Coriolanus As Tragic Hero

Abstract

A7s ~'~ ORIOLANUS has not, on whole, been a popular play, either on stage or with literary critics.1 Some of later twentieth-century commentators have been more appreciative (notably D. A. Traversi, Hardin Craig, Peter Alexander, and H. C. Goddard) 2 but nobody has accorded play place of honor that one might expect for Shakespeare's last tragedy; and is hardly too much to say that this reluctance to rate play highly is result of a failure to interpret sympathetically character of hero. Sometimes, to be sure, criticism of play has taken other forms. E. K. Chambers wrote that it variety and decorative quality, and inexhaustible buoyancy of its predecessors gives way to deliberate and purposed effort. For first time since some of painful humours and strained witcombats of his early experiments, Shakespeare has become tedious, and to Sir Ifor Evans it is as if Shakespeare had left part of tragedy half-worked, or as if he had composed some sections in a mood where his interest had been distracted. . . In language seems incompletely realized; D. J. Enright's conclusion was that the play is remarkable for its neatness and impetus, for precision with which achieves itself-but is surely a success of an altogether lower order than that of Macbeth, and even Peter Alexander thought lacks colour and warmth of Antony and Cleopatra.3 To criticisms such as these, however, which raise questions lying beyond sphere of characterization, is not so difficult to offer brief answers. For example, may be suggested that if style of Coriolanus is different, that is largely because subject of play is different from subjects of other tragedies. The political setting (as in Galsworthy's Strife-to take an obvious example) means that many speeches are to be heard as set speeches, thought out by speaker beforehand (such as Cominius' oration before Senate in II. ii) while others may be said to be deliberately purple (such as Martius' exhortations to his troops). The play has, in short, forensic power of Henry V-which is, significantly, often damned in similar terms. Coriolanus appeals, then, rather for its oratory than for soliloquy or unexpected aside. But because its action is so often predictable, also calls for an extraordinary use of dramatic irony, and illustrates admirably Shakespeare's art in weaving