CORIOLANUS INTRODUCTION Coriolanus, in a far from satisfactory text, was first published in the folio of 1623. Apart from the internal evidence of artistic workmanship, thought, style, and metre, there is only one point-though several have been alleged-which helps us to ascertain the date at which the play was written. Jonson's Epicoene was acted in January 1609-10. 'Well, Dauphine,' says Truewit in the first scene of the fifth Act, 'you have lurch'd your friends of the better half of the garland.' "He lurch'd all swords of the garland,' says Cominius in the present play (Act II, Scene ii). Jonson's phrase, whether meant as a sneer at Shakespeare, as Malone at one time supposed, or not, looks like a reminiscence of that found in Coriolanus. The fact, noticed also by Malone, that the fable of the belly and the members, told by Menenius to the Roman people, is perhaps derived in some of its phrasing from Camden's Remaines concerning Britaine, 1605, helps us little, for the internal evidence clearly points to a later date. That internal evidence is sufficient to incline us to accept a date generally agreed upon by critics, a date which places our play immediately after Antony and Cleopatra, the year 1608 or 1609. Antony's ruin is caused by the dominance of a woman together with his own voluptuous weakness. Coriolanus is strong as a "great seamark, standing every flaw', yet he too bows to a woman-not a mistress but a mother. The two plays seem to form a contrasted pair. The source is North's translation of Plutarch's Lives from the French of Amyot. This had appeared as early as 1579. A discussion, into which it is needless to enter, has been raised in connexion with the date of this play, as to which edition of North's translation was in Shakespeare's hands. The attempt to prove that he used the edition of 1612 has no sufficent basis; on the whole it seems more probable that the edition of 1595 was that read by him, and the pleasant conjecture has been made that he received his copy as a gift from the publisher, Richard Field, the son of a Stratford citizen. Whether the tale of Coriolanus is history or legend, we may be sure that Shakespeare regarded it as the former. The play has all the solidity, massiveness, dignity, of a work of art based upon a historical foundation. A comparison of the tragedy with the life by Plutarch is full of instruction for one who would study the processes of Shakespeare's art, and such a comparison drawn out into detail may be found in Professor MacCallum's volume, Shakespeare's Roman Plays and their Background, 1910. A question has, indeed, been raised as to whether the background here may not be, in part at least, not Rome only, but England of the reign of James I. 'Nothing could move Shakespeare more sensibly,' wrote Dr. Garnett, 'than the contest between Crown and Commons, King's servant as he was, under special obligation to his sovereign, and entirely conservative in his views of society and politics. He had already poured withering scorn upon the English mob in his picture of Cade and his rabble followers, and upon the Roman mob in the scenes attending Caesar's funeral. Coriolanus gave him an opportunity of striking not merely at the multitude, but at their leaders, for the Tribunes correspond to the refractory members of the lower House. The opportunity is used unsparingly, but at the same time the play is kept from degenerating into a party manifesto, not by extenuating the faults of the populace, but by pointing out equal faults in the aristocracy represented by Coriolanus. Coleridge had viewed the play as illustrating the wonderfully philosophic impartiality of Shakespeare's politics. It is a curious and an amusing comment on Coleridge's criticism, after we have read Dr. Garnett's words, to find another student of Coriolanus, Dr. Stopford Brooke, contending that Shakespeare has exhibited the people as 'just in their demands, wise and modest in their conduct', while the tribunes are no mere demagogues, but are fighting the battle of their class with prudence, intelligence, and skill, against the stupidity and oppression of the upper classes'. Critics pass too readily from a work of art to Shakespeare's political opinions. It was required by the work of art that the greatness of his hero should be enhanced, that the populace should be represented as variable in temper and untrained in judgement, that the tribunes should be foxes opposed to an enraged lion. It was no less required, as the character of Coriolanus was to be his fate, that his faults of arrogance and choler should be heightened, and that it should be seen that the people, if wisely and gently managed, could be wisely led. There is no need to read into Shakespeare a philosophy of history; we do not know that he took any deep interest in the contest in England between the Crown and the Commons. We know that he was deeply interested in producing a work of dramatic art; and a comparison of his play with its original in Plutarch seems to show that when he varied from his authority, he varied more for artistic than for political reasons. Sometimes Shakespeare feels that he can say nothing better in substance than had been already said by Plutarch, and his art lies in adopting what could not be improved, or at most in adding some force or vividness of expression. The whole speech, or, as North styles it,oration' to Aufidius (Act IV, Scene v) reproduces the very language of Amyot's translator. A few lines must here suffice: My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done So Shakespeare; and North reads thus: |