SOURCE: Olsen, Thomas G. “Apolitical Shakespeare; or, The Restoration Coriolanus.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 38, no. 3 (summer 1998): 411-25.

In the following essay, Olsen argues that Tate's Coriolanus is particularly important because it is representative of political and aesthetic tendencies on the Restoration stage.

Several recent critical studies of Shakespeare's historical evolution into the figure Michael Dobson calls “the national poet” have considerably enriched our understanding of how Shakespearean adaptations functioned politically and culturally on the Restoration stage. Previously, and in the shadow of early-twentieth-century critics such as George C. D. Odell and Hazelton Spencer, abstract aesthetic considerations had dominated scholarly discussion of late-seventeenth-century productions of Shakespeare, an analytical tradition in which Restoration standards were almost invariably disparaged in comparison with those of the Renaissance.¹

Given such a critical climate, it is not surprising that Nahum Tate's adaptation of Coriolanus has long been overlooked, even though Tate as much...