A grammar of the self: modalità linguistica, potere e azione in Coriolano

Drawing on recent work on dramatic language and linguistic modality in early modern English, this essay aims to investigate the presence and meanings of modal forms, with specific reference to will and shall, in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, in an attempt to illuminate the ways in which the interweaving of their semantic and pragmatic values adds to the representation of the protagonist’s moral dilemma. The use of the category of the future, in an age in which the discussed forms have not been completely grammaticalized, must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. A reading of Corionalus, alongside Macbeth, with which the play in question shares many points of affinity, will serve to explore the special “grammar of the self” that represents the relationship between doubt, desire, and the will in linguistic terms.