Shakespeare, Rome and Modernity: Exploring Politics and Ethics in Julius Caesar and Coriolanus

Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies Coriolanus and Julius Caesar feature larger than life heroes, both troubled and troubling, whose stories raise political and ethical questions still important today: what are the costs and benefits of charismatic individual leadership? Is political constancy a strength or a liability? What is the virtuous government’s responsibility toward poverty? What should the relation be between military and political leadership? Is empire consistent with republicanism? With democracy? In this seminar we will explore both the complexity with which the plays raise these questions and also some of their contexts in early modern political and social history. Just as Shakespeare reads Rome as model and foil for his own social and political era, so we will read Shakespeare in part as a lens on modernity. In addition, we will consider some aspects of Ralph Fiennes’s 2011 film of Coriolanus.

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