ENGL 1003H Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Volumnia

• School: Trent University
• Department: English
• Course: ENGL 1003H
• Professor: Elizabeth Popham

Document Summary

For a very bloody play, a very un-bloody ending. The ending is weird because coriolanus is refusing a revolutionary change both in politics and in human sociality. The abrupt death marks the need to move on and not mourn past political and social forms. Only coriolanus needs to die to move forward, because of what he stands for private control of state, refusal to change and adapt to the voice of the people. The point is that, whether pursuing war or peace, their private family discourse determines the actions, and fate, of the state. War and peace are therefore interchangeable for them, in terms of their symbolic value. The state, the community; the common good (oed) A state in which power rests with the people or their representative; spec. a state without a monarchy. Also: a government, or system of government, of such a state; a period of government of this type (oed)