23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shakespeare's Greatest Tragedy, January 13, 2002
This is Shakespeare's greatest tragedy in my opinion. Everybody talks about Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet, but Coriolanus for some reason is mostly, and unjustly, ignored. I feel that Coriolanus is the only pure tragedy among Shakespeare's works. Macbeth was a sociopath who brought all his troubles on himself; Hamlet was a confused young man who couldn't make a decision and who waited too long to get the job done; King Lear was an old fool who played games with his daughters and brought most of his problems on himself; Othello could have avoided his problems if he simply sat down and had a real conversation with his wife; and Romeo and Juliet were just a couple of immature kids who simply needed a few hard kicks in their butts. Coriolanus is different. Coriolanus was simply an honest, hard-working soldier who got the job done and told the truth, but was brought down by the guile of his enemies. That, in my opinion, is the greatest tragedy of them all.
It seems that people either love or hate this play. Many consider Coriolanus to be a very unlikable character because he is supposedly arrogant, but I disagree. Coriolanus just worked hard, told the truth, was a straight shooter, and refused to play silly games by telling people what they wanted to hear. I guess I see something different in this play than most critics and readers of Shakespeare.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shakespeare's Last Tragedy: An Overlooked Gem!!!, May 24, 2006
+++++
This play, written circa 1608, is the last of William Shakespeare's (1564 to 1616) eleven (some say ten) known tragedies. Even though it is known as a "Roman" or "political" play, serious readers will discover that it so much more. I found that it stayed with me long after I read it.
This play is set in ancient Rome. It is essentially the story of warrior Caius Marcius (later known as "Coriolanus") whose honor, pride, and sense of social rank dominates his life and interferes with his ability to function effectively when he's not on the battlefield.
One of the great attributes of this play is that it does not have many characters and thus is easy to follow. The major characters are as follows:
(1) Coriolanus (originally Caius Marcius): a valiant warrior and patrician (nobleman) with a non-overbearing wife. "A soldier to Cato's wish" and a modest hero who "hath deserved worthily of his country" but who lacks tact and refuses to placate "the mutable, rank-scented many."
(2) Volumnia: his overbearing mother. "In anger, Juno-like."
(3) Menenius Agrippa: "a humorous patrician" and an old and true friend of Coriolanus who is trusted by the plebeians (lower class)
(4) Titus Lartius and Cominius: fellow generals with Coriolanus.
(5) Sicinius and Brutus: tribunes (representatives of the plebeians) of the common people and Coriolanus' political enemies. "A pair of strange ones."
(6) Tullus Aufidius: general of Rome's enemies and rival in glory to Coriolanus.
This "Shakespeare PELican" book (published by Penguin in 1999) has some interesting material before the play proper. I found the introduction to the play especially informative.
I would recommend, in order to get the full impact of this play, to either see it on film (the BBC production is excellent) or to see it on the stage.
Finally, I cannot understand why this play has been overlooked as one of Shakespeare's great works. (It was, in fact, written during Shakespeare's greatest period, 1599 to 1608.) The story itself is interesting with many subtle themes. The only thing I can think of is that there are some terms that you must know to properly understand the play (such as patrician, plebeian, tribune, etc.). These terms can be easily looked up in a good dictionary.
In conclusion, this play, in my opinion, is an overlooked gem. This book published by Penguin is an excellent resource for students, teachers, theatre professionals, and anyone interested in discovering this great play!!
+++++
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fine Edition of Interesting Play, March 30, 2003
This inexpensive volume is a fine edition with very readable text, good notes, and a nice introduction. Coriolanus is not one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, though it has its partisans. As with several of Shakespeare's best plays, it is an attempt to combine an investigation of the nature of power with a psychological portrait. The nature of power or kingship was one of Shakespeare's great themes, featured in some of the great tragedies like MacBeth or Lear, and this theme runs through many of his history plays. In Coriolanus, however, this theme is handled less well. It is interesting to speculate why Shakespeare, who dealt with this theme so well in many plays, doesn't do such a good job in Coriolanus. The action in Coriolanus is set in a republic, not a monarchy. The structure of republican politics is not one Shakespeare would have known well and the problems of politics and authority in a republican are different than those of a monarchy. Particularly for modern audiences, whose intrinsic understanding of republican politics is much greater than Shakespeare's, the clumsy handling of the tension between the aristocratic Coriolanus and the plebes rings false. In addition, the psychological portrait of Coriolanus is not nearly as rich as Shakespeare's analysis of quite a few of his other protagonists. Much of the language in Coriolanus is powerful but it lacks the dramatic movement and insight of his best work.
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