Volpone (New Longman Literature 14-18)

by Ben Jonson (Author), Ben Jonson (Author), Iain Veitch (Author), Roy Blatchford (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $7.70

  Renaissance Venice is a city of corruption and greed. Volpone, armed with natural cunning, an ancient custom and a servant with a talent for mischief, aims to take advantage. Can he seduce the rich of their gold, the innocent of their purity, or will the forces of vice prevail?

• Used

  Paperback
  1991

  $3.49

• New

  Paperback
  1999

  $18.03

  Ben Jonson's Volpone (1605) is one of the most famous comedies of early modern Europe, translated into many languages and frequently revived on stage. This student edition has a carefully modernized text, aimed at undergraduates, theatrical producers and actors of the play. The introduction presents new material about Volpone's debt to the popular Reynard beast epic and Italian commedia dell 'arte , and discusses its mockery of greed in relation to two Renassance perversions of the myth of a Golden Age. Referring to famous productions it pays particular attention to decisions that must be made whenever the play is performed, particularly its interweaving of main plot and subplot, and the ambiguities of both the opening scence and the controversial conclusion. Stage directions are added whenever necessary, and commentary notes identify literary borrowings and elucidate contemporary references and difficulties of vocabulary. The emphasis throughout is on Volpone's theatrical liveliness.