DAVID WHEELER - CORIOLANUS

SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM

Volume 10

CORIOLANUS

CORIOLANUS

Critical Essays

Edited by

DAVID WHEELER

First published in 1995

This edition first published in 2015

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1995 David Wheeler

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-138-84955-6 (Set)

eISBN: 978-1-315-72488-1 (Set)

ISBN: 978-1-138-85019-4 (Volume 10)

eISBN: 978-1-315-72486-7 (Volume 10)

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this book but points out that some imperfections from the original may be apparent.

Disclaimer

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

CORIOLANUS

Critical Essays

Edited by

David Wheeler

Copyright 1995 David Wheeler
All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Coriolanus : critical essays / edited by David Wheeler

p. cm. (Shakespeare criticism ; vol. 11)

(Garland reference library of the humanities ; vol. 1646)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-8153-1057-9

1. Shakespeare, William, 15641616. Coriolanus. 2. Coriolanus, Cnaeus MarciusIn literature. 3. RomeIn literature.

I. Shakespeare, William, 15641616. II. Wheeler, David, 1950 III. Series. IV. Series: Shakespeare criticism ; vol. 11.

PR2805.C68 1995

822.33dc20

94-30211

Printed on acid-free, 250-year-life paper
Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

David Wheeler

Nahum Tate

Charles Gildon

Thomas Sheridan

William Hazlitt

August Wilhelm von Schlegel

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A.C. Bradley

Paul A. Jorgensen

Tyrone Guthrie

James L. Calderwood

Emmett Wilson, Jr.

J.L. Simmons

Lawrence Danson

Patricia K. Meszaros

Felicia Hardison Londr

Madelon Sprengnether

John Ripley

Zvi Jagendorf

Martin Scofield

David Wheeler

Karen Aubrey

S.K. Bedford

The continuing goal of the Garland Shakespeare Criticism Series is to provide the most influential historical criticism, the most significant contemporary interpretations, and reviews of the most influential productions. Each volume in the series, devoted to a Shakespearean play or poem (e.g., the sonnets, Venus and Adonis, the Rape of Lucrece), includes the most essential criticism and reviews of Shakespeares work from the late seventeenth century to the present. The series thus provides, through individual volumes, a representative gathering of critical opinion of how a play or poem has been interpreted over the centuries.

A major feature of each volume in the series is the editors introduction. Each volume editor provides a substantial essay identifying the main critical issues and problems the play (or poem) has raised, charting the critical trends in looking at the work over the centuries, and assessing the critical discourses that have linked the play or poem to various ideological concerns. In addition to examining the critical commentary in light of important historical and theatrical events, each introduction functions as a discursive bibliographic essay that cites and evaluates significant critical worksessays, journal articles, dissertations, books, theatre documentsand gives readers a guide to research on the particular play or poem.

After the introduction, each volume is organized chronologically, by date of publication of selections, into two sections: critical essays and theatre reviews/documents. The first section includes previously published journal articles and book chapters as well as original essays written for the collection. In selecting essays, editors have chosen works that are representative of a given age and critical approach. Striving for accurate historical representation, editors include earlier as well as contemporary criticism. Their goal is to include the widest possible range of critical approaches to the play or poem to demonstrate the multiplicity and complexity of critical response. In most instances, essays have been reprinted in their entirety, not butchered into snippets. The editors have also commissioned original essays (sometimes as many as five to ten) by leading Shakespearean scholars, thus offering the most contemporary, theoretically attentive analyses. Reflecting some recent critical approaches in Shakespearean studies, these new essays approach the play or poem from a multiplicity of perspectives, including feminist, Marxist, new historical, semiotic, mythic, performance/staging, cultural, and/or a combination of these and other methodologies. Some volumes in the series even include bibliographic analyses that have significant implications for criticism.

The second section of each volume in the series is devoted to the play in performance and, again, is organized chronologically by publication date, beginning with some of the earliest and most significant productions and proceeding to the most recent. This section, which ultimately provides a theatre history of the play, should not be regarded as different from or rigidly isolated from the critical essays in the first section. Shakespearean criticism has often been informed by or has significantly influenced productions. Shakespearean criticism over the last twenty years or so has usefully been labeled the Age of Performance. Readers will find information in this section on major foreign productions of Shakespeares plays as well as landmark productions in English. Consisting of more than reviews of specific productions, this section also contains a variety of theatre documents, including interpretations written for a particular volume by notable directors whose comments might be titled The Directors Choice, histories of seminal productions (e.g., Peter Brooks Titus Andronicus) in 1955), and even interviews with directors and/or actors. Editors have also included photographs from productions around the world to help readers see and further appreciate the way a Shakespearean play has taken shape in the theatre.

Each volume in the Garland Shakespeare Criticism Series strives to give readers a balanced, representative collection of the best that has been thought and said about a Shakespearean play or poem. In essence, each volume supplies a careful survey of essential materials in the history of criticism for a Shakespearean play or poem. In offering readers complete, fulfilling, and in some instances very hard to locate materials, editors have made conveniently accessible the literary and theatrical criticism of Shakespeares greatest legacy, his work.