Sacred Life and Sacrificial Economy: Coriolanus in No-Man's-Land

Abstract

In these lines we might trace a precursor for Shakespeare's Coriolanus, the military hero of the early Roman Republic who turns his back on his own city to join forces with its enemies. First Citizen speaks the first line of Coriolanus (ca. 1608—9): Before we proceed any further, hear me speak (1.1.1).2 The opening lines of the play thus link the shifting status of republican citizenship to rights, and rites, of public speech and popular representation, issues again foregrounded in the election scene of act 2, scene 1. Often considered the most political of Shakespeare's plays, his last tragedy has long provided fodder for those who speculate about Shakespeare's own political affiliations, particularly his attitude toward absolute monarchy, on the one hand, or some sort of protodemocratic populism, on the other. Recently, Andrew Hadfield takes up the issue in a series of books and articles.3 In his latest book, Hadfield identifies his critical task as an exercise in historical recovery or archaeology, com mencing with the provocative query was Shakespeare a Republican? Unlike Hadfield, in the argument that follows do not overtly engage this question. Rather, as A. C. Bradley said nearly a century ago, I do not propose to join this dance, or even to ask whether any reasonable conjec ture as to Shakespeare's political views and feelings could be formed from