About The Playwright
Aside from Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson was the most influential dramatist of the English Renaissance. Born on 11 June 1572, probably in or near London, Jonson began his literary career as both an actor and playwright. In 1597, he was imprisoned for collaborating with Thomas Nashe on The Isle of Dogs, and the following year was convicted of killing Gabriel Spencer in a duel. In prison, he converted to Roman Catholicism. Between 1599 and 1601, he participated in the Poets’ War, satirizing Shakespeare, Marston, and Dekker, and criticizing their approaches to drama. This did not, however, prevent him from also joining together with Shakespeare, Marston, and Chapman, in the wake of the failed Essex revolt in 1601, to assemble a volume of poems appended to Robert Chester’s Love’s Martyr.
Throughout his career he wrote for both public and private theaters, offering some of his best pieces, such as Volpone and The Alchemist, to Shakespeare’s company. Between 1604 and 1625, he became the chief masque writer of the Jacobean court, although he was imprisoned again in 1605 for his part in mocking James I and his entourage in Eastward Ho. Jonson’s 1616 publication of his First Folio became a model for the Shakespeare First Folio of 1623, to which he contributed two dedicatory poems. Although he wrote in several dramatic genres, including tragedy and history, he is primarily known today for four comedies: Volpone (1606), Epicene (1609/10), The Alchemist (1610), and Bartholomew Fair (1614). He suffered a paralytic stroke in 1628 and lived on in a diminished state until he died on 6 August 1637. His greatest achievement in drama was to invent a hard-edged urban satire that posed an alternative to Shakespearean romantic comedy.
About the Play
Volpone, or The Fox, is generally considered the greatest non-Shakespearean comedy of the English Renaissance. Designed to be a shocking and even brutal play that tested the very meaning of comedy, it was an instant success. In its main plot, Volpone, a Venetian magnifico, with the assistance of Mosca, his parasite, fool Voltore (an advocate), Corbaccio (the old father of Bonario), and Corvino (a merchant married to Celia) into giving him gifts in expectation of being made his heirs.
Volpone’s scheme works so well that the doddering Corbaccio promises to disinherit his son, making Volpone his heir, and the jealous merchant Corvino offers his wife to comfort the ailing magnifico. Yet the plot falters when Bonario rescues Celia from rape by Volpone and has him arraigned, until Mosca preserves the swindle: he has Voltore accuse Bonario of attacking his father and characterizes Celia as a whore, winning a counter-suit against them. To support his lies, Corbaccio, Corvino and even Lady Would-Be perjure themselves as witnesses.
Wanting to experience the complete humiliation of the legacy hunters, Volpone has Mosca tell them that he has died and made Mosca his heir. Outraged, Voltore re-opens the case he had won, admitting perjury, until Volpone (who stands by in disguise) secretly convinces him that all this has only been a test, at which point Voltore pretends to have been demonically possessed. Then, Mosca – springing what he calls “the fox trap” – turns on Volpone, refusing to acknowledge that he is still alive until he agrees to split his wealth. But rather than capitulate, Volpone reveals his identity. As a result, he is sentenced by the court to be confined to a hospital for incurable diseases and his parasite is banished to the galleys.
Among the play’s many sources is the beast fable of the fox (Volpone) who pretends to be dying in order to attract predatory birds–vulture (Voltore), raven (Corbaccio), and crow (Corvino)–only to prey on them.
Volpone was first performed by the King’s Men (the company to which Shakespeare belonged) in 1606 at the Globe Theatre. The comedy remained a staple of the English repertoire until the 1770’s, when its bawdy cynicism, not to mention Jonson’s Latinate allusions, fell out of favor.
But beginning in 1921 with the first major English revival, the twentieth century has adored the play. The notion of two con artists outwitting the world and then each other has had vast popularity. Here are just a few of the productions:
1928: Broadway. Produced by the Theater Guild and found to be “morally objectionable”
1930: Broadway. Sanford Meisner and Clifford Odets in minor roles
1947: Broadway. Donald Wolfit directed and played Volpone
1948: City Center production starring and adapted by Jose Ferrer
1957: French production directed by Jean-Louis Barrault
1976: Broadway. Sly Fox. an adaptation by Larry Gelbart starring George C. Scott
1995/6: Olivier Theatre, U.K. Directed by Mathew Warchus, with Michael Gambon as Volpone and Simon Russell Beale as Mosca
Influences of the plot are many, stretching from Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicchi in 1918 to the Steve Martin film and Broadway musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
– James Bednarz, George Mayer, Heather Violanti, Dramaturgs
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