Chapter 3 The Armored Body as Trophy: The Problem of the Roman Subject in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus

Abstract

This chapter looks at representations of the Roman subject’s body alongside illustrations of military trophies that circulated in early modern Europe in order to assert that these Plutarchan Roman plays underscore the difficulty—indeed, the impossibility—of adequately presenting this Roman subject to his early modern English audience. Harlan maintains that Shakespeare inherits a partial and objectified Roman subject linked to trophies and armor, and that this figure negotiates the playgoer’s relationship to his glorious, unattainable Roman past. By examining key moments of arming and spoiling in these plays—including Julius Caesar’s bloody and horrific murder, Cleopatra’s arming of Antony before the battle of Actium, and Coriolanus’s inability to disarm himself and re-enter post-war society—she demonstrates how Shakespeare explores the problems of reclaiming the Roman past.