ABSTRACT
This chapter distinguishes between two focuses on the body in Coriolanus. Their rhythmic shouting, both in Rome and in Antium accompanies the violent action like the heavily accented rhythms of the people at the climactic moments of the Bach Passions. The kind of synecdoche people have seen foregrounds a grotesquely isolated part of the body; here, the solitary hero makes the entire enemy city a part of himself. Coriolanus is surprisingly like the narcissistic young man addressed in the first group of Shakespeare's sonnets. His hatred of politics, and of the common people who make it clear that politics is a form of exchange, is related to the play's fixation on the body. The weak link in Coriolanus' fantasy of separateness is a physical one, his body marked and scarred in battle for Rome. The drama of the fragmented body haunts this play in ways that clarify the difference between the concerns of tragedy and those of political theatre.
