2008
. Retrieved
29 July
2017
.
Further reading
[
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]
External links
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]
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