Essay: Coriolanus and Julius Caesar – politics

Both Coriolanus and Julius Caesar are popular tragedies of Shakespeare that use the Roman politics of the historical period they are based on to emphasise moral dilemmas and ethical questions surrounding the politics of the time through its characters. Whilst they are dramatized depictions of these events, Shakespeare’s clear goal through these two plays was for them to operate as mild political commentaries whilst marrying with the typical strength of the characterisation within his plays, for audiences to engage with. Despite a large body of his work being considered apolitical, and with Shakespeare’s own political ideals being vague, it can be considered of interest to explore his works with the benefit of hindsight and deeply analyse how the historical context of both the time he was writing about and the time it was written has influenced the plays. It is also worthwhile to consider the time difference between Shakespeare writing the plays, with Coriolanus being written roughly ten years ahead of Julius Caesar, and thus working to understand how Shakespeare’s own depictions of Roman politics and politics generally developed, as well as determining why certain changes were made through various points of comparison. This essay will break down both Julius Caesar and Coriolanus by first beginning to understand how the politics of both plays are developed through their central narratives and the overall political statements that Shakespeare is trying to make through the plays and what the nature of them is (gender, race, biopolitics etc.). Further to this is analysis of these statements and considering the historical context behind these political statements, both as a result of the Roman politics the plays are inspired by and the time Shakespeare wrote the plays. The essay will then deconstruct these ideas and try to form links between both Coriolanus and Julius Caesar, looking to understand how ideas of politics changed between when both plays were written, whether both are representative of the conventional tragedy genre or feature more experimental tropes, how both differ as depictions of Roman politics and similarities between the central political figures of both pieces. These ideas will then be brought together and a final judgement will be made on how representations of politics have developed across Julius Caesar and Coriolanus, as well as across Shakespeare’s work as a whole.
Julius Caesar is inherently a political play in its focus on how rule should be enacted and is worked around Brutus understanding of Rome and its repression of a monarchical system. It projects the interesting moral dilemma that is brought about through Brutus’ as he maintains this moral principle and what he believes is right, even if another could be harmed as a result. Shakespeare reflected the politics of the Roman history that inspired Julius Caesar through its central characters, Caesar and Brutus. The two operate as tragic figures whose failures underpin the central narrative’s commentary on the political system in place within Rome at the time. Specifically through Brutus, as Ribner (1957) states, Shakespeare saw ‘a lesson in the civil chaos which results when a great and noble leader tries to overthrow long-established institutions and seeks, with the support of the mob, to attain a kingship to which he has no lawful claim.’ This can be seen by Shakespeare as an indication of his apathy towards the idea that just because of a leader’s perceived ‘noble’ intention, the conflation of both the political and the social, as a result of imprinted notions about how politics is carried out, can lead to a damaging transition and overall negative impact on the wider society. This is contrary to the fact they may be supportive of this change.
The idea of the political significance of both the leader and the perceived ‘mob’ is further expanded upon by Kuzner (2007) who considers whether Shakespeare’s writing was determining if this represented a true political benefit to the masses or if it was unknowingly a destructive means of establishing power. The narrative of Julius Caesar represents the ‘political effort to bring order to social life and how sometimes even the best intentions are skewed’. Through this, Kuzner (2007) is suggesting that there is a disparity between the actions of the likes of Brutus and those that are claimed to be supporting him because of the fundamental difference between Brutus’ political actions and the typical social order. The writings of Gil (2007) further develop the idea behind this disparity by referring to the concept of ‘bare life’ and how the state manufactures this without a full awareness of its consequence. Gil (2007) conveys these ideas in reference to how the state’s assertion of its control is intrinsic and that it is not a product of ‘autonomous social development’. Therefore, despite Brutus’ own willingness to impose a supported new ruling, it is an enforced political decision and indicative of the state’s wider societal control.
These ideas are further substantiated by Anson (1966), who considers the idea that Julius Caesar ‘develops the image of Rome as a body, an organism in which all the characters function as members.’ Anson (1966) further states that as the play is ‘governed by a repressive ethnic, however, the body politic suffers a gradual loss of sensibility expressed in the play as the separation of hand from heart.’ These ideas are particularly abstract when considering the wider literal politics of the play but it is clear that despite Shakespeare’s heavy focus on strong characterisation, the wider political implications of the actions of his characters are at the forefront of his thinking.
Coriolanus is self-evident as a play that transcends the time period in which Shakespeare wrote it, as its commentary can be attributed to many contemporary political situations today. The play is built on the backdrop of a class struggle (the subservient and ruling classes) and specifically Velutus and Brutus’ actions in taking advantage of this subservient class to establish a base of power. This leads into the idea behind the body politic, as referred to previously through Anson, and an immediate comparison can be seen through this and both plays. It can be seen as an extension of Shakespeare’s understanding of Roman politics of the time. The play itself represents a cross-generational consistency of political institutions, as punctuated by the play’s success when Shakespeare first constructed the play, as well as its relevance in a contemporary situation. Whilst our understanding of Shakespeare’s political standing is unclear, it is obvious that he himself was projecting deep lines of thought about how politics of the time operated and ethical questions surrounding how the ruling class was bolstering itself to the detriment of the subservient class. When considering the aforementioned ideas relating to body politics within Julius Caesar, comparisons can also be made to Coriolanus. The characters of Brutus and Coriolanus are both presented with a justified sense of their own moral purposes but as explored by Zeeveld (1962), both fail to benefit the public as a result of their own moral standing, with Brutus superseding his place to Antony and Coriolanus publicly renouncing the electorate. Both act as indirect ‘instruments of chaos’ to the deterioration of social order, despite, as aforementioned, their best intentions. Through their varied characters, both plays representations of politics show the complexity of the political systems they are critiquing and highlight Shakespeare’s own understanding of the systems as fundamentally broken and not fit for purpose.
Comparisons can be drawn between Coriolanus and Julius Caesar due to comparable themes surrounding ideas of class and power. Lowe (1986) posits the idea that Coriolanus operates as less of a clear-cut political drama than Julius Caesar, and more marries together political conflict within family and regarding gender. The significance of gender politics is exemplified throughout the play, as Lowe further comments, such as ‘the ‘female’ countryside starved by the civic fathers’ and ‘the mother inherits and passes on the warrior code to her son’.’ Through this, it is clear we can see that Shakespeare’s depiction of political action transgressed from the more focused line of political commentary we see in Julius Caesar to one more focused on specific social implications of the wider political system.
Whilst on a surface level, both Julius Caesar and Coriolanus share few similarities in how they explore their differing political ideas, as Knights (1953) states, both consider the idea that ‘human actuality is more important than any political abstraction, though more difficult to bear’, as well as the notion that ‘politics is vitiated and corrupted’ […] ‘we lose our sense of the person on the other side of the dividing line of class’. Shakespeare’s work may be viewed as apathetic to the political cause but it is more as a result of the human actuality that is neglected in the face of pressing social difficulty. As a result of this, Coriolanus can be read as a relevant ‘political successor’ to Julius Caesar, as Zeeveld (1962) further states, as where ‘Brutus loves the people, Coriolanus despises them.’ Brutus’ own shortcomings, despite his best intentions, reflect a failure of the state for the public good just as much as Coriolanus and his own failure, despite being for a selfish and less justifiable reason. Rebhorn (1990) further expands discussion upon the politics of Julius Caesar by considering the aristocracy and describing it as a ‘sick world’. He further states that this ‘defines the moral condition of a society going through an enormous change, identifying that change itself as illness’. The presentation of aristocracy in Julius Caesar is as something that is failing and has no real means of recovering. As compared to Coriolanus, we can consider how Shakespeare’s constructs a wholly anti-political narrative.
Palmer (1970) discusses again how Brutus is framed as the central figure of the play through which Shakespeare can convey his message. regards the play as a tragedy of moral choice, with Brutus as the protagonist. This is expanded upon through Schanzer (1955) who considers that the central narrative moral dilemma of the play is “consisting in the conflicting claims of the realm of personal relations and that of politics’. Contrary to Palmer (1970), however, Schanzer (1955) indicates that the tragedy of Brutus is independent of that from other events in the play, such as Caesar’s failures and the overarching political situation. This contradicts ideas previously presented that Brutus’ actions are directly tied to the public social order reaction and thus are all significant in the political commentary Shakespeare is making. It is debatable as to whether Brutus’ ‘abandons personal relations for political ideals’, as Schanzer (1955) posits, which is an idea that would contradict the notion that Brutus’ actions were well-intentioned to begin with.
As aforementioned with Lowe’s understanding of Coriolanus as a crossover of both political and gender drama, Shakespeare subverts expectations of the tragedy genre by presenting how politics influences familial spaces. As stated by Christensen (1997), ‘the domestic sphere houses the political and intrafamilial disturbances of the play’ that are ‘politically efficacious’.