ABSTRACT
The treatment of Coriolanus in the eighteenth century, decreasing in its political content from Tate to Kemble, offers an insightful mirror of these larger changes. In the twentieth century Coriolanus has seen the stage with more frequency than in the past, as directors have used the play's politics to address the phenomena of fascism and its strong-man rule, and socialism, with its emphasis on class struggle. As various countries have experimented with these forms of government, Coriolanus has assumed a rich poignancy. And in restoration and early eighteenth-century England, an England torn by the competing forces of monarchical and parliamentary rule, Coriolanus became a political weapon. England's great fear in 1715 is of a French-Jacobite alliance, that France would actually send troops to accompany the Pretender in his invasion. The Invader of His Country, consequently, contains not only anti-French sentiment but also the kind of invective frequently used in England to fuel anti-Catholic hysteria:Cor.
