/lit/ - Literature

weak b8

>>11915237
lmao fuck off

>>11915341
>>11915403
I'm sincerely interested to hear why I'm wrong or why people like this play so I can better my understanding of it. What's good about Coriolanus?

The two noble kinsmen is surely worse

>>11915237
>Is this Shakespeare's worst play?
That would be The Winters Tale.

>>11915237
I had to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream back in high school. I think that would be my least favorite.

In OP’s defense George Bernard Shaw considered Coriolanus Shakespeare’s worst tragedy and thought it played more like unintentional comedy

But then TS Eliot thought it was better than Hamlet.

I haven’t read Coriolanus so I don’t have an opinion on the play.

Coriolanus is the best "play" only.
It doesn't have the best characters
It doesn't have the best dialogue
It doesn't have the best storyline
But it has the best balance of all of them

>>11915451
>What's good about Coriolanus?
No-one likes this answer, but the thematic content. It deals with some very modern problems and ideas but does it in a way that is anything but modern or expected. It literally begins with a citizen's riot as they mean to violently redistribute wealth and grain as Rome has fallen under hard times and food is rationed, except seemingly in the case of the rich. This is a timeless problem, Shakespeare in fact wrote the play following a crisis in the English midlands during the early 1600s, usury and a harsh winter brought people to riot against the nobility sooner than starve. And talks of class and distribution obviously continue today. But Shakespeare's answer is very surprising, he presents the common people as generally bungling opportunists whose unworthiness is proven in their cowardice and lack of virtue. It follows that some people walk away from Coriolanus having read it as a defense of Fascism. However the upper echelons of Roman society are not presented in a kind light either, being overwhelmingly flatterers, and schemers, and effete policy makers who themselves produce little of value save in their machinations to bring the state upon the brink of ruin. The exception to all of this is Coriolanus, his value is manifest as a savior of Rome who directly fights and bleeds for her, and he is betrayed by everyone in the play precisely because he is some monster of virtue and totally uncompromising. It might be accurate to call him a caricature, but I feel that would cheapen his example. Ask yourself, do you think his fate was foolish? Remember that in everything, he chose it. So what do we do, what is the answer? Shakespeare offers context, but leaves it to the audience to decide.


If I had to recommend it to someone I'd say Coriolanus is like some blend of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Dostoevsky's The Idiot, who in the hell doesn't want to read that? It has some excellent moments too, the sheer vitriol found in the dialogue is so gratifying to read, the abuses laid upon those 2 faggot senators by Menenius in particular, in fact everything Menenius says is a joy to read. Admittedly the ending I'm not overly fond of but I suppose it's the sort of thing that's meant to be seen in the theater rather than read.

>>11916082
>But then TS Eliot thought it was better than Hamlet.
He was a contrarian hipster faggot, Hamlet is king.

>>11915237
Titus Andronicus is a million times worse

>>11916859
>Hamlet is king.
That would be Claudius, but thank you for playing.

>>11917947
I mean Hamlet by W. Shakespeare is the KING

>>11916082
tfw Midsummer is your favorite shakespeare

i didnt choose the pleb life it chose me

>>11918560
>mfw Love's Labor's Lost is my favourite
feels good to be a patrician

>>11918584
>three l's in a three word title
shakespeare is dropped

The low point for me was when the King Henry VIII showed up in the window with Butts.

>>11915237
Shakespeare has better and then worse plays. There’s a fair amount of candidates for his worst play. Even his worst plays, however, usually have some passages of some more beautiful poetry and advanced mastery of rhetoric than many great poets.

>>11917025
>he doesn't like ultra violence

>>11919660
>It doesn't matter if the plots construction or its wordplay are weak, it's ultraviolent!
Neck yourself in the most violent way possible.

>>11917025
>tfw watching Psycho Pass endeared me to Titus Andronicus
A little story-telling variety never hurt anyone anon, give or take a mutilated cripple girl here and there.

>>11918560
Bloom likes Midsummer Night’s Dream too. (But he thinks As You Like It is Shakespeare’s best comedy). Personally Twelfth Night is my favorite but what do I know.

Shakespeare isn't for reading! They are scripts! It's a blueprint for a performance, not a novel. Any of the plays can be best or worst, depending on the actors.

>>11920888
This is the right answer.

The best wrong answer is that Timon Of Athens is the worst Shakespeare play.

>>11920888
>>11921006
There is enough poetry and depth to the plays that they reward reading as well, whatever the intention behind their creation.

>>11915237
I love Shakespeare but a lot of his stuff really is jovial nonsense. But who judges The Beatles based on Let It Be?

>>11918918
I know what you mean, As You Like It is trash, but The Whole World is a Stage is based

>>11915237
>>11916065
Absolute pleb. His worst by far is The Merry Wives, The three Henry VI plays, and Two Gentlemen. Everything else he's written is significantly above those.

>>11921131
Two Gentlemen is based, it was his first play, sure it's raw but the genius is there. Henry VIII is probably the worst play. Also not a fan of Julius Caeser which features clocks in ancient Rome.

>>11915237
Coriolanus as a play is interesting to me because the central character - unlike Lear, Hamlet, Falstaff etc. - radically rejects the audience. Not in the same manner as Timon or Thersites who rail agains their spectators, but rather through a self- enforced, wilful opacity. (a quality not of his analogues, such as Marlowe's Tamburlaine or Shakespeare's own Antony or Macbeth, possess) He is really most similar to Iago (w/r/t Coleridge's "motive-seeking of motiveless malignacy") in that he is in some ways, incomprehensible.

Coriolanus is for most of the play an image of an apex predator compromised by human society (and i would argue an alternate emblem for his final soliloquy is of a bear-baiting with Aufidius as a "cur": "Cut me to pieces, Volsces; Men and lads,/Stain all your edges on me. Boy! False Hound!"). Despite his attempts at some form of isolation and supremacy - as in his inability to pander to the plebeians - he is compromised both by becoming a totemic figure for Rome (the bearing of his scars) and because of his position as a Volumnia's son.

Its really a very unusual, complicated play as both Coriolanus and the play's overall idiom are unique amongst Shakespeare's works

>>11921180
>in that he is in some ways, incomprehensible.
I would argue it's something of the reverse. He's too comprehensible, he is quite simply, virtus incarnate. In all things he defers to manhood and honor and duty, and while this is easy enough to describe, it is difficult to appreciate or imagine on a personal level, we can understand him in a divorced sense, but the audience can never truly empathize with Coriolanus.

>>11921131
>The three Henry VI plays
niceb8m8Ir8it8/8