Coriolanus: A Review

Great art is great because of its universality; its essence it is seen to be true. (Part and parcel of this is the notion that man has universal qualities, constant and basic. This might be offensive to some modern views of man as random and behavioral.) If it needs to be updated or made more relevant, the art might be good or of an interesting template but it is, inherently, not great. Something universally true is by nature relevant.

That said, great art can be undermined.  It takes some arrogance to fine-tune great art but it can be done. One might try to make it more commercial, more friendly to a larger audience, but such showmanship should not be confused with art. (At another, less forgiving time, it might have been called bowdlerized.)

Enter Coriolanus, a play by Shakespeare made famous by an aside by T.S. Eliot in his analysis of Hamlet in which he claimed that Coriolanus was a superior tragedy, indeed Shakespeare's best. It takes a curious seat among Shakespeare's creations because it is quite clean, straightforward and direct but, as such, plain and unbeautiful. One could argue it was martial and masculine but such characteristics did not stay Shakespeare's hand on Antony. In Coriolanus, a superior man recognizes his superiority, refuses to compromise his position, will not bow to people he thinks inferior and dies because of it. Coriolanus is simply a perfect idea of a tragedy, almost tragedy 101.

The story comes from a Roman legend. Gnaeus Marcius, a military hero who, in the early times of Italian city-states, receives his cognomen (surname), Coriolanus, after capturing the town of Corioli in 493 BCE from the ancient Italian people known as the Volsci. He returns to great acclaim but is opposed in Rome over his handling of corn supplies, found to be a tyrant opposed to the plebeians and is banished. He returns leading an army of Volsci against the city in 491 BCE. After his wife and his mother plead with him, he spares Rome and consequently is killed by the Volsci. This is what Eliot admires (in opposition to the multiple dramatic lines in Hamlet.)

Shakespeare's spare play is a tragedian mannequin waiting for new clothes and everyone has tried to dress it. In the Hunger Games, the unscrupulous national leader is President Coriolanus Snow. In the 1930s a  French production of Coriolanus at the Comédie-Française sparked murderous riots outside the theater between  Fascist and Communist sympathizers, each arguing that the play was propaganda for the other side. Ralph Fiennes’s recent cinematic adaptation actually makes Coriolanus himself a fascist attended by brownshirts. The National Theater in London has a new production at the Donmar directed by Josie Rourke and starring Tom Hiddleston which presents the play with more confidence. While filled with jarring pandaring anachronisms--women would never have been tribunes in ancient Rome--it is well done, the acting terrific and Hiddleston surprising effective.

It opens as distress among the common people over food shortages is superseded by the military threat of the Volsci, led by Aufidius, an old enemy to Coliolanus. Coriolanus rescues Rome by defeating the Volsci--and Aufidius personally--and returns a hero. The people (plebeians) want to make him consul but Coriolanus struggles in his efforts to appeal to the plebeians.

"His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth:
What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;"

He is none-the-less elected but, after some distasteful maneuvering by the tribunes, his election is reversed.

MENENIUS: Repent what you have spoke.

CORIOLANUS: For them! I cannot do it to the gods;
                          Must I then do't to them?

But, of course, he can not yield or compromise and he is banished. Angrily he approaches the Volsci and their leader, Aufidius. After some debate, the Volsci accept him to lead them against Rome.

AUFIDIUS:
I think he'll be to Rome As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
By sovereignty of nature.

This "sovereignty of nature" is the rub. There is conflict between the common people and their leaders but this is not politics, this is personal. What is at stake is conflict between a better man and his inferiors, a battle that can be fought between people at any level of the culture, in any office, in any house. And, as always, a jackal is available to clean up after lions. When Coriolanus, yielding to his mother and his wife,  decides to spare Rome, setting mercy above his revenge, Aufidius rubs his hands with glee. Now he can retake his army.

AUFIDIUS:
 [Aside] I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and
thy honour
At difference in thee: out of that I'll work
Myself a former fortune.

Coriolanus, unwilling to compromise the view of his hierarchy, is slain, a victim of his own unyielding inner hierarchy. Perfect.