Writer's Techniques (OCR A-Level English Literature): Revision Notes
Writer's Techniques
Understanding Shakespeare's literary techniques in Coriolanus is essential for analysing how he creates character, develops themes, and structures his political tragedy. This note explores the key techniques you'll need to identify and discuss in your exam responses, with supporting quotations to strengthen your essays.
Language of pride, contempt and absolutism
Shakespeare crafts Coriolanus' character through language that reveals his elitist attitudes and complete disdain for the common people. The protagonist's speech patterns consistently demonstrate his refusal to compromise and his belief in rigid social hierarchies.
Key quotations
- What's the matter, you dissentious rogues...?
- You common cry of curs!
- Who deserves greatness / Deserves your hate
- I banish you! (a powerful reversal where Coriolanus turns his own exile sentence back on Rome)
Techniques at work
Invective and insult: Shakespeare employs harsh, abusive language to emphasise the social distance Coriolanus maintains from the plebeians. This hostile vocabulary makes it impossible for him to connect with ordinary Romans, highlighting his fundamental unsuitability for political life.
Absolutist phrasing: The hero speaks in extremes with no middle ground. His all-or-nothing declarations reveal his inability to negotiate or show political flexibility. This linguistic inflexibility mirrors his tragic character flaw.
Animal imagery: Coriolanus repeatedly reduces the plebeians to animals—calling them curs, dogs, and fragments. This dehumanising language strips the citizens of their rationality and individuality, exposing his contempt whilst making his political downfall feel inevitable.
When analysing Coriolanus' language, argue that Shakespeare uses violent invective and animal imagery to construct him as fundamentally contemptuous of the people. This characterisation makes his political collapse feel both unavoidable and self-inflicted, as he lacks the linguistic tools required for democratic politics.
Political rhetoric and performance
Shakespeare presents politics in Coriolanus as a battle fought with speeches rather than swords. Characters compete to control narratives and persuade audiences, revealing that political power depends on rhetorical skill.
Key quotations
- Menenius' fable: There was a time when all the body's members / Rebell'd against the belly
- Tribunes on democracy: The people are the city
- Coriolanus on campaigning: Must I / With my base tongue give to my noble heart / A lie...?
Techniques at work
Extended rhetorical speeches and fables: Shakespeare uses lengthy persuasive arguments, like Menenius' belly fable, to show how patricians attempt to justify inequality. These speeches function as political tools designed to maintain power structures.
Body politic metaphor: The recurring comparison of Rome to a human body allows Shakespeare to explore debates about class and power. Different characters interpret this metaphor in opposing ways—patricians see themselves as the essential organs, whilst tribunes insist the people are the city's true body.
Juxtaposition of honour versus voices: Shakespeare creates dramatic tension by contrasting the patrician concept of honour with the plebeian demand for voices (votes). This opposition highlights the fundamental incompatibility between aristocratic and democratic values.
Demonstrate how Shakespeare presents politics as fundamentally rhetorical. Whoever controls the voice o' the people controls Rome, transforming language itself into an instrument of power. This technique reveals the play's cynical view of political manipulation.
Imagery of body, wounds and war
Coriolanus' entire identity centres on military service, and his body literally records his battles through scars. Shakespeare uses bodily imagery to explore the relationship between military merit and political authority.
Key quotations
- He is a very dog to the commonalty (Menenius describing Coriolanus)
- I have some wounds upon me, and they smart / To hear themselves remembered
- These are the wounds of my friends (Coriolanus describing his scars)
Techniques at work
Wound imagery as proof of merit: Shakespeare presents Coriolanus' scars as physical evidence of his service to Rome. In the hero's value system, these wounds should automatically grant him political authority.
The soldier's body versus the state's body: The play creates tension between Coriolanus' individual warrior body and the collective body politic. His refusal to display his wounds publicly reveals his inability to understand that individual merit must be transformed into political theatre.
Dramatic irony: What should legitimise Coriolanus' authority—his battle scars—becomes the very thing that exposes his political failure. His wounds must be shown to the people, but he finds this display humiliating, creating an impossible situation.
Exam application
Argue that Shakespeare uses bodily and war imagery to expose a fundamental contradiction within Rome's political system. The state demands military sacrifice but then requires that sacrifice to be commodified as political spectacle. Coriolanus cannot reconcile these conflicting demands.
Crowds, voice and the instability of the people
Shakespeare represents the plebeians as both rational individuals and an easily manipulated crowd. This dual characterisation creates ambiguity about democracy's viability.
Key quotations
- Our business is not unknown to the senate (a thoughtful Citizen)
- We'll have no more kings!
- It was you cursed the people / It was you incensed the rabble (accusations shifting between characters)
Techniques at work
Rapid shared lines and short exchanges: Shakespeare uses quick dialogue exchanges to create crowd energy and momentum. This technique makes the plebeians feel like a collective force rather than separate individuals.
Repeated vocabulary: The words voice, vote, and people echo throughout crowd scenes, emphasising that democratic politics revolves around these concepts whilst also suggesting their instability through repetition.
Shifts in viewpoint: Shakespeare deliberately shows the citizens as thoughtful in some moments, then volatile and irrational in others. This technique creates debate about whether they deserve political power.
You can demonstrate how Shakespeare dramatises democracy as fragile and easily swayed. The use of fragmented, overlapping speech illustrates how quickly a rational crowd can transform into an unreasoning mob, raising questions about popular sovereignty.
Volumnia's rhetoric and the fusion of public and private
Volumnia's persuasive language uniquely blends patriotism, violence and maternal love. Shakespeare uses her speeches to show how private relationships become decisive political forces.
Key quotations
- I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man (on Coriolanus' wounds)
- If my son were my husband, I should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour than in the embracements of his bed
- Thou shalt no sooner / March to assault thy country than to tread... / The womb that bore thee (her final plea)
Techniques at work
Paradoxical maternal pride in violence: Shakespeare creates a disturbing mother who takes greatest joy in her son's capacity for warfare. This paradox reveals how Roman values have corrupted natural affection.
Powerful extended appeals: Volumnia constructs lengthy arguments that invoke honour, blood and kinship. Her rhetorical skill surpasses all other characters, making her the play's most effective politician.
Emotional blackmail: In the climactic supplication scene, Volumnia threatens self-harm and invokes Coriolanus' wife and child. Shakespeare shows manipulation disguised as maternal love, revealing the destructive power of family bonds.
Exam application
Point out how Shakespeare uses Volumnia's persuasive rhetoric to demonstrate that private love between mother and son becomes the decisive political force. Her speech saves Rome but ensures Coriolanus' death, illustrating the tragic cost of confusing public duty with private obligation.
Structure and reversals
Shakespeare constructs the entire play around dramatic reversals and ironic parallels. Coriolanus' trajectory from hero to traitor mirrors Rome's transformation from stable republic to fractured state.
Key structural moments
- Early heroic image: Caius Marcius, who hath / Done noble service of Rome
- At banishment: You have sham'd me / In your condemned seconds
- With the Volscians: I am a kind of burr: I shall stick
- Final recognition: O mother, mother! / What have you done?
Techniques at work
Mirrored scenes: Shakespeare creates parallel scenes that highlight reversals. For example, Coriolanus appears before the people twice—first seeking their voices for consul, then facing them as a traitor. These structural echoes emphasise how completely his position has inverted.
Irony of titles: The name Coriolanus, awarded after his victory at Corioli, functions as both a badge of honour and ultimately the name of Rome's enemy. Shakespeare uses this ironic transformation to show how glory can become shame.
Tragic structure: The play follows classical tragic form where the protagonist's greatest strengths—his courage and integrity—directly cause his downfall. His refusal to compromise, initially presented as admirable, becomes his fatal flaw.
You can argue that structure itself functions as a technique. Shakespeare carefully stages Coriolanus' rise and fall to critique rigid heroism in a changing political world. The symmetrical reversals create a sense of tragic inevitability.
Tone, verse and interruption
Unlike Shakespeare's more lyrical tragedies, Coriolanus features harsh, argumentative verse that frequently breaks down. This roughness reflects the play's political conflicts.
Features of the verse
Elliptical, compressed lines: Shakespeare uses condensed syntax, as in At home, upon my brother's guard, where words are omitted. This creates a sense of urgency and incompleteness.
Interruptions and overlapping: Tribunes, citizens and patricians constantly cut across each other's speech. This technique mirrors Rome's fractured political discourse, where nobody can finish an argument without challenge.
Occasional striking softness: Coriolanus' emotional breakthrough in the final scene with Volumnia stands out precisely because it contrasts with the play's usual harshness. These rare tender moments highlight the human cost of political conflict.
Comment on how the rough, interruptive verse mirrors the fractured politics of Rome. The style itself becomes meaningful—the breakdown of smooth verse reflects the breakdown of political consensus. Meanwhile, rare moments of lyrical softness emphasise what is lost to political violence.
Writing about techniques in your exam
When analysing Shakespeare's techniques, follow this model structure for your paragraphs:
Model Analytical Paragraph
Shakespeare presents Coriolanus as contemptuous of the plebeians through violent invective and animal imagery. When he calls them a common cry of curs, the plural cry and the animal noun curs reduce the people to a barking pack, denying them individuality and rationality and foreshadowing his inability to function in a system that depends on winning their voices.
This approach demonstrates:
- Clear identification of the technique
- Precise quotation
- Close analysis of specific words
- Connection to broader themes and plot development
Exam tips
- Always identify the specific technique before analysing its effect
- Use precise subject-specific terminology (invective, body politic, elliptical verse)
- Link techniques to characterisation and themes
- Consider how techniques create dramatic effects for an audience
- Integrate quotations smoothly into your own sentences
- Analyse individual words and their connotations
Key Points to Remember:
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Shakespeare characterises Coriolanus through absolutist language and animal imagery, revealing his contempt for the plebeians and making his political failure inevitable.
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Politics in the play is presented as rhetorical performance, where control of language and the people's voices determines who holds power in Rome.
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Wound and body imagery exposes contradictions in a system that demands military sacrifice but then requires it to be commodified as political spectacle.
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Volumnia's powerful rhetoric demonstrates how private relationships become decisive political forces, ultimately saving Rome but destroying her son.
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The play's structure of reversals and mirrored scenes creates tragic inevitability, showing how Coriolanus' greatest strengths become his fatal flaws in a changing political world.