CORIOLANUS (1984) Alan Howard

Scene from the BBC production of Shakespeare's CORIOLANUS, starring Alan Howard in the title role.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Coriolanus
• Shakespeare
• Alan
• Howard

[C0NTR4B455]

Brilliant!!! The whole issue in a nutshell: Who rules a nation? Is there a ruling class? How far is democracy in the best interests of the mob and those who 'speak' on its behalf? A play for our and every age..Shakespeare is so deep.

[DonJulioBlanco2002]

Note to aspiring actors: this is how you do Shakespeare.

[anneboyd1]

Occupy the Forum! We SHALL, we absolutely SHALL! (Unless Caius Martius gives his reasons, more worthier than our voices).

[GreatGrumbledook]

... So our virtues Lie in the interpretation of the time: And power, unto itself most commendable, Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair To extol what it hath done. One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail. Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine, Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine."

[GreatGrumbledook]

... whether defect of judgment, To fail in the disposing of those chances Which he was lord of; or whether nature, Not to be other than one thing, not moving From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace Even with the same austerity and garb As he controll'd the war; but one of these-- As he hath spices of them all, not all, For I dare so far free him--made him fear'd, So hated, and so banish'd: but he has a merit, To choke it in the utterance. ...

[GreatGrumbledook]

"All places yield to him ere he sits down; And the nobility of Rome are his: The senators and patricians love him too: The tribunes are no soldiers; and their people Will be as rash in the repeal, as hasty To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it By sovereignty of nature. First he was A noble servant to them; but he could not Carry his honours even: whether 'twas pride, Which out of daily fortune ever taints The happy man; ...

[GreatGrumbledook]

@SierraNeef: As always: Shakespeare understood this himself best, without knowing it! Aufidius contemplates about the causes with Coriolanus was banished from Rome and finds no vice or morale wrong in his behaviour:

[GreatGrumbledook]

@SierraNeef: Nope; words are bound to their origin: A sword will always be a sword and if you call a tree thus it is sophistry, as I said already; Faust is a play and not even a sadness play as the Germans call the tragedy; and of course somewhat the mental autobiography of Monsieur Goethe; and again: In Greek tragedy the persons, Gods and various powers (such as morale, hatred, love and so on) clash, without being good or evil (as this mere category was unknown to the Greeks).

[SierraNeef]

@GreatGrumbledook

Now I disagree. There is, of course, a greek sense of tragedy, by which only greek tragedy, and all greek tragedy, must be considered tragic. But the meaning of thing changes, despite their creator, and so, even Goethe call's his Faust a tragedy: it is not tragic at all! I belive there is a non-greek sense of the tragic, but what puzzels me is whether or not there are some actual works that correspond to it. Coriolanus may be the closest thing —for it's lack of evil only?

[GreatGrumbledook]

... to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa major; so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing."

@SierraNeef: And I read tragedies but no books about them, save the works of Aristotle and he said already that they are hard to define, but the tragic is the lack of good and evil.

[GreatGrumbledook]

"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, ...

[GreatGrumbledook]

@SierraNeef: Humanity is a bit older than Shakespeare, unless he is somewhat the incarnation of a creation goddess; and of there is a culture/nation which has invented the individual than it is the Greeks, though all cultures are a mix of individuality and collective, due to the double essence of humanity: Being a social animal; but for the Greeks the Gods and Fate were responsible for the fortune or misfortune in life; a thing Shakespeare rejected; and I will quote Edmund from King Lear: