Volpone
Overview
Volpone is a comedy
by Ben Jonson
first produced in 1606, drawing on elements of city comedy
, black comedy
and beast fable
. A merciless satire
of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-performed play, and it is among the finest Jacobean comedies.
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
by Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
first produced in 1606, drawing on elements of city comedy
City comedy
City comedy, also called Citizen Comedy, is a common genre of Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline comedy on the London stage from the last years of the 16th century to the closing of the theaters in 1642...
, black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
and beast fable
Beast fable
The beast fable or beast epic, usually a short story or poem in which animals talk, is a traditional form of allegorical writing. It is a type of fable in which human behaviour and weaknesses are subject to scrutiny by reflection into the animal kingdom....
. A merciless satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-performed play, and it is among the finest Jacobean comedies.
- Volpone (the Big Fox) – a greedy, childless Venetian nobleman
- Mosca (the Fly) – his servant
- Voltore (the Vulture) – a lawyer
- Corbaccio (the Raven) – an avaricious old miser
- Bonario – Corbaccio's son
- Corvino (the Carrion Crow) – a merchant
- Celia – Corvino's wife
- Sir Politic Would-Be – ridiculous Englishman.
