Shakespeare and Henri Lefebvre’s ‘right to the city’: subjective alienation and mob violence in Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and 2 Henry VI

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn his treatise, The Right to the City, published in Paris just before the student riots of 1968, Henri Lefebvre claims that inhabitants have a ‘right to the city’ which supersedes the rights of property owners and advocates ‘re-appropriation’ of the city, resulting in ‘collective ownership and management of space’. Present-day movements such as the Occupy protests continue to cite Lefebvre’s radical proposals as their inspiration. Shakespeare presents a nightmare counterpoint to this utopian dream. In 2 Henry VI, an analogue of ‘the right to the city’ appears as might be called ‘the right to the commons’. The Jack Cade Rebellion, however, quickly degenerates into horrifying bloodshed. In Julius Caesar and Coriolanus, Shakespeare likewise seems to oppose anarchic populism. Shakespeare and Lefebvre share common ground, however, in their sense that mob violence is a response to subjective alienation. Like Hegel, they see the desire for recognition as the engine of political conflict. More than any material change in what Marx would call the ‘conditions of production’, Shakespeare’s peasants and plebeians want to be recognised as worthy of respect; in the language of Coriolanus, they want their ‘voices’ to be heard. Riots and rebellions are their way of protecting that right.