The New Penguin Shakespeare offers a complete edition of the plays and poems. Each volume has been prepared from the original texts and includes an introduction, a list of further reading, a full and helpful commentary, and a short account of the textual problems of the play.

CORIOLANUS is a play of action, not reflection; its subject is strife and dissension. Five strands of irreconcihble conflict are tightly woven together to form the fabric of the plot. They are: first, the wars between the infant Roman republic and the neighbouring state of the Volsces; secondly, the intense personal rivalry between the hero, Rome’s greatest soldier, and the Volscian leader, Tullus Aufidins; thirdly, the struggle for power within Rome itself between the patrician class, whose most intransigent member is Coriolanus, and the plebeians, organized and manipuhted by their two Tribunes - Brutus and Sicinius; fourthly, the battle of wills between Coriolanus and his mother, Volumnia, over matters of political expediency; and, finally, the conflict within the hero himself when he is torn between a desire for revenge on the city that has rewarded his services to it with banishment, and the pull of the natural affection which he feels for his mother, his wife, and his young son.

INTRODUCTION

FURTHER READING

THE LANGUAGE OF THE PLAY

CORIOLANUS

COMMENTARY

AN ACCOUNT OF THE TEXT