Section II, 1920 [97] Trans. R.S.C. 



A Plea for Coriolanus 

 By Walter S. Herrington, K.C, F.R.S.C. 



(Read May Meeting, 1920) 



It is not the purpose of this paper to seek to establish that our 

 hero was by any means perfect or that he pursued a wise and poHtic 

 course; but to present some arguments in his favor that may have a 

 tendency to mitigate the sentence too frequently pronounced upon 

 him by the ordinary reader, who has not given the play that study 

 that it merits. 



It is true that Shakespeare drew his material for the play from 

 North's translation of Amyot's Plutarch; yet the Coriolanus with 

 whom we are familiar has been so retouched and quickened that he 

 has taken on a new personality, and I refuse to believe that the great 

 dramatist did not intend that we should admire this, one of his grandest 

 creations. He did not gloss over his faults, but painted them in their 

 darkest colors, thereby challenging our sense of justice in our estimate 

 of his character. 



We should always bear in mind that Coriolanus made full atone- 

 ment and paid a heavy penalty for his folly. Such prominence is 

 given to this in the play that we need not feel it incumbent upon us 

 to lay any particular stress upon his shortcomings through fear that 

 they might escape notice. Shakespeare has relieved us of any such 

 responsibility, and has seen to it that the purpose of the tragedy has 

 been faithfully fulfilled and that the hero has fallen a victim of his 

 own weakness. The fact that Coriolanus did come to such a tragic 

 end, thereby rendering it certain that the evil that he did shall live 

 after him, imposes a greater obligation upon us to see that the good 

 shall not be interred with his bones. Let us therefore enquite dis- 

 passionately and sympathetically into his character and the motives 

 and impulses of his actions and see if we cannot find some palliatives 

 for his many alleged misdeeds. 



First impressions are often quite erroneous and, when once formed, 

 most difficult to eradicate. Our first introduction to Coriolanus was 

 under circumstances not calculated to create a favorable impression. 

 A fit of anger ill-becomes anyone; but we might overlook it in an old 

 friend; but not so readily in the case of a new acquaintance. It 

 behooves us therefore to enquire carefully into all the surrounding 

 circumstances before we form our judgment. Menenius, who appears 

 to have wormed himself into the good graces of the plebeians, enter- 



Sec. II. Sig. 7 



