Il "Coriolanus" di Shakespeare, o l'afasia dell'eroe

Giuseppe Pucci

Abstract:

Although relying on ancient authors (primarily, Plutarch), Shakespeare customarily reinvents the classics, creating a new myth. The tragic hero's hamartia consists here in the impossibility of conforming to a new society, in which traditional archaic virtus (as an expression of manliness and military valour) is no longer current. His aphasia is less a deficiency of oratorical skill (in fact, he excels in the δεινός style) than a mistrust in words, which he rates incomparably inferior to deeds. Unwilling to be untrue to his self by adulating the plebs he despises, he proves an unpolitical animal. Coriolanus' tragedy consists in his incapacity to access the city's new political space in which conflicts are now mediated by words.