Coriolanus

Coriolanus
The last and most uniformly political tragedy in the canon can be dated by a number of topical allusions. Shakespeare's interest in the story of the legendary Caius Martius and his antipathy towards the hungry mob may have been stimulated by the food riots which took place in the Midlands during 1607 and 1608, while two minor details point to other recent events: the great frost of December 1607–January 1608 (alluded to at 1.1.171), and Hugh Middleton's project to bring water to the City of London via the artificial ‘New River’, only completed in early 1609, though under preparation some time beforehand (alluded to at 3.1.99–100). The play cannot have been written before 1605, since its first scene draws on William Camden's Remains of a Greater Work Concerning Britain, published in that year, nor after 1609, when it was itself echoed in two separate works by authors associated with Shakespeare's company, Robert Armin's The Italian...

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