Volpone

Ben Jonson’s Volpone, or The Fox is a satirical play where a sneaky guy named Volpone pretends to be sick so his friends give him gifts, hoping to inherit his money, but it’s all a big scam.

Introduction to Volpone

Volpone, (pronounced “vol-POH-neh”) meaning “sly (means “cunning”) fox” in Italian, is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson, first staged in 1605–1606. It cleverly combines the genres of city comedy and beast fable, satirising greed and lust. It’s widely performed and regarded as one of the best comedies of the Jacobean era.

Context to Volpone

Volpone was written in 1606, i.e. in the Jacobean era. The context of the age may be helpful in understanding the ideas depicted in the play:

The Reign of King James I: King James I had recently ascended the throne in 1603, marking a shift from the strong-willed Queen Elizabeth I. James was known for his favouritism and extravagance, which may have influenced the play’s themes of greed, social climbing, and the corrupting influence of wealth. The play explores the dangers of unchecked ambition, greed, and the pursuit of wealth, reflecting the anxieties surrounding the rise of capitalism in England.

England’s View of Italy: England held a complex view of Italy at the time. While admired for its cultural and artistic achievements, it was also seen as a place of decadence, immorality, and corruption. This view likely influenced the play’s setting (Venice) and the morally ambiguous characters. Venice becomes a symbol of societal corruption, reflecting the prevalent view of Italy in England.

Jonson’s Competition: Jonson was a prominent playwright engaged in fierce competition with contemporaries like Thomas Dekker and John Marston. The play’s Prologue contains satirical attack aimed at these rivals, reflecting the competitive nature of the theatrical landscape.

Rise of Satire: The Jacobean era witnessed a rise in satire, using humour and wit to critique societal issues. Volpone can be seen as a satirical commentary on greed, social climbing, and the emptiness of material wealth. Jonson utilises humour and satire to expose societal flaws and criticise human greed, which were common techniques of Jacobean satire.

Jonson’s Personal Experience: Jonson was briefly imprisoned in 1605, suspected of involvement in the Gunpowder Plot. This experience might have influenced the play’s exploration of themes of justice and deception.

Features of Jonson’s Comedy

1. Humours

When reading Ben Jonson’s comedies, one of the initial observations is that the characters do not undergo the same kind of development as seen in Shakespeare’s works. Instead, they tend to remain consistent in their dominant traits throughout the play. The only character in Volpone who undergoes any significant personal growth and expresses a commitment to more sensible behaviour in the future is Sir Politic Would-Be, in the subplot. However, the main characters in “Volpone” remain largely unchanged from the beginning to the end of the play. They do not demonstrate much increased understanding of themselves or their circumstances. However, this should not be seen as a flaw in Jonson’s understanding of human psychology. In comedy, it can be quite entertaining when characters behave predictably, leading to humorous effects.

Jonson’s characters are based on a different science of the mind from that with which we are familiar today. His concept of human psychology was essentially medieval and was derived from the theory of the humours which was commonly believed both in classical times and the Middle Ages. The word ‘humour’ was derived from Old French and Latin and was applied in medieval physiology to the four fundamental humours of the body which were supposed to determine a person’s temperament: blood (sanguine), phlegm, choler (yellow bile) and melancholy (black bile). Blood represents cheer and courage, phlegm represents apathy, choler represents anger, and melancholy represents depressed and sad. The dominance of any one humour predisposed a man’s temperament in a particular direction.

2. Didactic and Moral Purpose

Jon son believed in the didactic and moral purpose of his comedy, and considered it had a public function to correct behaviour. But he was not content merely to attack human folly, he also intended to expose vice. He also saw his function as curative. By the time he came to write Volpone Jonson’s tone of moral seriousness had deepened, and he moved on to expose serious vices: greed in particular. The playwright’s clearest statement of his belief in the moral purpose and ‘function’ of the poet occurs in the Epistle to Volpone. But he also believed that comedy should make the audience laugh and he concludes the Prologue to Volpone:

Only a little salt remaineth,

Wherewith he’ll rub your cheeks, till red with laughter,

They shall look fresh a week after. (34-6) 

He took the trouble to write a lengthy epistle and prologue to Volpone in which he expressed his intention to both instruct and entertain his audience. According to the critic Coburn Gum he was influenced in this by the example of Aristophanes, who also addressed the audience directly with his views in prefaces to his plays known as parabases.

3. The Unities

Jonson sees the classical unities and forms as something which he and his contemporaries should have the right to alter or adapt as they see fit. The Unities were derived from Aristotle’s Poetics by Italian critics of the sixteenth century. The main three unities that the dramatist was supposed to observe were the unities of time, place and action. It must be remembered that Aristotle was attempting to describe the Ancient Greek tragedies of such writers as Sophocles which he had seen performed in the third century BC. These dramas were products of a very different historical and cultural environment from that of seventeenth-century England. To apply such statements rigidly to the drama of a different epoch was inappropriate and, as Jonson himself said, restricting.

With his background and reading in the classics he was well aware of the working methods of Greek and Roman dramatists, but did not allow such considerations to limit Volpone unduly, as he states in the Prologue to the play, speaking of himself in the third person:

The laws of time, place, persons he observeth, From no needful rule, he swerveth. (31-2) 

Thus Jonson, like Shakespeare, felt no need to follow slavishly (submissively) the academic formulae employed by neo-classical critics as a dogmatic and prescriptive instrument of criticism. In particular, he deviates from the Unities by introducing a sub-plot. He was certainly influenced by classical writers of comedy such as Aristophanes, Plautus and Terence but used them as a starting point to develop his own brand of comedy which, although satirising vice, never failed to amuse and entertain his audience.

About the Author

Source: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw84635/Benjamin-Ben-Jonson

Benjamin Jonson was born in 1572 into a minister’s family. His father passed away just before he was born, so he grew up with his mother and stepfather, who worked as a bricklayer. Jonson went to St. Martin’s parish school and later to Westminster school, where he learned from a classical historian named William Camden. After finishing school in 1589, Jonson briefly worked with his stepfather before joining the English armed forces in Flanders. When he returned to London, he became an actor and playwright for Philip Henslowe’s theatre company. Not much is known about his early career, but he appeared in Thomas Kyd’s play The Spanish Tragedy and wrote a few tragedies himself.

Jonson often found himself in trouble; he was jailed in 1597 for writing a controversial play called The Isle of Dogs with Thomas Nashe. The next year, he was put on trial for killing a fellow actor, Gabriel Spencer, in a duel. He narrowly avoided death but was declared a criminal and sent to prison, where he converted to Roman Catholicism. Although, later in 1610, he returned to the Anglican Church.

Jonson rose into prominence in 1598 with his play Every Man in His Humour, performed at the Globe by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. The play was based on the classical model of comedy, with character types like a passionate lover, a rigid father and a clever servant. It brought into vogue the comedy of humours – based on the theory of distinct personality types dependant on the predominance of various body fluids – and turned Jonson into an overnight celebrity.

The next year, Jonson attempted to continue the success of his previous play with Every Man Out of His Humour, but it didn’t attract many people to the theatres. He kept writing plays like Cynthia’s Revels (1600) and The Poetaster (1601), where he showed his dislike for human folly (means foolishness) and his desire for order and decorum. These plays also made fun of Jonson’s fellow writers, John Marston and Thomas Dekker, sparking what is famously known as the War of the Theatres.

With the accession of King James I to the throne of England in 1603, Jonson’s fortunes turned as he found favour with the royal audience as a successful writer of courtly masques, a form of spectacular dramatic performance involving elaborate sets, costumes, music and songs. Some of the most successful masques he wrote during this period were The Satyr (1603) and The Masque of Blackness (1605). Jonson also continued writing plays for the public stage, including some of his most famous plays like Volpone, or The Fox (1606), Epicoene: or, The Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614). In these plays, Jonson presented a satirical picture of human nature in the context of the rise of the mercantile class in Jacobean England.

Jonson was granted an annual pension by the royal court in 1616 and is therefore considered to be the first Poet Laureate of England. He also brought out a folio edition of his collected works in the same year, which reflects his own sense of his stature as an author of substantial talent and repute. He was also awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree by Oxford University in 1619.

Jonson’s career declined in the 1620s as the plays he wrote in this decade were comparatively less successful than his previous work. His public repute, however, withstood commercial failures like The Staple of News (1625), The New Inn (1629) and A Tale of a Tub (1633); in fact, a group of young poets, which included Sir John Suckling, Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew and Richard Lovelace, were greatly influenced by Jonson’s style of writing and called themselves ‘sons’ or ‘tribe’ of Ben.

Though Jonson was known primarily as a playwright, he also wrote epigrams, occasional poems and essays through his career. He is especially well known for his tribute to Shakespeare, whom he considered to be a less skilled artist than himself. Jonson died in 1637 and was buried at Westminster Abbey.

Characters

Volpone

A wealthy nobleman from Venice who increases his wealth by pretending to be seriously ill while promising several greedy friends he will make them his heir.

Mosca

Mosca is a parasite without a noble lineage. He possesses no prospects for advancement in the world except through sharing in the dishonest gains of his master. He assumes the role of Volpone’s chief minister and orchestrator of schemes.

Voltore

An advocate who can eloquently argue for any cause. He aids Mosca to fleece others, thinking that the wealth will eventually come to him.

Corbaccio

An extremely old gentleman. Corbaccio anticipates the opportunity to celebrate upon Volpone’s demise. He disinherits his son to solidify his position as Volpone’s successor.

Corvino

A typical jealous husband who becomes so consumed by his greed that he agrees to get her wife sleep with Volpone.

Celia

Corvino’s beautiful wife.

Bonario

A young gentleman from Venice, the son of Corbaccio, and a man of moral integrity.

Sir Politic Would-be

Sir Politic is an English knight living in Venice. He serves to symbolise the risk of moral degradation encountered by English travellers going abroad to the continent, particularly to Italy. His pivotal role in the subplot revolves around his interaction with Peregrine, another English traveller.

Lady Would-be

Lady Politic’s talkative and homely wife, who tries to join the greedy legacy hunters in fleecing Volpone.

Plot Synopsis

Act-wise Analysis of Volpone

Act 1, Scene 1

Act 1, Scene 1 of Ben Jonson’s Volpone serves as a compelling and pertinent opening to the play, setting the stage for the satirical examination of human nature and social problems. The scene takes place in Volpone’s fancy home, immediately establishing a sense of wealth and opulence that becomes important to the story as it goes on.

One of the main themes of the scene is satire upon greed and how easily people can be taken advantage of when they want money. Volpone pretends to be sick to trick people who want to inherit his money. The way the characters react to his fake illness shows a problem in society, highlighting the never-ending desire for wealth and inheritance. This sets the stage for a broader discussion about how materialism can damage relationships between people.

Disguise and deception are other important themes in Act 1, Scene 1, and they give us a way to look at how society is full of tricksters. Volpone’s fake illness is not just a way to get money; it is also a symbol of how people in society are not always who they appear to be. The theme of disguise adds a layer of complexity to the story, making the audience question what they see and think about the characters’ true motives.

The rich language of this scene plays a key role in conveying Jonson’s satirical intent. The characters engage in a verbal battle, using wit and intelligence as highly valued qualities. This clever use of language not only serves the immediate story but also foreshadows the intricate wordplay and schemes that will unfold in later acts. The playful use of language becomes a tool for characters to navigate their complex social environment.

The introduction of Mosca, Volpone’s cunning parasite, adds a layer of intrigue and manipulation to the scene. Mosca’s role as a puppet master, connecting Volpone’s schemes with unsuspecting victims, underscores the power dynamics at play in the narrative. His character becomes a bridge between Volpone’s elaborate plans and the unwitting targets, further emphasizing the themes of manipulation and deception.

Thus, Act 1, Scene 1 of Volpone is a well-crafted introduction to Jonson’s satirical exploration of human foolishness. Through a rich combination of opulent setting, biting critique of greed, thematic exploration of disguise and deception, linguistic finesse, and the introduction of key characters like Mosca, Jonson establishes a strong foundation for the intricate comedy and social commentary that will unfold in this classic work of English Renaissance drama.

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