Book Review: Coriolanus

Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,
And so shall starve with feeding

I’m not 100% sure what I think of this play; perhaps by the end of this review, I will form an opinion, but there are many things that I need to think about and digest. An excellent soldier turned terrible politician and ends up dying a hollow, desperate and tragic death is the plot line for our play this week.

I do not think that this is even Shakespeare’s best tragedy - that crown will stay with Othello. But this just seemed messy. Coriolnus does not really do himself any favours. He is a fantastic soldier who has waged war and brought back countless spoils to Rome. However, he is a terrible politician. There is terrible, i.e. being bad at policy; then there is Coriolanius terrible, i.e. insulting all the plebians and citizens of Rome who all rooted for you and voted for you. Like I said, terrible.

The women, however, come out of this well. I am not entirely surprised, with he exception of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, Shakespeares women are usually strong minded, willed, clever and resourceful. Volumina and Virgilia are the two main women being Coriolanus’s mother and wife, respectively. Virgilia has more to lose as she and Coriolanus have a child and therefore cannot suffer her husband being a moron. Volumina is clearly the clever one in her family - she has arguably the best speech in the whole play, proving that she is the better politician and diplomat as she appeals to Coriolanus’s better nature. Even if it is all in vain.

It just seemed a little over the top and rather unbelievable- I guess what sets this tragedy apart is that there was no sense of tension, no building up of the drama and how everything is slowly, slowly going wrong. You see that happening in Othello; heck, even Romeo and Juliet built the drama and tragedy better. The ending and death scenes all happened very quickly - really, all in a matter of moments. Literally a few lines, and then the play was over. Hmmm, not Shakespeare's best play.