Abstract

When Coriolanus's mother urges him to dissemble his disdain for the plebeians, the hero recoils, imagining that such a role would effeminate him. His response leaves little doubt as to the antifeminist assumptions underlying his antitheatrical commitments. However, these antifeminist assumptions are undermined by the play's presentation of gender, especially as it is expressed in the figure of the young boy and the virginal woman. By way of the boy, the play intimates that masculinity is neither un- nor antitheatrical but is actually a performative effect in its own right. By way of the virgin, the play implies that the "effeminate" or "unmanly" subject positions that Coriolanus scorns are not without virtue of their own, possessing a kind of antiperformative integrity that Coriolanus never achieves. As it aggressively theatricalizes masculinity and implicitly valorizes virginity, Shakespeare's play renders its hero's antitheatrical commitments less and less compelling, less and less coherent.

Keywords

Coriolanus,Antitheatricality,Gender construction,Gender studies,Masculinity studies,Boyhood studies,Virginity

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