Opposing conceptions of specific emotions are often in circulation at the same moment in time. This is particularly true of a period of monumental upheaval, as was the case in the early modern era. This essay looks at the contradictory notions of pride that traversed the early modern age and the way Shakespeare explores various facets of this emotion in his late tragedy, Coriolanus. On the one hand, the classical ideal of the ‘magnanimous man’ became an enduring pillar of early modern aristocratic ideology, based as it was on the cult of honour. In Christian belief, on the other hand, pride was regarded as the most heinous of the seven deadly sins. Both strands of thought identified a sense of innate superiority and self-sufficiency as the bedrock of pride. In Coriolanus Shakespeare creates a protagonist who is regarded by others as the epitome of pride, and who sees himself as independent of all human bonds. What the play reveals, however, is that even an emotion that is thought to be largely self-determined is inextricably social. The ideal of autonomy on which pride is premised is revealed as a myth.