ABSTRACT
Of course, he can’t pull it off, nature, or anyway his mother, is too much for him. But, for a moment, he conceives of himself singly as an individual, without any ties at all to anything or anyone. To be this, he must negate nature; but in negating nature he becomes a force of unlimited, irresistible violence. No one doubts that he, alone, can destroy Rome; whereas, without him, the entire Volscian army will fail. The force of the completely self-contained, isolated, atomic, unity to which he aspires is magnified by his holding himself as nameless, repudiating both the family names that claim him as part of the ancient patrician order of Rome, and the honorific that he won for himself in battle before the gates of Corioles.
