Volpone

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.