ABSTRACT
The masking of the satiric by the tragic is intensified by the apparent casting of Coriolanus in the role of tragic hero. Stanley D. McKenzie, for instance, complains of "an overwhelming sense of unresolved paradox and uncertainty" which complicates seeing the play as traditional tragedy. A paraphrase of Bacon's passage states that great men, by lamenting the perils and hardships of attaining their honor, "abate the edge of envy". While this notion of fatality is expected in the tragic genre, the character progress, used most extensively in the early to mid-eighteenth century, became associated primarily with the satiric or didactic. The tragic genre is invoked through such character progresses because of the fatalistic feel. Individual control and influence seem limited and deviation from the projected end appears impossible. James Holstun makes a related assessment when he remarks that Coriolanus is the "kingly crown'd head" of Menenius's opening metaphor for the 'Renaissance body politic'.
