A. C. Bradley
“ The representation of the people, whatever else it may be, is part of a dramatic design. This design is based on the main facts of the story, and these imply a certain character in the people and the hero. Since the issue is tragic, the conflict between them must be felt to be unavoidable and well-nigh hopeless. The necessity for dramatic sympathy with both sides demands that on both there should be some right and some wrong, both virtues and failings; and if the hero's monstrous purpose of destroying his native city is not to extinguish our sympathy, the provocation he receives must be great. This being so, the picture of the people is, surely, no darker than it had to be; the desired result would have been more easily secured by making it darker still. And one must go further. As regards the political situation the total effect of the drama, it appears to me, is this. The conflict of hero and people is hopeless; but it is he alone who makes the conflict of patricians and plebeians, I do not say hopeless, but in any high degree dangerous. The people have bad faults, but no such faults as, in his absence, would prevent a constitutional development in their favour.
I will try to describe their character, but I will illustrate this statement by comparing two accusations of their opponents with the facts shown; for these we must accept, but the accusations we must judge for ourselves. In the first scene the people are called cowards both by the hero and by their friendly critic Menenius. Now there is no sign that they possess the kind of courage expected of gentlemen, or feel the corresponding shame if their courage fails. But if they were cowards how could Rome be standing where we see it stand? They are the common soldiers of Rome. And when we see them in war what do we find? One division, under Cominius, meets the Volscians in the field; the other, under Coriolanus, assaults Corioli. Both are beaten back. This is what Cominius says to his men: ‘Breathe you, my friends: well fought: we are come off
Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands,
Nor cowardly in retire.’
Nothing hints that the other division has not fought well or was cowardly in retire; but it was encouraged beforehand with threats, and, on its failure, with a torrent of curses and abuse. Nevertheless it advances again and forces the enemy to the gates, which Coriolanus enters, calling on his men to follow him. ‘First Sol. Fool-hardiness; not I.
Second Sol. Nor I.
First Sol. See, they have shut him in.
All. To the pot, I warrant him.’
Disgusting, no doubt; but the answer to threats and curses. They would not have served Cominius so; and indeed, when Lartius comes up and merely sug- gests to them to ‘fetch off’ the reappearing hero, they respond at once and take the city. These men are not cowards; but their conduct depends on their leaders. The same thing is seen when Coriolanus himself appeals to the other division for volunteers to serve in the van. For once he appeals nobly, and the whole division volunteers. Another charge he brings against the people is that they can neither rule nor be ruled. On this his policy of ‘thorough’ is based. Now, judging from the drama, one would certainly say that they could not rule alone—that a pure democracy would lead to anarchy, and perhaps to foreign subjection. And one would say also that they probably could not be ruled by the patricians if all political rights were denied them. But to rule them, while granting them a place in the constitution, would seem quite feasible. They are, in fact, only too easy to guide. No doubt, collected into a mob, led by demagogues, and maddened by resentment and fear, they become wild and cruel. It is true, also, that, when their acts bear bitter fruit, they disclaim responsibility and turn on their leaders: ‘that we did, we did for the best; and though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our will.’ But they not only follow their tribunes like sheep; they receive abuse and direction submissively from any one who shows goodwill. They are fundamentally good-natured, like the Englishmen they are, and have a humorous consciousness of their own weaknesses. They are, beyond doubt, mutable, and in that sense untrustworthy; but they are not by nature ungrateful, or slow to admire their bitterest enemy. False charges and mean imputations come from their leaders, not from them. If one of them blames Coriolanus for being proud, another says he cannot help his pride. They insist on the bare form of their right to name him consul, but all they want is the form, and not the whole even of that. When he asks one of them, ‘Well then, I pray, your price of the consulship?’ the answer, ‘The price is to ask it kindly,’ ought to have melted at once; yet when he asks it contemptuously it is still granted. Even later, when the arts of the tribunes have provoked him to such a storm of defiant and revolu- tionary speech that both the consulship and his life are in danger, one feels that another man might save both with no great trouble. Menenius tells him that the people ‘have pardons, being ask'd, as free
As words to little purpose.’
His mother and friends urge him to deceive the people with false promises. But neither false promises nor apologies are needed, only a little humanity and some acknowledgment that the people are part of the state. He is capable of neither, and so the conflict is hopeless. But it is not because the people, or even the tri- bunes, are what they are, but because he is what we call an impossible person. The result is that all the force and nobility of Rome's greatest man have to be thrown away and wasted. That is tragic; and it is doubly so because it is not only his faults that make him impossible. There is bound up with them a nobleness of nature in which he surpasses every one around him. We see this if we consider, what is not always clear to the reader, his political position. It is not shared by any of the other patricians who appear in the drama.”