Thus Coriolanus, again as in Shakespeare but not as in Plutarch, accepts his banishment as a calamity to those that inflict it.

Thus the machinations of Amfidius before the final cause of offence are amplified far beyond the limits of Plutarch, and these are in part excused by his previous rivalry with Coriolanus which, as in Shakespeare, is made ever so much more personal and graphic.

In short, though Hardy’s drama, as compared with Shakespeare’s, is a work of talent as compared with a work of genius, it shows that the Life had in it the material for a tragedy already rough-dressed, with indications, obvious to a practised playwright, of some of the processes that still were needed.

Shakespeare, then, was now dealing with a much more tractable theme than in his previous Roman plays, and this is evident in the finished product. Technically and artistically it is a more perfect achievement than either of them. In Julius Caesar the early disappearance of the titular hero does not indeed affect the essential unity of the piece, but it does, when all is said and done, involve, to the feelings of most readers, a certain break in the interest. In Antony and Cleopatra the scattering of the action through so many short scenes does not interfere with the main conception, but it does make the execution a little spasmodic. In both instances Shakespeare had to suit his treatment to the material. But that material in the case of Coriolanus offered less difficulty. It lay ready to the dramatist’s hand and took the shape that he imposed, almost of itself. The result is a masterpiece that, as an organic work of art, has been placed on the level of Shakespeare’s most independent tragedies.[248]

Thus it is easy to see how the personality of the hero dominates the complex story, as the heart transmits the life-blood through the body and its members, and receives it back again; how his character contains in itself the seeds of his offence and its reparation; how the other figures are related to him in parallel and contrast; how the two grand interests, the conflict between Coriolanus and Aufidius, the conflict between Coriolanus and the people, intertwine, but always so that the latter remains the principal strand; how the language is suited to the persons, the circumstances, and the prevailing tone. In short, whatever the relations in which we consider the play, they seem, like the radii of a circle, to depart from and meet in one centre.

Hardly less admirable are the balance and composition of the whole, which yet in no wise impair the interest of the individual scenes. Dr. Johnson indeed makes the criticism: “There is perhaps too much bustle in the first act and too little in the last.” This possibly is more noticeable when the play is acted than when it is read; but it is fitting that from the noise and hubbub of the struggle there should be a transition to the outward quietude of the close that harmonises with the inward acquiescence in the mind of reader or spectator. Nor is the element of tumult entirely lacking at the last. To the uproar in the street of Rome, where the life of Marcius is threatened, corresponds the uproar in the public place of Antium where it is actually taken. But Dr. Johnson was probably thinking of those battle scenes beloved by Elizabethan audiences and generally wearisome to modern taste. There are no fewer than five of them in the first act, a somewhat plentiful allowance. But they are written by no means exclusively in the drum-and-trumpet style. On the contrary they are rich in psychological interest, and bring home to us many characteristics of the hero that we have to realise. Not only are we witnesses of his prowess, but his pride in Rome, his contempt of baseness, his rivalry with Aufidius, his power of rousing enthusiasm in the field, are all shown in relief. Such things lift these concessions to temporary fashion above the level of outworn crudities.

And the construction is very perfect too. Perhaps the crisis, understood as the acme of Coriolanus’ success, when he is voted to the consulship in the middle of the third scene of the second act comes a little early. But crisis may bear another meaning. It may denote the decisive point of the conflict, and this is only reached in the centre of the play. To the supreme tension of the scenes that describe Coriolanus’ denunciation of the Tribunes, the consultations in his house, his final condemnation, all that goes before gradually leads up, and from that all that follows after gradually declines. In the first act we are introduced to the circumstances, the opposition between the Romans and the Volsces, the Senate and the Plebs, and to all the leading characters, as well as Coriolanus and his friends and opponents, in an exposition that is not merely declaratory but is full of action and life: and we see that the situation is fraught with danger. In the second act we are shown more definitely how the grand disaster will come from the collision of Coriolanus with the people, and the cloud gathers even in the instant of his success. In the third the storm breaks, and, despite a momentary lull, in the end sweeps away all wonted landmarks. The fourth presents the change that follows in the whole condition of things: the rival of Aufidius has recourse to his generosity, the champion of Rome becomes her foe, and the people, after its heedless triumph, is plunged into dismay. In the fifth we proceed by carefully considered ways to the catastrophe: the deliverance of Rome from material and the hero from moral perdition, the expiation of his passion in death and the fruitless triumph of his rival.

But through this symmetrical rise and fall of the excitement, there is no abatement of the interest. Attention and suspense are always kept on the alert. They are secured partly by the diversity of the details and the swiftness of the fluctuations. Dr. Johnson says:

The Tragedy of Coriolanus is one of the most amusing of our author’s performances. The old man’s merriment in Menenius, the lofty lady’s dignity in Volumnia, the bridal modesty in Virgilia, the patrician and military haughtiness in Coriolanus, the plebeian malignity and tribunitian insolence in Brutus and Sicinius, make a very pleasing and interesting variety; and the various revolutions of the hero’s fortune fill the mind with anxious curiosity.

This is so because, while the agitation culminates in the third act, the emotion is neither overtaxed in the two that precede nor allowed to subside in the two that follow. For though this movement, first of intensification, then of relaxation, is discernible in the play as a whole, it is not uniform or uninterrupted. There is throughout a throb and pulse, an ebb and flow. The quieter scenes alternate with the more vehement: Coriolanus’ fortune by turns advances and retires. Only when we reflect do we become aware that we have risen so high out of our daily experience, and have returned “with new acquist” of wisdom to a spot whence we can step back to it once more.

But to produce so consummate a masterpiece from the material of history, no matter how dramatic that material was, Shakespeare was bound to reshape it more freely than he was wont to do when dealing with historical themes. We have seen from Hardy’s example what stores of half-wrought treasure Plutarch’s narrative offered to a dramatist who knew his business. Still it was only half-wrought, and in working it up Shakespeare consciously or unconsciously allowed himself more liberties than in his other Roman plays. His loans indeed are none the fewer or the less on that account; nowhere has he borrowed more numerous or so lengthy passages. But it almost seems as though with the tact of genius he had the feeling that he was at work, not on fact, but on legend. Though he is far from recasting the Roman tradition as he recast the pseudo-historic traditions of his own island in Lear and Macbeth, yet he gives a new colouring to the picture as he hardly does to genuine histories like Richard II. or Antony and Cleopatra.

This will appear from a comparison of the play with the Life.