I've read it, at last. Enjoyed it too. An intelligent tour de force.
My first take is that it's about the power of rhetoric, the muscle power displayed in lively and competitive syntactic jousts, a celebration of the sinewy power of language as rooted in the cultural context. But like you, I don't read the play as an exploration or fresh examination of social class. Yea, the mob is fickle, the nobles are obnoxiously spiteful to the plebs etc, but that's just the given universe of the classical context, as received by Shakespeare and understood by his audience.
The simplicity of Corialanus as a character enabled Shakespeare to construct a drama of speeches, but ones that were less political than in Julius Caesar.
It steers clear of fate, but hinges on the singular flaw of unreflective pride vested in the protagonist. It examines the concept of superheroic talent, and the darkly egotistical traits that must go with it.
The play seems to show that a military man cannot be machiavellian when he most needs to be. It does not explore the subtlies of politics as the central character is more centered on power assertion and than political manipulation. He's somewhat manic and regards status/position as more important than how he exercises his role as leader of society. Corialanus is more commander than ruler and thus a political washout.
Like Othello, Corialanus is a general, able to give the state impressive wartime service, but unable to accommodate his instincts, strengths and motivational skills and to the state outside war.
It's a morality play, maybe that's it too.
I'd like to do some critical reading briefly. Most of all a live performance.
You've given me something to go on anyhow.
Me:
Thanks P. I as always enjoyed your spritely note.
Here are a few thoughts. When Valeria says after the description of Coriolanus’ son chasing after the butterfly, catching it and releasing it, rinsing and repeating, till he “mammocks” the poor winged thing, “la, ‘tis a noble child,”(I, iii, 73), might Shakespeare be casting doubt on the value of such nobility, particularly as it’s embodied by Coriolanus?
At a minimum, isn’t there ambiguity as to his nobility? On the personal side, he’s essentially the strong, silent type, wishing no praise, willing to let his martial excellence speak for itself. But at what cost that excellence?
Do not Virgilia’s horror at the murderously mass letting of blood that flows as caused by the might of her husband’s arms and her relative speechlessness, counter-argue all the varied forms of talk that run the gamut of the rhetorical spectrum, deflating all of it by implication? And do they not counter-argue the virtue of that excellence born at the cost of such blood of the other?
The enemy is the other to Coriolanus and from its wounded and dead bodies does his excellence spring. And, too, the plebeians are another other to him. Toward both, the rage, might and ultimately for the Romans against the Volscians the sanctified murderousness that pour out of him are the weeds, not garlands, of a distraught, diseased, fragmented, unformed soul, are they not?
He is at the manipulative mercy of his mother, formed by her, unable to resist her, and she not whole, so he is tragically less than whole. And as he is deformed, a human fragment, a “boy” in Aufidius’ goading, mocking telling, so then doesn’t Martius the child display the deforming disease of his young soul in the rending of the butterfly, a fragile thing of beauty, after repeatedly releasing it?
The child Martius, on the model of his father (and his grandmother),is the father of the man, it seems, he may well become.
So, thus, after Coriolanus’ complicated agreement, on his mother’s irresistible appeals to him, to make peace with Rome, when he might be thought to have transcended what deforms and is unformed in him, does he not once more become easy meat, as his uncontrollable rage again unhinges itself, forAufidius’ calculated taunting rebukes. Volumina knows how “to get to” Corialanus. The Tribunes do. Aufidius does. Virgilia does not.
So, again, mightn’t it be asked, wherein does nobility lie?
Coriolanus exemplifies what then made Rome a great empire, but, big but, and perhaps more, the inhuman, wanton destructiveness inherent in the martial that made for that.
There is so much abounding and astounding deceit and manipulation all around Coriolanus, so much empty and calculated, self seeking talk, so much bloodletting, wounding and slaying, so much corruption. Coriolanus is so unbounded and unbalanced, so unknown to himself, so ripe for being conned and manipulated. But yet, as against that foul abundance, there is such little place and presence for the one compassionate, fully formed in virtue, humane character, Virgilia, that I’m almost tempted to think the play could have been written by Thersites.
Am I being too harsh in these judgments?
No comments:
Post a Comment