ABSTRACT
Of sexual interest, in the conventional sense, there is virtually nothing in Coriolanus. But an undercurrent of sexual images adds to our ‘secret impressions’, in Morgann’s phrase,1 of the theme of the play. They provide an insistent suggestion that the concerns of the play are sexual, defined in the broadest sense, or that the mainsprings of the activities depicted are not without sexual implications. The subject-matter of Coriolanus is politics and war; but the sexual images imply that a major focus of interest lies elsewhere. The interrelation of war and sex is the underlying statement of the play.
