This afternoon Ms. S. and I have the pleasure of taking part in a casual Shakespeare reading. She read Menenius and I covered Brutus in “Coriolanus.” Saturday Ms. S. and I watched the recent R. Fiennes film adaptation (which also gives us a Redgrave, Brian Cox, Gerard Butler, and others!). And it was great fun.
To summarize: Gaius Martius is a respected military leader in pre-Imeprial Rome (he’s a mythical / legendary figure from ~500 B.C.E., when Rome is just one of many Italian cities / city states), and the city is experiencing unrest, as the common people blame the senators and nobles of keeping the grains for themselves. Martius says what he thinks without filter or censure and is ill-regarded by many of the citizen. He leaves for war in the city of Corioli against his sworn enemy Tellus Aufidius, and while eventually he finds success on the battle field — resulting in him gaining the name Coriolanus — his one-on-one fight with Aufidius leaves both men alive. Having gained such honor in battle Gaius Martius Coriolanus returns to Rome where he is proposed as the new consul. While he is approved easily by the senate, he must also go before the citizenry and gain their support; but through the machinations of Sicinius and Brutus and his own ‘prides (his inability to anything but speak his mind, his unwillingness to flatter them) he is, eventually, exiled from Rome. Coriolanus wanders to Antium and presents himself to Aufidius, requesting the latter kill him, or take him into his service in order to conquer Rome (and exact Coriolanus’ revenge). Rome is left nearly defenseless before Aufidius’ march on the city, and so in order they send his old military comrade Cominius, then Menenius, and finally the trio of his mother, wife, and child to convince Coriolanus to spare the city. His mother gets through to him; unlike in the earlier act he can temper his mood, his anger, and peace is signed between Aufidius’ forces and Rome. But he has betrayed Aufidius and in the final scene is killed.
Fiennes’ production and the cut of the script we read were similar, though the latter left in some text segments the movie cut or rearranged, and the movie devoted more — non-speaking — time to actions glossed over in the text. Around 1804 a minor Austrian poet penned his own treatment (not a translation or adaptation of Shakespeare’s play) of Coriolanus’ life (the Roman is now considered a mythical rather than historical figure) and a bit later to go with it Beethoven composed his magnificent Coriolan Overture to go with it. It’s that piece of music that I’ve appreciated — no, loved — for decades, whereas I never even looked at the text of the play until today. But if I may offer a suggestion, it is this: watched the Fiennes’ movie for a wonderful take on the lead, but read the text in order to appreciate the character of Menenius.
Everyone notes Martius’ martial skill and his supposed “pride.” And yet we are left wondering what that pride could be. It is his mother who is so proud of her son, it is Menenius who is proud of Martius’ scars, it is before the senate that Cominius is proud to be able to list Coriolanus’ many exploits. In Fiennes’ version Coriolanus is embarrassed by this; he leaves the chamber during the recitation. Coriolanus is modest: he would rather not show off his scars, would rather not make a grand show of it all, would rather skip the pomp and circumstance. If he is too proud, it is not in *being proud of* his actions or accomplishments, but his inability to compromise, inability not to be himself. And while this inability to flatter, to temper himself, to do what others want is what leads to his exile, but it is not the problematically named ‘tragic flaw’ that leads to his downfall and death.
That would be … tempering his actions. Compromising.
Coriolanus is a bit of a cipher. As Menenius comments, Coriolanus says what he feels (without reflection): the man is as he seems and cannot be otherwise. He is more at ease at war than in peace. He may despise the citizenry, but he refuses to pander, to lie to them, manipulate them to his own ends. He’s a beast, but he’s no political animal.
And then we have Menenius, perhaps the only figure in the play who deals equally with all factions and who is at ease with almost all of them. He converses with the common people, with the two tribunes Sicinius and Brutus, with Coriolanus’ mother and wife, and even with members of Aufidius’ camp. He is the smoothest talker and the master of metaphors: he may not have all the best lines in the play, but he has most of the poetic and even beautiful ones. Yet he is a master of rhetoric and manipulation; he tempers his own speech and so while he is skillful, he is also never out of control, and so unlike Aufidius, Coriolanus, several of the citizens or even Volumnia, Coriolanus’ mother, he never a scene of overt and extreme passion or violence. Almost ever-present, he rarely stands out.
“Coriolanus” was, evidently, banned for a time in democratic 1930s France for its possibly fascistic tendencies. And it is a problematic play, one that shows great disdain for democracy and common people. B. Brecht attempted an adaption but died before he could stage it at the Berliner Ensemble. In a certain sense it is obviously not fascistic: it predates our modern notions of fascism, and the text itself contains little that *explicitly* requires such a reading, though it is fertile ground for such an interpretation. I mention this for two reasons: first, recent-ish reviews of the play and of Fiennes’ film bring up if not focus on this political perspective, and secondly the political focus potentially obscures or takes attention away from other interesting topics of inquiry, such as matters of gender, of body and the body politic, and so on.
It’s no “Hamlet,” but it’s also so much more than just another “Timon.”
Notes (Links):
- Shakepeare’s Action Hero
- Revisiting Shakespeare’s ‘Coriolanus’ “Which is not to say that this most obscure of Shakespeare’s tragedies is easy to love. The plot turns not on psychological drama but geopolitical intrigue, and the hero is a pain in the neck […] — wrong: the plot turns, as noted above, on Coriolanus’ psychology, and all the ‘geopolitical intrigue’ only functions because of his psychological makeup and choices
- Roger Ebert: “Coriolanus” (3.5 stars of 4)
