Volpone, critical opinon (AO3) Flashcards
“the link between the main plot and the sub plot is tenuous”
Diane Maybank on the link between the main and sub-plot
“In its concentration on English folly as opposed to Italian vice it provides a foil for the grimmer main plot”
Diane Maybank on the sub plot as relief
“Sir Pol can be seen as a comic distortion of Volpone”
Diane Maybank on the link between Volpone and Sir Poltic
“Their (Sir Pol/LWB) marital roles are reversed, LWB having the upper hand”
Diane Maybank on confusion of gender in the sub plot
“The ending of the sub plot in some ways reflects the ending of the main plot”
Diane Maybank on the link between the endings of the main and sub-plot
“they provide a geographical bridge between the world of the play and the world of an audience,
Diane Maybank on the importance of the English in Volpone
-connection on a ‘thematic level’
Jonas A. Barish on connection between main and sub plot -
- Mosca functions as a conventional vice figure often found in Medieval and Renaissance literature
Glynne Wickham
- Jonson attempts to generate moral impulses in his audience by dramatising a world which has lost all ability to do so
Hiscock on Johnson’s provocative writing
…the entire ambience of the play undergoes a profound change
A critic on the rape scene as a watershed
Jonson’s characterisations enable the audience to understand…the same feat was later accomplished in poetry with Milton’s Satan
Campbell on Jonson’s characterisation of the evil doers
- Volpone is a satanic challenger to God’s order and society
Knapp on Volpone as a challenge to society
Competitive masculine energies are displayed by most of the major characters
Huebert on masculinity
Celia is a strong minded character who plays not only a pivotal role in the plot but an important thematic one as well
Maus on Celia
The audience in Tyrone Guthrie’s 1964 in Minneapolis famously applauded the rape
McEvoy on the Minneapolis audience
Jonson found to his annoyance that some playgoers thought Volpone’s treatment too harsh for comedy…presumably due partly to admiration for the daring and panache of the rogue
A critic on Jonson’s audiences’ favouring of Volpone
Jonson’s characters take the classics far less seriously than Jonson did and this explains how the behaviour of those characters often falls short of classical ideals
Lyne on the character’s contempt for the classics
Not only are the theatrical skills of Volpone and Mosca expertly deployed to the maximum profit of the play; we also see a delight in self-transformation which cannot be separated from the energy of capitalist accumulation…
McEvoy on the relationship between capital accumalation and self-transformation
