Coriolanus is a guy whose name ends with the word "anus". There's nothing we can do about that.
If you want to hear about the play, you can listen Here!
Some articles on Coriolanus:
Revisting Shakespeare's Coriolanus: New York Times
T.S. Eliot on Shakespeare
Great podcast guys - can't really add much to it - I agree that it's an odd tragedy - almost doesn't read like Shakespeare, since the characters are so one-dimensional - especially the title character, who has none of the depth or multi-faceted traits of other Shakespearean tragic heroes.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about there only being two readily-available videos for "Coriolanus" on the market - but IMDB lists several other made-for-TV versions which have been made:
http://www.imdb.com/find?ref_=nv_sr_fn&q=coriolanus&s=all
Also, in 1963, the BBC made a "Hollow Crown"-like mini-series of ALL of Shakespeare's Roman tragedies under the title "The Spread Of The Eagle" - which can be read about here:
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/466545/
But which, unfortunately, has not been released since.
Interesting stuff Brad, and an informative & fun podcast as always.
DeleteThe Spread Of The Eagle thing sounds great but seems like it may have missed a trick by not concluding with Titus Andronicus, which I think would make a great bookend with Coriolanus. In addition to showing how far humanity in Rome had fallen, it shares a lot of the same story points but with very different overtones:
-a general does his duty in an inflexible, blunt, but faithful way;
-said general shows complete unwillingness to look to his own long-term self-interest;
-a Roman joins Rome's recently defeated foreign enemies in order to march on a Rome controlled by his own domestic enemies.
Titus' worships Duty rather than Valor, but his monomania is at least as great, with him seeing all his sons die. But unlike Volumnia's imaginations, the experience breaks him, in a way that I think takes him further than Coriolanus goes and makes it a deeper play (but also a somewhat scattershot one; Coriolanus' straightforwardness can be an asset).
Volumnia really is cool. I already feel like reading this play again.