Slaying the Dragon in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus

Abstract

Within William Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus, the title character Caius Martius Coriolanus refers to himself as a “lonely dragon.” This image of a dragon in the play represents a powerful fusion of Celtic, Nordic, and classical myth as well as Christian theology—all of which contain depictions of dragons. Reading Martius as a dragon, using Jungian and archetypal terms mediated through Icelandic literature, unveils Shakespeare’s use of myth to fashion Caius Martius’s transformation into an untamable anti-social beast whose primal violence and aggression ultimately leads to his slaying by Aufidius, the dragon-like dragon-slayer.