SOURCE: “Volumnia's Silence,” in Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Vol. 31, No. 2, Spring, 1991, pp. 327-42.
In the following essay, Luckyj reviews the ways in which Volumnia's silence following her successful plea to Coriolanus to spare Rome has been interpreted. Noting that Volumnia's character is often viewed in extremes (her silence is alternately interpreted as triumphant or devastated, for example), Luckyj argues that Shakespeare provides enough evidence to suggest that Volumnia's motivation is “complex and open-ended.”
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