Past the Size of Dreaming? Shakespeare’s Rome

Abstract

Confronting modernity, the speaker in 'The Wasteland' recalled the ancient hero and Shakespeare's play (his 'most assured artistic success', Eliot wrote elsewhere) as fragments of past grandeur momentarily shored against his present ruins. Contrarily, Ralph Fiennes revived Coriolanus in his 2011 film because he thought it a modern political thriller: For me it has an immediacy: I know that politician getting out of that car. I know that combat guy. I've seen him every day on the news and in the newspaperthat man in that camouflage uniform running down the street, through the smoke and the dust. I've seen the people protesting on the streets, in their hoodies and jeans. You know, that's our world. 1 1 Ralph Fiennes in Christopher Wallenberg, 'Stage to Screens: Ralph Fiennes Talks to Playbill.com About Wrestling Coriolanus Onto the Big Screen', Playbill, 20 November 2011,p .2, www.playbill.com/news/article/stage-to-screensralph-fiennes-talks-to-playbill.com-about-wrestling-coriol-184750