WorkWilliam Shakespeare

The Tragedy of Coriolanus

The Tragedy of Coriolanus (c. 1608; First Folio 1623) Inferred

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) · c. 1608; First Folio 1623

InferredFuller invokes Coriolanus as a literary-philosophical archetype to illustrate will intensified by pride alone, contrasting the aristocratic solipsism of Shakespeare's character with Hamlet's idealistic paralysis in her broader analysis of Shakespearean types of human will. Margaret Fuller engages with Shakespeare's *The Tragedy of Coriolanus* (1623) by citing the title character as an embodiment of the playwright's insightful portrayal of Roman temperament. Fuller observes that Shakespeare could "read the Roman nature too," exemplified by the "sternness of Coriolanus," thereby highlighting the dramatic character's quintessential Roman qualities.

AnalyzedReadMentioned

Documented 1840

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Letters

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist1record

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)1record

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1840—

Letter to William H. Channing(?)

p108

analyzed · read

“or made intense by pride alone, as in that of Coriolanus?”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p29

analyzed · read2 selected passages

“My author could read the Roman nature too, — read it in the stern- ness of Coriolanus, and in the varied wealth of Csesar.”

Inferred Margaret Fuller engages with Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Coriolanus (1623) by citing the title character as an embodiment of the playwright's insightful portrayal of Roman temperament. Fuller observes that Shakespeare could "read the Roman nature too," exemplified by the "sternness of Coriolanus," thereby highlighting the dramatic character's quintessential Roman qualities. The editors identify this reference as specific to Shakespeare's play rather than a general mention of the Roman figure.

The editors identify this reference as specific to Shakespeare's play rather than a general mention of the Roman figure.

“made intense by pride alone, 'as in that of Coriolanus?”

Inferred Margaret Fuller draws upon Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Coriolanus as a character study of will intensified by pride.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.