#bog talks

What is it, what do you like about it, do you think thats what most people like about it?

*DEEP INHALE*

CORIOLANUS IS MY FAVORITE SHAKESPEARE PLAY EVER

Okay, so.

The Tragedy of Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare's later plays, written near the end of his career. It's a Roman setting, like Titus Andronicus, and it's about a soldier named Gaius Martius (who earns the titular name Coriolanus in the first scene of the play through an astounding feat of martial prowess when he takes the city of Corioles practically single-handed). The plot, in a very quick sketch, is as follows:

1) Gaius Martius Coriolanus returns as a triumphant war hero to Rome and is urged to run for consul against his will

2) A couple of consuls that don't like him plot against him and use the masses to provoke him into a display of what they tout as arrogance

3) The consuls banish him from Rome for his arrogance

4) He goes to his arch-ememy (and definitely not gay hatemance what are you talking about) Aufidius and offers his aid to take Rome for the Volsces (Aufidius's people)

5) He and Aufidius kick ass all the way to the gates of Rome, and then Coriolanus's wife and son convince Coriolanus not to burn Rome to the ground

6) Upon hearing that Coriolanus will not burn Rome, Aufidius and the Volsces kill Coriolanus

End play.

OBVIOUSLY this is an extreme simplification and I've left out A LOT. But that's the basics.

THE THING IS

Shakespearian scholars and critics fucking HATE this play, and it makes me SO MAD

The consensus is that Coriolanus is a badly written tragic hero because "in order to be a tragic hero one must first be a genuine hero" and they think that Coriolanus isn't! The scholarship I've read on this play basically generally agrees that the consuls who plot against Coriolanus are right about him and that he is an arrogant bastard who deserved what he got because he was "too proud" to beg for the people's votes as is tradition when running for consul.

BUT

The thing they all somehow seem to forget is that CORIOLANUS NEVER WANTED TO BE CONSUL!!!!!!

Like did we even read the same play???!?!??! HE DID NOT WANT THAT!!!! He was pressured into it by the people, by the other consuls, by his godawful mother, by EVERYONE, and HE DID NOT WANT IT!

And for the crime of Not Wanting To Do This Shit, the consuls and the people literally drive him out of his home, the city he has fought and bled for, with torches and pitchforks.

I'd be pissed off too!!

It's endlessly frustrating to me that the critical response to this play is basically "it sucks" when it is genuinely one of the most poignant and interesting and UNIQUE plays Shakespeare ever wrote! His prose is so polished, you can really tell he's at the pinnacle of his craft with all those long years of writing behind him. It's such a more realistic, genuine depiction of mature humanity than you get in, for example, Hamlet, or R&J, where everyone is either a caricature or just so young.

Coriolanus is a mature story about a mature man. It's not fantastical like Macbeth, or sensational like the cannibalistic Titus Andronicus. It's so unbelievably real. Coriolanus' anger is so real, his grievance is so real, the ugliness and jealousy of the consuls and Aufidius is so real, the cowardice and apathy of his friends is so real, it's all so real.

based on something one of my friends said to me a few weeks ago that made me get very choked up..

bog is .. important to me .. and since I've felt sad recently , drawing her is a huge comfort