By way of the virgin, the play implies that the "effeminate" or "unmanly" subject positions that Coriolanus scorns are not without virtue of their own, possessing a kind of antiperformative integrity that Coriolanus never achieves. By way of the boy, the play intimates that masculinity is neither un- nor antitheatrical but is actually a performative effect in its own right. However, these antifeminist assumptions are undermined by the play's presentation of gender, especially as it is expressed in the figure of the young boy and the virginal woman.
His response leaves little doubt as to the antifeminist assumptions underlying his antitheatrical commitments. When Coriolanus's mother urges him to dissemble his disdain for the plebeians, the hero recoils, imagining that such a role would effeminate him. For one such framing idea, I propose the concept of authenticity as defined by the philosopher Charles Taylor in "The Ethics of Authenticity." I first define Taylor's concept and suggest the variety of texts that can be illuminated through it, and then illustrate with an analysis of Shakespeare's "Coriolanus" and Jamaica Kincaid's "My Brother." By using such a frame, students will have a familiar starting point as they launch into an analysis of each new text, and they will find that their experience with the framing idea will deepen with each encounter so that, incrementally, they build analytical facility and confidence. One strategy calls for a lens or framing text, that is, an idea, concept, or question through which students will interrogate each text in the sequence. Since the sequence of texts that constitutes the course may be chosen more for each text's intrinsic merit than for the texts' relations to each other, creating a coherent design for such courses can be a challenge.
This course, often taught by faculty from a variety of disciplines, is designed to introduce students to analytical reading, thinking, and writing. universities require that first-year students take a foundation course in the humanities.
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