2. Coriolanus and the Plebeians

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we think about the presentation of Rome and its constitution in the play, focusing in particular on the newly-created tribunate and Coriolanus' attitude towards the plebeians.

Course

In this course, Dr Martin Wiggins (The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham) explores Shakespeare's Coriolanus. We begin by thinking about the political circumstances in which the action of the play takes place, focusing in particular on the tension between the plebeians and patricians, as well as the combination of internal and external threats to the fledgling Roman state. After that, we think about the intersection between war and politics in the play, before moving onto the figure of Coriolanus himself.

Lecturer

Dr Martin Wiggins studied at the University of Oxford in the 1980s, where he was awarded the Violet Vaughan-Morgan Prize, the Mason Lowance Prize, the Leonard Theberge Memorial Prize, and the Charles Oldham Shakespeare Prize, all for work in English Literature. He was a scholar, and later a graduate scholar, of Mansfield College, where he wrote his D.Phil. thesis on ‘The Assassin in English Renaissance Drama’. He was later elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Keble College, and came to The Shakespeare Institute in 1990. He has also taught at the University of Reading, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, London, and The Roehampton Institute.