Coriolanus

[wolfinthewood]

Was unexpectedly given a spare ticket to see Coriolanus at Stratford yesterday. Not a play I know well; I saw it many years ago and remembered it as rather dry and unappealing. I have avoided it since.

So I was amazed and delighted to find myself gripped by a terrifying psychological drama in which a man who is dominated by his controlling mother, who has turned him into a driven killing-machine in the name of patriotism and ambition, manages at last to break free from her by outraging the mores of the city, Rome – itself a female, of course (Roma) – in the very name of the patrician pride she has taken such pains to drum into him. At once he seeks refuge with the enemy he has fought inconclusively so many times, and who is the only person, apart from his mother, who really exists for him – their combative rivalry being an extreme expression of unmentionable mutual lust. His enemy, Aufidius, welcomes him in a speech in which his lust is all but open; but soon the rivalry breaks in again and turns Aufidius’ professed love to jealousy and hate. Meanwhile, Coriolanus is set on destroying his mother, and his city – the two are not clearly distinguished in his mind – but in the end, when he is confronted by his mother in person, he cannot face her down. Rome is spared, but Coriolanus dies at the hands of his enemy-lover – the murder being the closest to a sexual consummation that two of them can allow themselves. In the RSC production, this is emphasised by having Coriolanus impale himself upon Aufidius’ sword.

It all hangs together, and so far as I can see, is supported by the text.

VOLUMNIA: Angers my Meate: I suppe vpon my selfe,
And so shall sterve with Feeding.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

from The Tragedy of Coriolanus (c. 1608)


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