Shakespeare's Coriolanus is the second play we're covering in my Shakespeare course. It was mentioned a lot in the introduction to Titus Andronicus, so I was excited to read it. Like Titus, Coriolanus takes place in ancient Rome. But unlike Titus, Coriolanus was a lot harder to follow.
The play opened, and it seemed like Caius Martius (who later gains the surname Coriolanus) is returning to Rome. But then he is back in battle almost immediately without returning home. After that battle, the nobles want to name him consul, but the tribunes disagree, claiming that he is too prideful. What made this strange was that he left the room when people were speaking of his great deeds; hearing of them shamed him! The play continued in this fashion, and so I remained quite thoroughly confused through the whole thing, never really sure what was going on.
I'm going to have to mull Coriolanus over a bit, and see what is said in class, but so far, this is not one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. I'm going to write a follow up in a few days though, once I've had some time (and we talk about it in class).
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Today we officially finished talking about Coriolanus in class, and I have to say my opinion remains unchanged. While I have a greater understanding of the character Coriolanus, I still find the play to be confusing. It is by no means my favourite Shakespeare play. While Titus is much more brutal than Coriolanus, I think Titus is a millon times better.
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