Volpone Flashcards
Just tryna do ma ting innit but the struggles deep
Quotes on Mosca’s manipulation of Volpone early in the play? (2)
M->V: “You know the use of riches, and dare give now” … M->V: “hold thee now”
–> Appeals to his self worth
How does Scoto use language for manipulation? (3)
“The turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy farcical rogues”
- “The blessings of the rich! The riches of the poor”
- “I never valued this ampulla, or vial, at less than eight crowns; but for this time I am content to be deprived of it for six”
- -> Connection between money and rhetorical manipulation
How does Volpone attempt to seduce Celia? (3)
“What thou art Queen”
–> Link to Satan’s appeal to ambition
“Jove”, “Mars”, “Erycine”
–> Use of classical allusions similar to Satan’s deception
“wines”, “amber”, “gold”
–> Appeals to sensual pleasures
How does Corvino appeal to Celia’s religious values? (1)
“I grant you; if I thought it were a sin, I would not urge you”
Link between rhetorical manipulation and violence/evil? (2)
Mosc->Volt: “Mercury sit upon your thundering tongue, or the French Hercules, and make your language as conquering as his club”
Pol on Scoto: “Excellent! Ha’ you heard better language”
How does Mosca attempt to deceive the legacy hunters? (1)
Mos->Corv: “They are all now striving, who shall first present him”
–> Time pressure & sense of competition
How does Jonson display distorted family values? (5)
Mos->Cel: “Fair and proper wife”
Corb on Bon: “Stranger of my loins”
Mos: “The dwarf, the fool, the eunuch are all his; he’s the father of this family”
M&Corb: M- “You have not only done yourself a good” Corb- “But multiplied it on upon my son?” M: “Tis true”
–> Decision to disinherit Bonario!
V on his gold: “thou being the best of things - and far transcending all style of joy, in children, parents, friends”
How does Jonson display his character’s obsession with wealth over health? (2)
Corb: “I have brought him an opiate, from mine own doctor”
–> Implications of poison (twisting values of health+medicine for financial gain)
Volt: “Would to heaven, I could as well give health to you as that plate”
How does Volpone display his twisted idea of enjoyment? (2)
“Live free to all delights my fortune calls me to”
“Now very, very pretty!”
–> On the masque of the haemaphrodite, eunuch and dwarf
How does Mosca display his twisted morality? (1)
M: “For the pure love which I bear all right, and hatred of the wrong, I must reveal it. This very hour, your father is in purpose to disinherit you”
–> Recognition that what he is doing is wrong
How does Jonson display vanity in Volpone? (1)
M: “I fear I shall begin to grow in love with my dear self”
How does Jonson display the danger of the Venetian setting? What is the impact of this? (2)
Scoto: “Not only to disperse them publicly in this famous city, but in all territories that happily joy under government of the most pious and magnificent states of Italy”
–> The treachery and deception of Venice and the whole of Italy
Woman: “My lady’s come most melancholic home, and says, Sir, she will straight to sea, for physic” Pol: And I, to shun this place and clime for ever”
–> English characters unable to handle the treachery of Italy and Venice
- Italy scene as the heart of the Papery and Catholicism (and so would have been seen as treacherous and evil)
- -> Separated setting allows audience to evaluate their own society and evil & greed whether its applicable
How does Jonson display the disregard of honour? (1)
Corv: “Honour? tut a breath; there’s no such thing in nature”
Quotes on replacement of religion with gold (3)
V: “Good morning to the day and next my gold! Open the shrine that I may see my saint”
V: “Every relic of sacred treasure in this blessed room”
V: “Dear saint / riches” (Emphatic positioning)
How does Jonson disregard passive religious following? (3)
Cel: “O Heaven” , Corv: “I say it, do so!”
Cel: “O just God! V: “In vain- yield, or I’ll force thee”
Avoc: “What witnesses do you have?” , Bon: “Our consciences” , Cel: “And heaven, that never fails the innocent” , Avoc: “These are not testimonies”
How does Jonson display the reading of Bonario’s + Celia’s freedom as fate of God? (2)
Cel: “How ready is heaven to those that prey” + Avoc: “This knot is now undone, by miracle!”
–> Hyperbolic mocking of this view
V: “As if fate would be as easily cheated on as he”
–> Dismisses Calvinist reading of fate + predetermination
How does Jonson display the oppression & imprisonment of Celia? (4)
M->V: “She’s kept as warily as your gold […] there is a guard of ten spies thick upon her”
Cel: “or ever stir abroad, but to church?”
Bon: “Fear naught, you have a guard”
Avoc->Corv: “To expatiate thy wrongs done to thy wife, thou art to send her home to her father with her dowry trebled”
–> Throughout the play, Celia is always under the guard of a male (Corv, V, Bon, Court, Father) –> She is never freed
How does Jonson display spying & imprisonment? (3)
M on Cel: “When he goes out, when he comes in, examined”
Corv: “The fiercest spies are tamed with gold”
Per->Pol: “I have heard, Sir, that your baboons were spies”
–> Negative display of oppression, spying and imprisonment: Jonson’s own run ins with the law
How does Jonson display the growing independence of Mosca from Volpone? (2)
Repetition of “I” in Act 3, Scene 1
Act IV, Scene 3: ‘Enter Mosca’ without Volpone displays his growing dependence from his master
Quotes on Volpone’s imprisonment (1)
M: [He Shouts in Volpone’s Ear] “The pox approach and add to your diseases”
–> As part of the act, V becomes imprisoned
How does Jonson use Mosca’s voice to add satire? (2)
M->Corv: “Do not you know I know you an ass”
M->Corb: “would you have hired me to the poisoning of my patron?” + “professed the disinheriting of your son”
Acts as the voice of justice, condemning the evil actions of the legacy hunters in the play yet ironic as he too is an evil voice
–> Satirising the audience(?) who may look down on the evil of the characters whilst neglecting their own faults
How does Celia appeal to Volpone’s masculinity? (2)
“[If you have] a heart that may be touched- or any part that yet sounds man”
- -> Attempt at her own rhetoric to overcome Volp
- -> mimics Eve’s appeal to Adam’s masculinity
Volpone responds, “Think me cold, frozen and impotent?”
Confuses gender values with sexual capabilities: Twisted gender values
How do characters oppose the Great Chain of Being? (2)
M: “Riches are in fortune, A greater good than wisdom is in nature”
M: “Your parasite is a most precious thing, dropped from above”
How do characters display a desire to rise the chain of being? (5)
V: “I gain no common way […] I wound no Earth with ploughshares”
V->C: “Such Earth fed minds that never tasted the true heaven of love”
C: “I cannot be taken with these sensual bates”
V on Mosca’s usurpation: “Should be so over-reached. I never brooked that Parasite’s hair, methought his nose should cozen”
Bon: “I know not how to lend it any thought, my father could be so unnatural”
Quotes on the Beast Fable in regards to the birds (2)
Volp: “Raven and gorcrow, all my birds of prey”
Volp->Mos: “My vulture, crow, raven, come flying hither or the news to peck for carrion”
Quotes on the Fox (2)
V: “And not a fox stretched on the Earth, with fine delusive sleights, mocking a gaping crow”
M on V: “Let his sport pay for’t, this is called the Fox-trap”
Quotes on deception of Beast Fable (2)
Mos: “I could slip out of my skin, now, like a dear snake”
–>Allusion to Satan
Corv on Volt: “The devil has entered him”
–> Ironic as this is when he began to tell the truth (Distorted moral values
Quotes on evil of Beast fable? (2)
Bon->Volp: “Forbear, Foul ravisher, libidinous swine! Free the Forced lady”
Corb->Bon: “Monster of men, swine, goat, wolf, parricide, speak not, thou viper”
Quotes on the conning of Volp + Mosc (2)
V: “Yet I glory more in the cunning purchase of my wealth/ than in the glad possession”
Avoc 4: “His coming will clear all”, Avoc 2: “yet it is misty”
–> Resembles the ‘will o the wisp’ allusion of Satan
