‘Coriolanus.’
‘Coriolanus’ (first printed from a singularly bad text in 1623) similarly owes its origin to the biography of the hero in North’s ‘Plutarch,’ although Shakespeare may have first met the story in Painter’s ‘Palace of Pleasure’ (No. iv.) He again adhered to the text of Plutarch with the utmost literalness, and at times—even in the great crises of the action—repeated North’s translation word for word. [246] But the humorous scenes are wholly of Shakespeare’s invention, and the course of the narrative was at times slightly changed for purposes of dramatic effect. The metrical characteristics prove the play to have been written about the same period as ‘Antony and
Cleopatra,’ probably in 1609. In its austere temper it contrasts at all points with its predecessor. The courageous self-reliance of Coriolanus’s mother, Volumnia, is severely contrasted with the submissive gentleness of Virgilia, Coriolanus’s wife. The hero falls a victim to no sensual flaw, but to unchecked pride of caste, and there is a searching irony in the emphasis laid on the ignoble temper of the rabble, who procure his overthrow. By way of foil, the speeches of Menenius give dignified expression to the maturest political wisdom. The dramatic interest throughout is as single and as unflaggingly sustained as in ‘Othello.’