Coriolanus, Shakespeare, Act I, scene 1, lines 93 to 160

Résumé du document

Rosencrantz: My Lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.
Hamlet: The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. (Hamlet, IV, 2, 24-26).


This famous quotation –and particularly the chiasmus in Hamlet's answer– points out Shakespeare's recurring concern for the body. It is therefore not surprising that the reader is introduced with the genuine notion of it all –with greater emphasis, as we shall see, on the concept of the body politic– from the very first scene of The Tragedy of Coriolanus. The beginning of a play is like a charm: it must work. The play under study here does not escape the rule, since Shakespeare plunges us into the heart of a crisis of which we know almost nothing –in this respect, the play is certainly given one of the most sudden and fast moving starts of the whole Shakespearian canon. The author's choice of opening his play more particularly with Menenius' fable –which is the focus of our scrutiny here– literally sets the stage: an evolving society in disarray, the organs –or citizens– of which not playing their role any more, the Senate no longer feeding the plebeians... Indeed, the political debate at stake throughout the play is already at its apex in the course of this major passage. Menenius, in an attempt to calm down the angry, hungry plebeians, rioting over the price of food, indulges in a witty, humorous, sensible, yet erroneous parable, a well-known “pretty tale”, which stands for another analogy of the body politic –“Tout est peaulitique”, Gérarg Genette would say.

Extraits

[...] The second cause of this crisis was both more ancient and structural –namely, the politic of enclosures, which dramatically increased poverty and led to rebellion as well. Philip Stubbs, in The Anatomy of the Abuses, metaphorically talked about the situation: “These enclosures be the causes why rich men eat up poor men as beasts do eat grass” –obviously, the images of cannibalism in the play follow this drift. For an Elizabethan audience, this aspect of the play could not but be of high importance –indeed, the riots at the beginning of the play, the motto of the plebeians to “perish rather than famish”, echo recent events that both Shakespeare and the spectators would have borne in mind. [...]

[...] Menenius skilfully generates the citizen's speech thanks to his “speak, I pray at the beginning of the scene, and thanks to his reconciliatory tone. He wants to bring the angry citizens from movement, action and riot to speech. In this respect, this original goal is well achieved, since the spectator is plunged into a colourful dialogue between Menenius and the First Citizen. However will apply ourselves to develop this point in our fourth the old patrician's implicit purpose, namely, to save the –rather idealistic– model of society he describes in his fable, may not be completed. [...]

[...] Obviously, he possesses a gift Coriolanus lacks –that of public relations. This aspect will be strengthened throughout the play, Coriolanus growing more and more impetuous and Menenius playing more and more the role of the paternalistic figure. Beneath the parable, the comic tale related by Menenius, lies in fact a complex rationale built up of suspense, paternalism and irony, aiming at putting an end to the riots and saving the pattern of society as it is, while drawing an even greater contrast between the patrician and the impulsive warrior. [...]

[...] A possible thesis for the play may be the search of a new body at least of a redefinition of it, outside Rome for Coriolanus: in this respect, the passage has to be linked with Act III, scene lines 113 to 125. This is also the great paradox of the actor, who has to perform a role but wants to keep his identity integrity. Are we then to consider, in the light of those new perspectives, The Tragedy of Coriolanus as a tragedy of non-reciprocity? [...]

[...] Coriolanus, Shakespeare, Act scene lines 93 to 160 Rosencrantz: My Lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king. Hamlet: The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. (Hamlet, IV 24-26). This famous quotation particularly the chiasmus in Hamlet's answer– points out Shakespeare's recurring concern for the body. It is therefore not surprising that the reader is introduced with the genuine notion of it all –with greater emphasis, as we shall see, on the concept of the body politic– from the very first scene of The Tragedy of Coriolanus. [...]