Re-visions of Volumnia's motherhood

Abstract

The last decades have witnessed the appearance and consolidation of feminist Shakespearean criticism as a challenging -and therefore harshly attacked-critical project. This article explores and revises the interpretations feminist criticism has offered of the concept of motherhood concerning the character of Volumnia in Coriolanus, from two different points of view: the Psychoanalytic approach and the political perspective -integrating the British Cultural Materialist and the American New Historicist views. From this New Historicist perspective, a new approach to the question of Volumnia's motherhood is suggested, by adding, to classical interpretations, a new one, offering an analysis of Volumnia as a Renaissance 'new mother'.