CLASSICS 2E03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Political Psychology, Plebs, Cultural Psychology
21 Jul 2018
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Tensions between patricians and plebeians: roughly speaking, patricians were elites from longstanding aristocratic linages: plebeians were outside these lineages. Hakespeare"s coriola(cid:374)us ser(cid:448)i(cid:374)g the state, disdaining the people: coriolanus: solidly a soldier, no talent for political life, loathes popularizing politics, loathes to pander to the people out of his sense of patrician honour. Last scene everyone looks at coro dead body did)- he could have tried to appease the masses: the very last scene is coro dead body. In both films, we feel like we are there, in the crowd, hearing anthony"s harangues, or coro triade. Moreover, in the face of affronts to his status from the people, he is impelled by his absolute sense of honour to wreak terrible vengeance upon the whole of rome. Not a simple villain with an evil scheme, coriolanus, as shakespeare portrays him (and as fiennes plays him), is a person driven to the edge by mores that, (cid:449)e ca(cid:374) say, are disti(cid:374)ctly ro(cid:373)a(cid:374).
