SOURCE: Parker, R. B., ed. Introduction to The Oxford Shakespeare: The Tragedy of Coriolanus, by William Shakespeare, pp. 1-148. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

In the following excerpt, Parker surveys political, psychological, and existential approaches to theme and character in Coriolanus.

The special brilliance of Coriolanus is its insight into the mutual influence of psychology and politics. There are two distinct political levels in the play. The obvious one is the class conflict between patricians and plebeians, which is complicated by external war against the Volsces and raises the problems of right government. But there is also the more basic question of ‘patriotism’. What is it shapes the link between an individual and his society before class-conflict even appears? This involves the way that family relationships shape individual identity, and the dependence of those relationships in their turn on the wider values and expectations of society as encoded in...