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Shakespeare's most politically relevant play

posted 12 years ago by Edward_de_Vere
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Among all of Shakespeare's plays, Coriolanus is by far the one that is most politically relevant today, both in the US and abroad. Perhaps this is why Fienne's adaptation is one of the few modernizations of Shakespeare that I actually enjoyed (i.e. compare with recent attempts to do the same with Romeo and Juliet or Titus Andronicus).

The reason it remains relevant is that it tells a story of a great and noble man whose reputation and career were dragged down by the rabble and by the opportunistic political hacks who come to power by posing as "voices of the common people." So instead of statesmen capable of making courageous but unpopular decisions that serve the long-term needs of a nation, then and now, we get populist charlatans who pander to the masses.

[–] janus_keinaerts 12 years ago

Got fascism?

The "great and noble" warmongering macho versus the sly political wormtongues.
And in the middle: the fickle mob , deserving no more than to be oppressed.

This tripe is so full of false contradictions, it made my eyes water.

[–] Edward_de_Vere 12 years ago

The "great and noble" warmongering macho versus the sly political wormtongues.

The US and the EU have been run by sly political wormtongues for years if not decades. We have a President who was elected in 2008 on nothing other than slogans about "hope and change", and he ran against an opponent whose vacuous running mate couldn't even speak in complete sentences. How well has that been working?

And in the middle: the fickle mob , deserving no more than to be oppressed.

Do you really want people whose perspective of the world is based on watching "Jersey Shore" to make decisions about, say, whether we should have a federal reserve system vs. a gold standard? Like their favorite tv shows, the politicians and policies that they favor are just another fad of the month.

[–] zachanscom 11 years ago

@janus

yep, just condense all the reasoning and insinuations made by the characters for their actions and behavior into simple generalizations like "warmongering macho" and "fickle mob".

you clearly didn't understand the dialog and are just projecting a bunch of your own simple-minded morality onto them.

[–] janus_keinaerts 11 years ago

“yep, just condense all the reasoning and insinuations made by the characters for their actions and behavior into simple generalizations.”

You mean…like our friend de_Vere, condensing the entire North American electorate into the fanbase for Jersey Shore?

Shakespeare was a literary genius. Not a political messiah.
The man wrote in favour of an absolutist monarch.

Scavenging this particular play in search for political guidelines or a moral compass will only serve people with an elitist/militaristic/proto- or semi-fascist worldview.

Edward_de_Vere has written nothing in his reply to proof me wrong on this.
Neither have you.

Now, perhaps this is my simple-minded morality speaking but I suggest you be more polite or refrain from posting.

[–] Edward_de_Vere 10 years ago

You mean…like our friend de_Vere, condensing the entire North American electorate into the fanbase for Jersey Shore?

Shakespeare was a literary genius. Not a political messiah.
The man wrote in favour of an absolutist monarch.

Scavenging this particular play in search for political guidelines or a moral compass will only serve people with an elitist/militaristic/proto- or semi-fascist worldview.

Edward_de_Vere has written nothing in his reply to proof me wrong on this.
Neither have you.

And I have yet to see any refutation of my point that "democracy" results in anything better than a caste of charlatans who have to pander to the lowest common denominator, either through hand-outs or juvenile, rabble-rousing rhetoric, in order to win votes.

I used the 2008 Presidential election as a case study. Obama won over the middle classes with empty talk about "hope," "change," and "yes we can," as well as by playing on white liberal guilt on racial issues. The underclasses voted for him because they would get more food stamps and welfare payments. Very much like the opponents of Caius Martius managed to worm their way into Tribune posts.

Meanwhile, the Republicans and what passes for "conservatism" were hardly any better. McCain chose an utter airhead as his running mate with the hope that her "you betchas" and winking at the audience would win an election for him.

So I stand by my assertion that the sort of mass culture that makes "Jersey Shore" or the Kardashians possible is the same thing that makes Obamas and Palins possible. The masses get the candidates and culture they deserve.

[–] andrewsk8s 11 years ago

The point is that this tends to be true in any era, hence the timelessness of the bard.

This film reminds me of a quote by George Orwell, "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

[–] janus_keinaerts 11 years ago

I disagree.
Shakespeare’s work might prove to be immortal. That doesn’t mean it’s godlike or sacred.

Otherwise, we’d be handing out copies of The Taming of the Shrew to the Taliban so they’d know how to treat their wives and daughters.

Furthermore,
it always strikes me as odd how the dealings of those rough men on our city walls are only justified by the presence of rough men on some other city’s walls.

To quote Orwell myself: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

[–] spookyrat1 11 years ago

"The point is that this tends to be true in any era, hence the timelessness of the bard."

The play's themes of popular discontent with government and the questioning of the military's role in determining power can be connected by current events for example to Eygpt.

An elected government has just been overthrown by the military in a coup of supposedly "limited proportions" and again supposedly to satisfy the demands of various civil and religious (plebeian) lobbyist forces.

Fiennes's film reflects the timelessness and relevance of the Bard brilliantly IMO.

[–] Edward_de_Vere 8 years ago

The play's themes of popular discontent with government and the questioning of the military's role in determining power can be connected by current events for example to Eygpt.

Yes, the debacle of the "Arab Spring" and the stupidity of US support for regime change (i.e. deposing secular dictators who kept the peace in favor of either outright anarchy/mob rule or "Democratically" elected theocracies) once again shows how prophetic and politically timely Coriolanus remains.

[–] Blueghost 10 years ago

by Edward_de_Vere » Tue Jun 26 2012 12:10:06 Flag ▼ | Reply |
IMDb member since July 2005
Among all of Shakespeare's plays, Coriolanus is by far the one that is most politically relevant today, both in the US and abroad. Perhaps this is why Fienne's adaptation is one of the few modernizations of Shakespeare that I actually enjoyed (i.e. compare with recent attempts to do the same with Romeo and Juliet or Titus Andronicus).

The reason it remains relevant is that it tells a story of a great and noble man whose reputation and career were dragged down by the rabble and by the opportunistic political hacks who come to power by posing as "voices of the common people." So instead of statesmen capable of making courageous but unpopular decisions that serve the long-term needs of a nation, then and now, we get populist charlatans who pander to the masses.

To me it was a lesson in international politics. As a leader would you accept a traitor of one of the most powerful nations on Earth into your ranks? It was hard leadership verse the heart. It was brutal stuff.

[–] Edward_de_Vere 8 years ago

To me it was a lesson in international politics. As a leader would you accept a traitor of one of the most powerful nations on Earth into your ranks?

Shakespeare explores the same theme in Titus Andronicus when Titus enlists an alliance of the Goths against Rome.

[–] 8 years ago

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