『코리오레이너스』(Coriolanus): 코리오레이너스의 자아의 제국주의와 볼럼니아의 모성성

Abstract

In this play Shakespeare pits Coriolanus’s imperialism of the ego against the motherhood of Volumnia. This opposed scheme is a linchpin of how this play is to be interpreted. On the one hand, in the past the former has been read in political, economical, and historical aspects. These approaches concern themselves with the corn riots in the Midland and, more especially, the anti-enclosure riots of 1607. It is clear that this political upheaval in Jacobean England at this time makes Shakespeare draw Roman republicanism into his play. On the other hand, the latter has been dealt with in a psychoanalytical aspect. This interpretation probes either the relationship between Coriolanus and Volumnia in which he is seen as a mother’s boy or the relationship between Coriolanus’s godlike authorship of himself and the Lady Macbeth-like Volumnia. This paper, however, aims to delve into the femininity and maternity of Volumnia opposed to the manhood of Coriolanus who is in pursuit of the conquering gluttony of slaughter, exploitation, and destruction. Shakespeare metaphorically describes Coriolanus’s imperialism of the ego by which he totally forgets the others surrounding him. He thinks and acts as if he were a god without any aid from outside necessary. He forgets that what he has now accomplished has been made possible by the hospitality of his country, his family, and his fellowmen. That is why Shakespeare criticizes the forgetfulness of the other and emphasizes ethical humanism through the maternal world of Volumnia in this play.