Coriolanus (Everyman Shakespeare)

by William Shakespeare (Author), William Shakespeare (Author), John F. Andrews (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  1998

  $3.25

  Coriolanus by William Shapeskpeare is the playwrights last tragedy, telling of Caius Marcius, a proud Roman General, who gains the name Coriolanus when, successful in battle against the Volscians, he captures the town Corioli. When his subsequent arrogance prevents his receiving the consulship in Rome, Coriolanus now allies himself to his former adversary, the Volscian general Aufidius, and with him marches on Rome to effect revenge for this insult. Yet although deaf to the appeal of emissaries and old friends, finally Coriolanus is persuaded to spare the city by his mother's eloquance. Having made a treaty favourable to the Volscians, Coriolanus is nevertheless suspected by Aufidius of betraying Volscian interests, and publicly killed.

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $3.25

  This generously annotated edition of Coriolanus offers a thorough reconsideration of Shakespeare's remarkable, and probably his last, tragedy. A substantial introduction situates the play within its contemporary social and political contexts - death, riots, the struggle over authority between James 1 and his first parliament, the travails of Essex and Ralegh - and pays particular attention to Shakespeare's shaping of his primary source in Plutarch's Lives. It presents a fresh account of how the protagonist's personal tragedy evolves within Shakespeare's most searching exploration of the political life of a community. The edition is alert throughout to the play's theatrical potential, while the stage history also attends to the politics of performance from the 1680s to the 1990s, including European productions following the Second World War.