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Situational Irony
Definition of Soliloquy
A soliloquy is a literary device, most often found in dramas, in which a character speaks to him or herself, relating his or her innermost thoughts and feelings as if... read full definition
A soliloquy is a literary device, most often found in dramas, in which a character speaks to him or herself, relating his or her innermost... read full definition
A soliloquy is a literary device, most often found in dramas, in which a character speaks to him or herself... read full definition
Act 2, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Custom:
In a bitter soliloquy, Coriolanus condemns the democratic processes of Rome, which require a candidate for the consulship to go to the marketplace wearing humble clothing in order to ask the citizens for their individual votes:
Most sweet voices!
Better it is to die, better to starve,
Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.
Why in this woolvish toge should I stand here
To beg of Hob and Dick that does appear
Their needless vouches? Custom calls me to ’t.
What custom wills, in all things should we do ’t?
The dust on antique time would lie unswept
And mountainous error be too highly heaped
For truth to o’erpeer. Rather than fool it so,
Let the high office and the honor go
To one that would do thus. I am half through;
The one part suffered, the other will I do.
Related Themes:
Act 4, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—This Enemy Town:
In one of two major soliloquies in the play, Coriolanus reflects upon the surprising twists of life that have left him an ally to his former enemies, the Volscians, and an enemy to his motherland, Rome:
Unlock with LitCharts A+O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,
Whose double bosoms seems to wear one heart,
Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise
Are still together, who twin, as ’twere, in love
Unseparable, shall within this hour,
On a dissension of a doit, break out
To bitterest enmity; so fellest foes,
Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep
To take the one the other, by some chance,
Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends
And interjoin their issues. So with me:
My birthplace hate I, and my love’s upon
This enemy town.
Related Themes:
