HARDY'S CORIOLAN
“ Coriolanus, even as treated by Shakespeare, is unsym- pathetic to many, and the legend is of so little historic significance that it is often omitted from modern handbooks of Roman history; so, for these reasons, despite its pre-eminent fitness for the stage, it was generally passed over.
Not universally, however. It seems already to have engaged the attention of one important dramatist in France, the prolific and gifted Alexandre Hardy. Hardy began to publish his works only in 1623, and the volume containing his Coriolan appeared only in 1625; so there is hardly any possibility of Shakespeare's having utilised this play. And, on the other hand, it was certainly written before 1608, probably in the last years of the sixteenth century, but in any case by 1607, so there is even less possibility of its being influenced by Shakespeare's treatment. All the more interesting is it to observe the coincidences that exist between them, and that are due to their having selected a great many of the same motifs from Plutarch's story. It shows that in that story Plutarch met the playwright half way, and justified the statement of Hardy in his argument that ‘few subjects are to be found in Roman history which are worthier of the stage.’ The number of subsequent French dramas with Coriolanus as hero proves that he was right, though in England, as so frequently, Shakespeare's name put a veto on new experiments. Hardy's tragedy in style and structure follows the Senecan manner of Jodelle and Garnier, but he compromised with mediæval fashions in so far as to adopt the peculiar modification of the ‘simultaneous’ or ‘complex’ decoration which is usual in his other plays. In accordance with that, several scenes were presented at the same time on the stage, and actors made their first speeches from the area appropriated to that one of them which the particular phase of the action required. There was thus considerable latitude in regard to the unity of place, and even more in regard to the unity of time; but the freedom was not so great as in the Eliza- bethan theatre, for after all there was space only for a limited number of scenes, or ‘mansions’ as they would formerly have been called. Generally there were five, two at each side and one at the back. In the Coriolan there were six, and there is as well a seventh place indicated in the play without scenical decoration. Even so they are few compared with the two and twenty that Shakespeare employs; and though no doubt that number might be considerably reduced without injury to the effect, by running together localities that approximate in character and position, one street with another street, the forum with a public place and the like, still it would in any case exceed what Hardy allows himself. This may account for some of his omissions as compared with Shakespeare. His scenarium includes the house of Coriolanus and the forum at Rome, the house of Coriolanus and the house of Amfidius at Antium, the Volscian camp near Rome, the council-hall at Antium, and in addition to these an indeterminate spot where Coriolanus soliloquises after his expulsion. There is no room for Corioli, and this may be why Hardy begins somewhat later than Shakespeare with the collision between the hero and the people, and gets as far as the banishment by the end of the first act. In the second, Marcius leaves Rome, presents himself to Amfidius, and obtains the leadership of the Volscians. The third portrays the panic of the Romans and the reception of their embassage by Coriolanus. In the fourth, the Roman ladies make ready to accompany Volumnia on her mission, Amfidius schemes to use all Coriolanus' faults for his destruction, Volumnia arrives in the camp and makes her petition, which her son at length grants, though he foresees the result. The fifth is occupied with his murder in the Senate House at Antium, and concludes with his mother's reception of the news. Thus the sequence and selection of episodes are much the same in the two tragedies, except that Hardy, perhaps, as I have said, owing to the exigencies of his decorative system, does not begin till the exploit at Corioli is over, and adds, as he could do so by using once more Coriolanus' house in Rome, the final scene with Volumnia. Otherwise the scaffolding of the plays is very similar, and it is because both follow closely the excellent guidance of Plutarch. But it is interesting also to note that some of their additions are similar, for when they were inde- pendently made, it shows how readily Plutarch's narrative suggested such supple- ments. Thus, as in Shakespeare, but not as in Plutarch, Volumnia counsels her son to bow his pride before the people, and he, though in the end consenting, at first refuses. “ ‘Volumnie. Voicy le jour fatal qui te donne (mon fils)
Par une humilité tes hayneurs deconfits;
Tu vaincras, endurant, la fiere ingratitude
Et le rancœur malin de ceste multitude.
Tu charmes son courroux d'une submission:
Helas! ne vueille donc croire à ta passion.
Cede pour un moment, et la voila contente,
Et tu accoiseras une horrible tourmente,
Que Rome divisée ébranle à ton sujet:
La pieté ne peut avoir plus bel objet,
Et faire mieux paroistre à l'endroit d'une mere,
A l'endroit du païs, qu'escoutant ma priere.
” “Coriolan. Madame, on me verroit mille morts endurer,
Plustôt que suppliant sa grace procurer,
Plustôt qu'un peuple vil à bon tiltre se vante
D'avoir en mon courage imprimé l'épouvante,
Que ceux qui me devroient recognoistre seigneur,
Se prévallent sur moy du plus petit honneur:
Moy, fléchir le genoüil devant une commune!
Non, je ne le veux faire, et ne crains sa rancune.’
” Thus Coriolanus, again as in Shakespeare, but not as in Plutarch, accepts his banishment as a calamity to those that inflict it. “‘Je luy obeirai, ouy ouy, je mettrai soin
De quitter ces ingrats plustôt qu'ils n'ont besoin.’
” Thus the machinations of Amfidius before the final cause of offense are amplified far beyond the limits of Plutarch, and these are in part excused by his previous rivalry with Coriolanus, which, as in Shakespeare, is made ever so much more personal and graphic. “‘Un esperon d'honneur cent fois nous a conduits,
Aveugles de fureur, à ces termes reduits
De sentre-deffier [s' entre-défier] au front de chaque armée,
Vouloir mourir, ou seul vaincre de renommée.’
” In short, though Hardy's drama, as compared with Shakespeare's, is a work of talent as compared with a work of genius, it shows that the Life had in it the mate- rial for a tragedy already rough-dressed, with indications, obvious to a practised playwright, of some of the processes that still were needed.”
“ Hardy was a voluminous and popular playwright who had, like Shakespeare, begun his career as an actor. Although he interpreted Senecan principles of dramatic art with freedom, he respected the classical temper and most of the classical canons. In the case of Coriolan he observed the unity of action by opening the scene with the banishment of the hero and by strictly confining the succeeding episode to the events issuing in his death. The monologues of Coriolanus and Volumnia fill most of Hardy's pages, and the chorus of Roman citizens hardly relieves the monotonous effect. Hardy never rises to the level of tragic passion, but his fluent pen always had at command an ample store of stilted dignity. The simplicity of the tragic motive with its filial sentiment well harmonised with French ideals of classical drama and with the French domestic temperament. For more than two centuries the seed which Hardy had sown fructified, and no less than three and twenty tragedies on the subject blossomed since Hardy's day in the French theatres. The later French dramatists liberally revised the simple plot and greatly developed the female interest. Corio- lanus' wife in some of the French tragedies acquires a prominence almost equal to that of her husband or her mother-in-law, and at times her influence is shared or disputed by the hero's mistress or daughter or sister. But despite the occasional complications of later French ingenuity it is the singleness of interest attaching to Coriolanus' relation with his mother which chiefly sustained the tragic fable in the stream of French drama.
It may be no more than a fortuitous coincidence that Shakespeare took up the dramatic parable just after its first enunciation in Paris; yet it is difficult to deny the possibility that some mysterious affinity or influence drew his attention, almost contemporaneously with the French playwright Hardy, to a dramatic theme whose main characteristic was a severe classical simplicity. At first sight the topic seemed to offer few opportunities or attractions to a dramatist whose immediately preceding and succeeding achievement evinced a predominant sympathy with stories instinct with emotional subtlety and romantic temper. Whether or no Shakespeare knew aught of Hardy's experiment, his triumphant treatment in the plenitude of his strength of a statuesque classical episode (without sub- stantial variation of its tenour) is a striking testimony to the versatility of his genius.”
“ On the subject of Coriolanus operas were composed by: Cavalli, Parma, 1660; Perti, Venice, 1683; Polarolo, Venice, 1698; Cattani, Pisa, 1700; Caldara, Vienna, 1717; Ariosti, London, 1723; Daniel Gottlob Treu, Breslau, 1726; Jomelli, Rome, 1744; Pulli, Naples, 1745; Carl Hein- rich Graun, Berlin, 1750; Lavigna, Parma, 1806; Niccolini, Milan, 1809; Radicati, 1810(?). It seems that none of these libretti are based upon Shakespeare's work; more likely might they have proceeded from the Graunischen Werke, the text whereof was due to Frederick the Great. In 1802 Heinrich von Collin wrote a tragedy under the influence of Shakespeare, which two years later was put in print in Berlin. But Collin falsified and mangled his source of inspiration, since he did not know Shakespeare's drama. 1 For the first performance of this work, which took place at the Vienna Burgtheater, Abbe Stadler had arranged entre-act music from themes out of Mozart's Idomeneo. In 1807 Beethoven, who had heard this music, determined to write an Overture to Collin's Tragedy. In March of that year this had its first performance, and in January, 1808, appeared in print as Opus 62. Richard Wagner has made use of the all-inspiring theme, Beethoven and Shakespeare, as the motive of his Essay on Beethoven (Gesammelte Werke, ix, pp. 129 et seq.). Be it further recorded that an Overture and accompanying music for Shakespeare's Coriolanus was produced by Frederick Ludwig Seidel in 1811 at the Berliner Koniglichen National Theater, and that 60 to 70 years later Friederich Lux set to music a scene from the drama.
”M. Friedlander (Jahrbuch, xxxvii, p. 97)
“ After both Shakespeare and Hardy had passed away the Spanish dramatist, Calderon, produced a dramatic fantasia on the theme of Coriolanus which is classed among his Armas de la Hermosura (‘Signs of Beauty’). It is a confused adaptation of Livy's legendary annals of early Rome. Coriolanus is one of Romulus' generals, and his wife, Veturia, is a ravished Sabine. Calderon's play seems to stand alone in Spanish literature.
”