Like with a lot of Shakespeare's works, this one requires a lot of work to read. It was interesting, for sure, but constantly cross-referencing footnotes, checking old English meanings of words, and then "translating" the verb tenses into a more coherent phrasing for my daughter and me... well it is just a lot.

the homoerotic enemies to lovers to enemies again was kinda crazy

The only reason I can get the smallest grasp of appreciation for this play is that my natural interest in politics has been wrung through the wringer of six Shakespearean tragedies previous. This is the incompatibility of war and peace in Titus Adronicus crammed into the crucible of democracy and dictatorship, wherein power to the people will forever be a ruse so long as a single conscience can conceptualize the people as the abject. I won't lie and say I'd like the look of this on stage better than I would Macbeth, but I will say the success with the latter is the result of Shakespeare setting himself a target he knew that he could hit. It makes for a top of the line spectacle and some of the best lines English ever spawned, but for every page of analysis of Macbeth I could do ten for Coriolanus. There are few works that attempt to encompass the heart of mewling puking humanity seeking to lead itself out of the mire without the aid of divine providence, and even fewer plays. Shakespeare's failure stems not from the deeper shame whose source is lack of trying.

Let the first budger die the other's slave,
And the gods doom him after.

Above are the stakes that were very clearly and very simply laid out by Caius Martius before the first act was through, when war was war and peace was the training for war and the enemy was the lust of the kill. First, they came for his name, for only an animal has one and only a pet has two. Next, they came for his war, for the natural consequence of having murdered so much is to be esteemed as valuable material for politicking. Then, they came for his body, they being the mother and the friend and the people, some out of love, some out of incest, some out of the political propaganda that the heterosexual fragility complex is so spooked by when presented in the form of St. Sebastian. Finally, they came for his lie that power would guarantee him imperial dictator. Slowly but surely, Rome moved its way through the stadial theory step by step, person by person, part by part, for one is either inherently a beast or a false player of many parts. God cares for all the birds and beasts, but the nation state needs no god. Coriolanus was called by what he had defeated. When his defeat outpaced it by means of so-called humanity, his carcass became more valuable to civil union than his person.

This is the way to kindle, not to quench.

To unbuild the city, and to lay all flat.

What is the city but the people?

True,
The people are the city.

All the world may be a stage, but if body politic is false equivalence, tragedy is dead.

So our virtues
Lie in th'interpretation of the time,
And power, unto itself most commendable,
Hath not a tomb so evidence as a chair
T'extol what it hath done.

The psychology of this play is much more complex than it's plot. It is much more like Hamlet in that since than King Lear or one of the comedies.

It's lead character is deep and hard to fathom. One could classify him as having mother issues or as a sociopath but that would be too simple.

Because of that the lead character is more hard to follow than the play. You spend your mental energy trying to either sympathize with him or look for reasons for his actions. That makes it a bit harder to read than the comedies (or even King Lear who is a bit more understandable).

Great study in leadership and followership, not just in looking at the title character but also in looking at how the Tribunes manipulate the people and Aufidious (the adversary to Coriolanus) leads and then doesn't lead his own troops.

yeah

This was sometimes quite painful reading and I am surprised that my boy Willy Shakespeare failed to deliver with this Rome-based tragedy. There were a few pieces of lyrical mastery which turned up now and again, but a lot less frequently than in his other works.

I did like Menenius' line "more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians" and I will endeavour to apply this in my daily life.

shakespeare is such a master at writing homoerotic tension

Fascinating to read right after having reread (and watched) "Macbeth." I found Coriolanus just as fascinating a character as Macbeth, but I can't figure out why, because there's really nothing to him -- he's kind of a blowhard, pretty dumb, and totally under the thumb of his mother, who makes Lady Macbeth look like Mary Poppins. Maybe the play's allure lies in its relevance: its political machinations seem eerily analogous to our current world. I am looking forward to Ralph Fiennes's film. What does such a potent actor make of an empty shell?