It has often been noticed that North’s Plutarch describes Coriolanus as ‘eloquent’ whereas Shakespeare has often represented him as inarticulate or at a loss for words, and has Menenius remark several times that Coriolanus is not a good speaker. Coriolanus’s critics tend to agree with Menenius’s judgement: ‘Lacking the verbal resources and the confidence in language required for effective argument, he remains taciturn whenever possible . . . [He is] insensitive to the tone or connotative qualities of words . . . there is very little of the lyric in his speech . . . Nor does he engage in word-play’. All of these statements are partially true, or true in certain circumstances, but taken together they are an inadequate description of Coriolanus as a speaker. His peculiarity is not an insensitivity to words; rather, he is uncommonly sensitive to them. For Coriolanus, words have virtually a material existence:

and they can register with physical impact upon him: