Volpone: Summary, Analysis, Themes and Characters 1

Table of Contents

VOLPONE BY BEN JONSON

Plot of Volpone
ACT WISE SUMMARY OF THE PLAY
MAJOR THEMES
QUESTION ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS (HINTS ONLY)

VOLPONE BY BEN JONSON

INTRODUCTION: Volpone or The Fox is a very famous play written by Ben Jonson.
This play is a comedy and is often called Ben Jonson’s darkest comedy. The
emerging capitalism in the Jacobian England of James I could be seen as the
playwright’s immediate focus, directing merciless moral scrutiny on the values
and customs of contemporary English society. Jonson’s choice of the Venetian
setting is also not without significance since Renaissance Italy was the centre of
trade in Europe with all the attendant problems of an acquisitive society with
moral degradation. After you finish reading this unit, you will note that the
subject of Volpone is money or greed for money, and the corruption it breeds in
man. The unit thus seeks to analyse this great play in terms of its theme,
dramatic structure, characterisation and style.

Plot of Volpone
In Venice, Volpone, a stingy and rich man, sends the Moscow parasite from his
future heirs, making them believe they are dying. The latter, in the persons of
the lawyer Voltore, of Corbaccio and Corvino, cover Volpone with gifts for a
speedy recovery, increasing the heritage of man without their knowledge.
However, men are only interested in the possible inheritance of Volpone.
Moscow in the course of his mission sees Celia, Corvino’s wife, and so much
praise from him that Volpone, interested, decides to see her secretly to be able
to seduce her.
Disguising himself as a merchant together with Moscow and pretending to be a
seller of ointments, he sees Celia looking out the window attracted by the calls
of the self-styled merchant: the spark strikes but Corvino proves a jealous
husband. Moscow, having abandoned the merchant’s role, convinces the man to
show Celia to Volpone, declaring that the company of the woman would
certainly be beneficial to the dying person: the request becomes even more
unbecoming when Moscow suggests to Corvino to let the woman lie with
Volpone, convincing him of the fact that the action would have made Corvino
deserve the eternal gratitude of Volpone and, therefore, the rich inheritance.
From jealous the poor man proves to be cùpid, consenting to the proposal of the
parasite.

Meanwhile Bonario comes to discover that Volpone will inherit the assets of the
old father Corbaccio: the move of the old man actually has the sole interest of
becoming Volpone’s heir himself. The gesture of the old is in fact dictated by the
fake momentum of loyalty and honesty to the Venetian nobleman. Bonario
accuses Moscow and Volpone of dishonesty and, while he takes it out on the
parasite, the latter convinces him that he is wrong: a chat with Volpone will be
clear to him. The moment is wrong, however, and Bonario surprises the man in
an attempt to rape Celia: he saves the girl and Mosca, as a clever swindler, fills
Corbaccio with lies, making him understand that his son Bonario is furious with
him. Corbaccio gets scared, disinheriting his son right away. Bonario however,
with the help of Celia, denounces what happened to the Venetian Senate.
Despite the hasty harangue, the false testimonies of Volpone and Corvino mean
that the two are accused of being murdering lovers.

I don’t pay, Volpone tends one last trick: the false news of his death and of the
universal legacy of his possessions spread to Moscow, awaits the arrival of
Voltore, Corbaccio and Corvino, who question the parasite on the incident.
Defeated and embittered, they admit to the magistrates that they lied in the trial
against Volpone, asking to reopen the proceedings against Moscow. They do not
know, however, that Volpone is disguised as a magistrate. The latter, having gone
to court to deny his death, is however accused for his behavior and immediately
arrested and condemned to the total confiscation of the assets. Even for the
other characters, however, the court decides a punishment: while Moscow will
end up in prison with the life imprisonment to be served, Corbaccio will be
confined to a monastery, exiled Voltore and Corvino pilloried.

ACT WISE SUMMARY OF THE PLAY

Act I

Act I of the play revolves around the central character Volpone who is a rich
Venetian nobleman, childless and without an heir. He feigns sickness to play
tricks with the help of his trusted and capable assistant Mosca on the greedy
legacy hunters who present gifts to Volpone in order to inherit his vast wealth.
The three major gulls are Corbaccio, Corvino and Voltore – all birds of prey – who
rival one another in their ambition to be appointed as Volpone’s heir. Voltore is
a lawyer; Corbaccio is an old miser whose one foot is in the grave and Corvino is
a rich merchant with a beautiful wife. Besides these three, there is another
legacy hunter Lady Politic Would-be, wife of Sir Politic Would-be who is an
English knight. As the play opens, Volpone is seen worshipping gold as “the best
of things” but he does not use the ordinary means like trade, agriculture,
industry, money lending etc. To get rich; he rather uses the clever tricks of
extracting rich gifts from the gullible legacy hunters. Each of them harbours the
hope of being Volpone’s successor to inherit his wealth. Nano (‘dwarf’ in Italian),
Androgyno (hermaphrodite) and Castrone (eunuch), the natural or deformed
fools, entertain Volpone. Nano and Androgyno describe the transmigration of
the soul of the Greek philosopher Pythagorus entering the body of Androgyno.
Nano and Castrone sing a song in praise of fools. The fools are described when
Volpone and Mosca hear a knocking at the door by Voltore (vulture) who bring
up Volpone a gold plate. Voltore is followed by Corbaccio, an old man with
insatiable greed, bringing a sleeping medicine for Volpone. But Mosca suggests
that he should his property to Volpone by disinheriting his son Bonario. Since
Volpone is going to make him his heir, Corbaccio, sure to survive Volpone, would
get the money back as well as that of Volpone. The gullible old man loses no time
to hurry home to propose the will in favour of Volpone. Corvino, the rich
merchant, comes next, whom Mosca tells that he has been made the heir. The
visit of Lady Politic Would-be is announced but Volpone has no mood to receive
her. Mosca mentions Corvino’s beautiful wife Celia whom the jealous husband
keeps shut up at home. Volpone’s interest for Celia is instantly aroused and he
plans to see her even at her window by disguise.

Volpone: Summary, Analysis, Themes and Characters 2

Act III opens with Mosca telling Bonario, Corbaccio’s son, about his father’s plan
to disinherit him as a bastard. He asks him to come to Volpone’s house to see for
himself. Bonario follows Mosca to Volpone’s house where Volpone, waiting
anxiously for Mosca’s news of Celia, is being entertained by Nano and
Androgyno. Lady Politic Would-be comes and inflicts verbal torture on Volpone
whom, Mosca, at last rescues by telling the lady that her husband has been seen
“rowing upon the water in a gondola with the most cunning courtesan of
Venice”. The Lady leaves the scene at once provoking Mosca to comment that
“they that use themselves most licenses are still more jealous”. Mosca keeps
Bonario in hiding so that he could see his father’s transaction. Instead of
Corbaccio, Corvino comes with his wife before Mosca sends for him. Celia is
shocked to know the intention of her husband to bring her there. When Celia is
left alone in Volpone’s chamber, Volpone leaps from his bed and after having
failed to woo her he ventures to seduce her but Bonario appears from his hiding
and rescues Celia and leads her away. Corbaccio knocks at the door and is told
by Mosca that his son Bonario had threatened to kill him and Volpone for the
will. Voltore, following Corbaccio, overhears this talk of will but the wily Mosca
has no problem in convincing the lawyer that Corbaccio’s will is in fact in his own
interest as he will inherit both Corbaccio and Volpone’s wealth. The gullible
lawyer is also convinced about Bonario’s plan to frame Volpone in an attempted
rape case against Celia and agrees to defend Volpone in the court.

Act IV

This act begins with Lady Politic Would-be confronting her husband and
Peregrine taking the latter to be the courtesan in disguise. The Knight at once
leaves the scene making Peregrine suspicious of the plan. Mosca, however,
clears the Lady’s doubt about Peregrine being the street woman, following which
the Lady offers her apology to Peregrine in the most ambiguous language-” Pray
you, Sir, use me. In faith/the more you see me the more I shall conceive”.
Peregrine decides to avenge his insult. In the court scene that follows when the
three gulls and Mosca appear before the Venetian officers of justice, Voltore
defends Volpone against the charges of Bonario and Celia by saying about the
adulterous relationship of Celia with Bonario who has been disinherited by his
father for the same reason. Corvino calls his wife a whore and Lady Politic Would-
be claims to have seen her with her husband. Volpone is carried to the
courtroom. He is seen to be too sick to be able to commit rape. The court
punished Celia and Bonario by sending them to jail. On returning home Volpone
and Mosca celebrate their success in the court. They now devise a new plan to
‘vex’ the clients. Nano and Castrone are sent to spread the news of Volpone’s
death. Volpone makes Mosca his heir and stands behind the curtain to see the
disappointment of his victims. Voltore, Corbaccio, Corvino and Lady Would-be
arrive one by one and discover that Mosca has been made the heir. In the
meantime, Peregrine, in order to take revenge on Sir Politic, comes to Sir Politic’s
house in the guise of a merchant to inform Sir Politic about Peregrine being a
Venetian agent who has reported that Sir Politic is plotting against the Duke. As
Sir Politic hears a knock he hides in a tortoise shell and some merchants
disguised as search officers pull off the shell and Peregrine took off his disguise.
Sir Politic and Lady Politic decide to leave Venice. Mosca inheriting Volpone’s
wealth now decides to become the master of the house. Volpone goes to the
street to tease all the legacy hunters.

Act V

In the second court scene, Voltore confesses to the court that his earlier story
was false. The judges are convinced that Volpone is dead and Mosca is the true
heir. They regard Mosca as truly respectable now and regret sending their
messenger to fetch him. The messenger is Volpone in disguise and in the street,
on his way to fetch Mosca, he meets Nano, Androgyno and Castrone and sends
them to tell Mosca to see him in the court. In the third court scene, the judges
reject Volpone’s plea of impotence while Volpone himself (still in disguise) asks
Voltore to tell the court that Mosca is coming. Voltore confesses to the court that
Volpone is alive. On Mosca’s entering the court, dressed as a Magnifico, the
judges show their respect to him and one of them even offers him his daughter
for marriage. Despite Volpone’s asking Mosca to tell the court that he is alive;
Mosca refuses to recognise him and tells the court that he came from his
patron’s funeral. In a whisper to Volpone, he demands half of his wealth and
then goes on increasing his demand. On Mosca’s complaint, the court orders the
‘messenger’ (Volpone) to be whipped. Finding him in the most hopeless
situation of being whipped and of losing all his wealth, Volpone decides to reveal
himself as well as Mosca, to expose all other villains and asks the court to pass
sentence. The judge’s order different punishment for the offenders: Mosca to be
whipped and sent to jail for life; Volpone’s wealth to be given to a hospital and
he is to spend the rest of his life in prison to become really “sick”; Voltore to be
debarred from his profession; Corbaccio’s property is to go to his son Bonario
and he himself has to go to a monastery and Corvino is to be rowed around
Venice wearing ass’s ears. Celia would go to her father with her dowry trebled.

PLOT CONSTRUCTION

Jonson is commonly acknowledged as the master of dramatic structure in English

drama. He allows a complex pattern of events to dominate his plays with classical
Unities complied with some minor departure here and there. Aristotle
prescribed a straightforward progression of events with direct evolution from
one to the other; but in Jonson’s plays, particularly in Volpone, the parts do not
automatically grow in a sequence. These are separate scenes with each of the
legacy hunters in the first act in Volpone, which can be seen only as a succession.
The play begins with the dedication made to the two Famous Universities
namely Oxford and Cambridge where the play was staged and applauded. The
Dedication throws light on Jonson’s own views on the state of poetry and drama
in the days. Jonson says that the poetasters of his time had too much license and
thereby they have degraded poetry. He maintained that a good poet must be a
good man, “A teacher of things divine no less than human, master in manners”.
His own satire, which was sharp and at times merciless, especially in Volpone,
was directed not against individuals but at vice in general. According to
Dedication, Jonson’s aim was to reform the stage by restoring the virtues of
classical drama. The dedication is followed by the Prologue, which is spoken by
an actor mediating between the author and the audience. Possibly the speaker
was Nano, the dwarf. The author wants to mix “profit with pleasure”. The play is
written according to “the taste of our time” and there is nothing of the “low taste
which pleases the mob so much”. He presents “a living refined comedy according
to the rules laid down by the best critics”. The “Prologue” also makes it clear that
it is free from “personal rancour” but it is “only a little witty”. Besides the
Dedication and the “Prologue “, there is the “Argument” coming before the
“Prologue” which briefly states the theme of the play to be developed by the
plot and characters. It tells the story of Volpone the principal character who is
rich and childless and attracts the people to covet his riches. Each of the
candidates hopes to inherit Volpone’s wealth but finally, the play ends with the
undoing of both the victimiser and the victims.

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LET US KNOW

The argument is in the form of an acrostic. An acrostic is a word arrangement of

the first, last or some central letters, (usually the first letters) can be read down
words. Acrostics are fashionable in French literature from the time of Francis I to
Louis XIV, and in the Elizabethan period in English. Here in the play, the first
letters of the lines in the argument spell out VOLPONE.

Plot Structure:

Jonson constructed his plot based on the classical theory, which emphasised the
following of the unities of Time, Place and Action. Volpone’s plot is tightly
constructed complying with these unities, though there is some criticism about
the Unity of Action because of his introduction of the subplot involving Sir Politic,
Lady Politic and Peregrine. The action occurs in a single day. Thus, the Unity of
Time is observed as Aristotle prescribes in his Poetics. However, the action is
compressed into a single day so that Jonson can give his undoing with his action
speed and inevitability. Though Act I moves slowly with the opening scene when
Volpone worships gold and the legacy hunters appear in succession in Act II,
there is the quickened pace of the play with Volpone changing from a passive
invalid into the Mountback. Act III brings the culmination of Volpone’s renewed
vigour and makes the beginning of his attempted rape of Celia. Act IV shows
Volpone and Mosca at the peak of their success. The Act takes place in the late
afternoon. But, in the last Act (Act V), evil is defeated. This also presents one of
the main problems of the play—it’s ending. In the dedicatory epistle, Jonson
himself anticipated it and admits that he has not been able to gain a happy
ending. The five criminals – Volpone, Mosca, Corbaccio, Voltore and Corvinohave
been punished in different ways. John Dryden found this act excellent becausese
in it Jonson gained the proper end of comedy – the punishment of vice. But, the
play’s structure looks uneasy after the end of the 4th Act. Dryden feels the
presence of two actions in the play-the first action coming to an end in Act IV
and the second being forced from it in Act V. Dryden found “the unity of
design…not exactly observed in it.”

LET US KNOW

T.S. Eliot commented that Jonson’s dramatic skill does not lie in writing a good
plot but in doing without a plot. The plot in Volpone, he says, should rather be
called ‘action’ than a ‘plot.’ The action takes place on a single day at Volpone’s
house. Unities of time and place have been observed in accordance with classical
theory but the unity of action is violated with the introduction of the subplot
comprising the English knight, his wife and the English traveller Peregrine.

The Subplot

The subplot consists of three characters – Sir Politic Would-be, Lady Politic
Would-be and Peregrine. Because of its loose connection with the main plot, it
is often dismissed as irrelevant and discordant. Like the characters in the main
plot, these three characters also have a place in the beast fable with the Politic
Would-be couple being seen as chattering parrots and Peregrine as a hawk.
Besides the use of the common beast fable that binds the two plots, there is
Lady Would-be who has a role in the main plot as one of the legacy hunters. In
addition, Jonson wishes to draw a contrast between Italian vices and English
folly. Professor Jonas A Barish (“The Double Plot in Volpone”) does not find the
Sir Politic Would-be subplot irrelevant and discordant and states that:

• “Sir Politic Would-be and Lady Politic Would-be function as a mimic of the
actions of the main characters and thereby the subplot performs the function of
burlesque traditional to the comic subplot in English drama.”
• “The Politic Would-be couple caricature the actors of the main plot,particularly
Sir Politic figures as a comic distortion of Volpone.”

• “Lady Would-be is one of the legacy hunters. Her antics caricature the more
sinister gestures of Corvino, Voltore and Corbaccio. Her behaviour contrasts
sharply with that of Celia.

MAJOR THEMES
Volpone is called a ‘rouge comedy’ or a ‘dark comedy’ considering the nature of
its comic action, which disturbs rather than pleases its audience. T.S. Eliot in his
essay on Jonson in 1919 offers the terms ‘burlesque’ or ‘farce’ for the play
conceding however that neither term will define Jonson in the play. In the
harshness of the catastrophe and the criminal nature of the main characters, the
play is nearer to Sejanus than to any other comedy of the playwright. Coleridge
thought that ‘there is no goodness of heart in any of the prominent characters’
and the play, after Act III, became “a painful weight on the feelings” (Literary
Remains, 1836). The major themes of the play have much to do with the
implacability of the play. The major themes can be summarised as follows:

Folly and Crime

In the “Prologue” to the revised version of Every Man in His Humour, Jonson
rejected larger matters like the “Wars of the Roses” as subjects of his comedies
in favour of everyday realities and advocated that while presenting characters
the comedy should “sport with human follies, not with crimes”. However, in
Volpone, he deals mainly with crime rather than folly. The central theme of the
play is the degeneration of human beings into beasts. Characters are accordingly
broadly divided as belonging to two categories-the knaves and the fools. He uses
the beast fable in the manner of Aesop. But, while in the beast fable the animals
behave like human beings, Jonson shows in Volpone how humans behave like
animals. By presenting Lady Would-be in the company of the criminals Jonson
shows that the dividing line between crime and folly is rather thin and it takes
no time for folly to graduate into crime.

Gold Rush
Jonson found in the old Roman institution of legacy hunting an easy material for
his comedy whose basis is shown to be human greed. He chose Venice as the
right place for his setting because it was a city based on trade and moneymaking.
L.C. Knight in his stimulating work Drama and Society in the Age of Jonson writes
about the rise of capitalism in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period and its
relationship with gold. Wishing to dramatise the dangers of greed and
individualism Jonson turned to the beast fable in which the fox, growing too old
to catch his prey, pretends to be dying and attracts birds. A fly (Mosca) hovers
over the body of the fox. Jonson presents the gold centred universe in the first
scene, where Volpone worships gold. It represents the degradation of all moral,
ethical and human values as ideals of life.

Disease and Transformation

Disease along with abnormality is another theme. Similarly, transformation is

also an important thematic strand in the play. Volpone pretends to be terminally
sick. His pretended sickness becomes the metaphor of spiritual and moral
decline. Jonson shows three deformed characters in the play-Nano, Castrone and
Androgyno. The dwarf, the eunuch and the hermaphrodite are symbols of moral
deformity of Volpone and others. The theme of transformation is shown first in
the transmigration of the soul of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras that finally
entered the body of Androgyno, thereby suggesting the gradual degradation of
man. Volpone illustrates the other kind of transformation. He plays a number of
roles-from the magnifico to the sick man to Mountback doctor to a virile lover
to a dying man brought to the court and to the commentator. Finally, he changes
himself into the fox. In suggesting a link between his characters and their animal
identities, Jonson has a moral purpose to serve the undoing of the criminals.

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Millie Crocker Harris
MAJOR CHARACTERS

Jonson’s method of characterisation is opposite to that of Shakespeare. Where

Shakespeare’s characters are human beings, objectively drawn ‘round’
characters, those of Jonson are flat and types. As Shakespeare’s characters can
come out of the world of the play to our midst, Jonson’s are incapable of existing
outside the play. Hazlitt says that they are more “like machines, governed by
mere routine, or by the convenience of the poet whose property they are.”
Coleridge is another early critic to call Jonson’s characters ‘abstractions’. The
Jonsonian method was to take some prominent features from the whole man
and ‘that single feature or humour’ is made the basis upon which the entire
character is built up. Jonson’s characters in Volpone cannot be labelled merely
as types or mere “abstractions” (as Coleridge says) but are sharply individualised
as the behaviour of Voltore, Corbaccio, Corvino and the Lady Would-be would
show. The characters fall into two broad categories-knaves and fools. All the
major characters in the main plot like Volpone, Mosca, Corbaccio, Voltore and
Corvino belong to the group called knaves while Sir Politic and Lady Politic of the
subplot are fools. But, in presenting Lady Would-be as crossing over to the
knaves group Jonson shows that the line separating them is very thin. However,
harsher punishment has been reserved for the criminals at the end of the play
while the Would-be couple has been allowed to sneak away from Venice. But,
Bonario and Celia also represent the third category of the virtuous which are,
however, too timid and ineffectual to face the menace of avarice and self-
aggrandisement of the morally crippled legacy-hunters. Jonson uses four types
of imagery – religious, classical, animal, and love. The images are used to present
the values implicit in the culture of an emerging capitalist society. According to
Eliot, the verse appears to be in the manner of Marlowe, but Marlowe’s
inspiration is missing. Coleridge was an early critic to comment on Jonson’s
“sterling English diction” though “his style is rarely sweet or harmonious.”
Volpone illustrates Jonson’s great skill in using a style that can be manipulated
as situation demands. The style in the opening scene with Volpone opening his
chest and offering prayer to gold. The language is elevated and the style is largely
mock epical. E.B. Patridge (in “The Broken Compass”) observes four kinds of
imagery in the verse in the opening scene. These are religious, classical, animal,
and love. He suggests that Jonson uses these images to present values that
dominated the culture of his times and in contrast with the past, which is ideal.
The religious imagery serves as a powerful irony of Volpone’s travesty of religious
ideals. The love imagery recalls the great love affairs only to confirm the absence
of love in present-day Venice.1. W.B. Yeats saw Jonson’s version of the play in
1921. He went on to grasp both the difficulty and greatness of Volpone by
observing that “this excites us because it makes us share in Jonson’s cold
implacability.”2. Hazlitt calls Volpone Jonson’s best play—” prolix and
improbable, but intense and powerful.” However, he found the whole “worked
up mechanically, and our credulity overstretched at last revolts into suspicion,
and our attention flags into drowsiness.”In this post, we have tried to offer an
analysis of Jonson’s great play Volpone. The play centres on the protagonist
Volpone, a Venetian aristocrat who amasses wealth through gulling the
avaricious legacy-hunters. Jonson uses the Italian beast fable of the fox and the
birds. A fox (Volpe in Italian) that is too old to catch his prey pretends to be
terminally sick and lures the birds while a fly (Mosca in Italian) hovers over the
body. Volpone (derived from Volpe) pretends to be dying and the legacy –
hunters—Voltore, Corbaccio, Corvino and Lady Politic Would-be come to his
house with rich gifts, each of them expecting to be made his heir. All three have
their place in the beast fable with Sir Politic and Lady Politic representing parrots
and Peregrine the hawk. The subplot is considered irrelevant and discordant by
some critics but others (like James A. Barish) find it thematically integral to the
main plot. In order to represent Jonson’s society in the fullest possible sense,
attempts have been made to make this unit an interesting reading experience.
You will find that the capitalistic greed as represented by the legacy hunters in
the play strikes at the root of the older system of social unity, which valued
human relationships. Johnson has made the most scathing assault on the new
ethos resulting from the Renaissance individualism.

QUESTION ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS (HINTS ONLY)

Q 1: What are some of the sources of the play Volpone?

Ans. The idea of legacy hunting is derived from works like Horace’s Satires, Parts
of Petronius’s Satiricon, and Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. The Predatory world
of Legacy hunters marks the influence of the Medieval beast epic – The History
of Reynard and the Fox marks influence of the Commedia Dell’arte most
importantly, the Renaissance acts of overreaching, greed, deception, and self-
deception.

Q 2: Who are the main characters in the subplot?

Ans. The main characters in the subplot are Sir Politic Would-be, Lady Politic
Would-be and Peregrine. The subplot deals with folly and it is tied to the main
plot by Lady Would-be. The dividing line between crime and folly could be very
easily graduate into crime.
Q 3: Why do we sympathise with Volpone rather than the legacy-hunters?

Ans . Our admiration for him is enhanced by his virtuous performance in the
Mountback scene with his great rhetorical skill. Although Volpone’s tricks are
criminal, the dupes are equally foolish and criminal in their greed but by
attempting rape on the virtuous Celia he overstretched himself and forfeits our
sympathy and admiration.

Q 4: How does Jonson present Bonario and Celia?

Ans. Jonson presents Bonario and Celia as helpless in the face of the corrupt
world dominated by the knaves and fools. They are the two virtuous characters.
They are helpless because they cannot change or adapt to the emerging
circumstance yet they retain
Some faith in truth and justice.

Q 5: What is the significance of the religious language in Volpone’s

Opening address?

Ans. By using religious imagery Jonson exposes the perversion of values. Volpone
chants hymns to gold. He reminds the readers and the audience that in his world
of insatiable greed gold replaces the sun as the centre and the source of life.

Q 6: Write a note on the ‘Dedication’ with which the play Volpone

Begins.

Ans. The dedication is made to the two famous Universities— Oxford and
Cambridge. The Dedication throws light on Jonson’s own views on the state of
poetry and drama in the days. In the dedication, Jonson’s aim was to reform the
stage by restoring the virtues of classical drama. The dedication is followed by
the Prologue which is spoken by an actor mediating between the author and the
audience.

Q 7: How does Volpone express the degradation of human beings into beasts?

Ans. The central theme of the play is the degeneration of human beings into
beasts. Characters are accordingly broadly divided as belonging to two
categories-the knaves and the fools. He uses the beast fable in the manner of
Aesop. But, while in the beast fable the animals behave like human beings,
Jonson shows in Volpone how
Humans behave like animals.

Q 8: Why does Jonson present a gold – centred universe in the first

Scene of the play?

Ans. Jonson presents the gold centred universe in the first scene, where gold is
worshipped by Volpone. It represents the degradation of all moral, ethical and
human values as ideals of life.

Q 9: What is the difference between Jonson and Shakespeare in terms of

characterisation?

Ans. Jonson’s method of characterisation is opposite to that of Shakespeare.

Where Shakespeare’s characters are human beings, objectively drawn ‘round’
characters, those of Jonson are flat and types.