How Not to Be a Hero

One of Shakespeare’s greatest plays is about a character who was an irredeemable failure: Coriolanus. What can failure teach us? What kind of strength does a language of failure possess? We will read the ancient sources themselves (Livy, Lucian, Plutarch), and modern adaptations of these stories (Bertolt Brecht, T. S. Eliot, Günter Grass). We will also look at other “exemplary” failures who inspired Shakespeare and later literature, including Lucullus and Timon.