The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-01-11

! by reason of the Roman background
and its general characteristics It is
! the last of the great tragedies, Cor
''Timon Of Athens" although of later
date, does not deserve to rank with the
highest. We may then say with Dow
den that the date Of the play is 1908,
or perhaps a little later.
Source of the Plot.
Lowell said Of Chaucer that whenever
he found anything addressed to Geof-
frey CHANGER he took 1t and made the
most Of it. Shakespeare must have
found a great many things addressed
TO him in North's translation Of "Plut-
arCh's Lives published in 15T0. for
out of it he got the material for Julius
Caesar" Antony and Cleopatra, -
"TimOn Of Athens and "COTiOlanus."
He. was not at all careful about adopt
ing the scenes and Incidents; some
times he even used the very language
of Plutarch. 1t would be a profitable
task-f a student Of "Coriolanus" to
take down his North's PIutarch and
compare it with the play. He would
be struck by the decided similarity of
the two, and if he has fine ears and
what De Quincy calls an understand
ing heart he would have a valuable
lesson in Distinguishing between the
dramatist and the historian, between
the myriad-mindedness Of Shakespeare
and the limited range Of PlUtarch.
Hazlitt's Mistake As to the Play.
Hazlitt, who was at times a dis
eliminating critic of Shakespeare, was
very wide of the mark when he said
with his enthusiastically resolution
airy spirit: The whole dramatic moral
of 'Coriolanus' is that those who have
little shall have less. and that those
who have much shall take all that
others have left. The people are poor.
therefore they ought to be starved.
They are slaves. therefore they ought
to be beaten. They work hard. there
fore they ought to be treated like
beasts of burden" When Hazlitt wrote
this he must have had in mind the
tragedy of the French revolution, Of
which he was one of the belated proph-
cts. He might have come from a meet
ing at Godwin's or a conversation with
Shelley. Such personal criticism is Of
a kind with COleTidge's criticism Of
Hamlet It is too much after the order
of early German criticism that sought
to reduce all Of ShakespeaTe's plays to
certain moral truths that the dramatist
tried to inculcate.
There are many striking things said
in this play about the mobs, just as
there are in Julius Caesar" But I
doubt if Shakespeare himself under
stood fully the nature Of the struggle
between the plebeians and the patri-
clans. He certainly does not make as
clear in the play as one might expect,
the issue between them, which shows
that Shakespeare did not care much
himself for local coloring and evidently
did not wish to teach certain facts
about tie plebelans. 1t is always
dangerous 10 say that Shakespeare
teaches anything; certainly he does not
identify himself with CoriOlanus in this
play He looks at him from the same
absolute standpoint from which he
views pOpulace-
The Character Of Coriolanus.
NO. in this play we do not have a
study of political parties in Rome: the
study if we may use that term in
an undidactic sense, is Coriolanus HIM
self 1t is his figure that dominates
every scene in the play, He is char
aeter Of heroic proportions The oftener
one reads the play the more he feels
that here is one Of Shakespeare most
imposing characters. He is a man of
power and in every way is the protag-
onist of the drama. Hamlet is not more
essential to the play that bears his
name than is C0riOlanus to "Coriolan-
US" One may not admire him In many
ways. and no one is drawn to him as q
friend but there is something about
him that is gigantic and wonderful He
is a character of the early Roman
world not weakened as Caesar was by
personal infirmities. or as Antony was
by love and lust, or as BFutus by an
inability to cope with practical affairs.
CoriolanUs is a tower Of strength. His
body is of gigantic proportions; he can
fight against an entire army when once
within the walls of the enemy; his
voice is thunderlike. so that his enemies
shake as If the world were ferver0us /
and did breathe. One knows the sound
Of Marcus tongue from every meaner |
man. His VIII is imperious to warn. to J
threaten ana to command.