Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Pathology Of Rhetoric In Coriolanus, Yvonne Bruce

English Faculty Publications

Coriolanus seems to be a play of action, a dramatized world of mutinous citizens, plotting tribunes, famine, war, and banishment. Yet what really happens in this world? The citizens never realize their mutiny. Brutus and Sicinius never realize their illdefined plot, Coriolanus' consulship is rescinded, the mutual banishment of Coriolanus is undone by his resolve not to make "true wars" against Rome. and the defeat of Aufidius in act one becomes a meaningless victory when Coriolanus is in turn defeated in the final scene of the play. Perhaps it is more accurate to call Coriolanus a play of action, a …