Seductive / persuasive language

Question 1

P watches, no doubt,

Answer 1

Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find his wish and best advantage”
predatory language. Compels the reader as satan greedily waits for Eve.

Question 2

P Fearless unfeared

Answer 2

Fearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth

“fearless unfeared” is a traductio. grotesque trochaic line. sexual, rapist connotations. spondee on “his mouth”. caesura adds suspense. possibly foreshadowing his sexual appetite for eve.

Question 3

P wanton

Answer 3

“wanton growth” - “wanton ringlets” in book 4. Suggests sexual promiscuity. Christopher Ricks ‘anti-pun’. Milton is aware that his fallen readers will read wanton as suggestive, so possibly foreshadowing her fallen character? manipulating our view of her?

Question 4

P fondly overcome

Answer 4

fondly overcome with female charm

adams sexual appetite results in his destruction. suggests he is foolish to yield to this manipulative ‘charm’

Question 5

P in lust

Answer 5

in lust they burn

burn is a reference to hell, showing how their sexual appetite is to result in their inevitable destruction.

Question 6

V Let me kiss

Answer 6

Let me kiss, with adoration, thee

setting moral tone of the play. Volpone has almost sexual appetite for his gold. erotic language

Question 7

V a beauty ripe

Answer 7

A beauty ripe as harvest…a soft lip, would tempt you to an eternity of kissing! and flesh that melteth in the touch of blood! bright as your gold!

Erotic language. sexual use of ‘flesh’. “ripe” suggests virginity

Question 8

V i feel a whimsy

Answer 8

i feel a whimsy i’my blood. i know not how success hath made me wanton

sexual language is comical. Mosca’s sexual appetite is drawn from self-adoration.

Question 9

V this band

Answer 9

This band shows not my neck enough

promsicious lady. Reference to “a retina” who writes erotic and obscene poems

Question 10

V i cannot be taken

Answer 10

i cannot be taken by these sensual baits

Celia as embodiment of virtue. unlike Eve, she cannot be taken as she is aware of language being used as a tool for manipulation. Eve is unfilled and so is not aware of these vice attributes.

Question 11

V Yield, or ill force thee

Answer 11

contrast to previous wooing words. first time Volpone’s villainous acts actually harm someone.

Question 12

P the hand of Eve;

Answer 12

the hand of eve, spot more delicious than the gardens

Question 13

P sep fair virgin pass

Answer 13

step fair virgin pass, what pleasing seemed

Epic simile

Question 14

P Into her heart

Answer 14

“into her heart. to easy entrance won”

Question 15

Pray you, sir, use me.

Answer 15

Pray you, sir, use me. In faith,
The more you see me, the more I shall conceive
You have forgot our quarrel.

Question 16

Renaissance theatre

Answer 16

Renaissance theatre was caught between the sexualised slapstick humour of Aristotelian comedy and the more reserved moral codes of the times.

Question 17

Volpone use of flame imagery

Answer 17

flame imagery to describe his ‘seduction’ by celia
“ambitious fire” “flaming arrow” “burns inside me”
Fire was synonymous with passion and lust.

LINK para d fire imagery “burning passion” and “firey glances” containing lustful desires of adam and eve postlapsarian sex

Question 18

heads of parrots

Answer 18

heads of parrots, tongues of nightingales, brains of peacocks

iambic verse gives his language a poetic and romantic feel

Question 19

Volpone wants to “act ovids

Answer 19

“act Ovid’s tales”

these sexualised stories suggest a desire for physical rather emotional pleasure. hedonistic pleasures can also be seen through the sensual synaesthetic language about the pearl - dissolve and drink em.

Question 20

Hazlitt contrasting adam and eve sex

Answer 20

Pre-Postlapsarian book 4 to book 9: “hidden to emphasise the inescapable sin”

unlike volpone to celia, this act of seduction in book 9 is mutual. a contemporary audience would arguably see both acts as sinful due to lust being one of the Seven Deadly sins. In contrast, a reading after the 1960’s sexual revolution would be more likely to view the seduction of Adam and eve in a more receptive light.

1920’s feminist movement - more accepting of Eve’s lustful movements.