Volpone Critics Quotes
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- Created on: 29-05-14 12:20
Who said “repudiation of what Volpone the character symbolises"
David Riggs
1 of 41
Who said the whole is worked up too mechanically and credulity overstretched at last revolts to scepticism”
William Hazlitt
2 of 41
Who said A man in business is but a theatrical person, in a manner but personates himself”
John Hall
3 of 41
Who said "guides not commanders"
Ben Jonson
4 of 41
Who said "that man’s lesser faults may be made to appear ridiculous and so be avoided”
Ben Jonson
5 of 41
Who said "what in an individual was a vice, in aggregate may become a virtue”
Ben Jonson
6 of 41
"“just as a raven does not provide for its young is not fulfilling the role of nature”
Michael Williams
7 of 41
what in an individual was a vice, in aggregate may become a virtue
Ben Jonson
8 of 41
Sir Pol is not part of the main part of vice, and so can escape unscathed from the “folly of imitating that vice”
Michael Williams
9 of 41
the audience condemns Volpone’s amoral actions but have an “aesthetic appreciation of the entertainment provided by his duplicity”
Mike Brett
10 of 41
Volpone is “a sullen retreat to tragedy” since the characters are “so ill-conditioned that forbids the ‘sporting’ sympathy on which comedy must rely”
G Gregory Smith
11 of 41
“unspeakably, unexemplary mortals”
AC Swinburne
12 of 41
Volpone’s self-destruction is in line with his “haughty audacity for caprice”
AC Swinburne
13 of 41
“not a dead but painful weight on the feelings”. Wanted Celia and Bonario to be lovers.
ST Coleridge
14 of 41
all the world choppeth and changeth...full of subtle and cunning merchants”
John Wheeler
15 of 41
“nothing can calm it, since its goal is beyond all that it can attain. Reality seems valueless in comparison to the dream of the fevered imagination”
Emile Durkheim
16 of 41
“contemporary literature is corrupt and popular theatre artistically bankrupt”
Sam Thompson
17 of 41
“a literary manifesto”
Sam Thompson
18 of 41
the last act “forms the great moral of the play” and shows the “invariable experience of mankind”
William Gifford
19 of 41
“forc’d from it in the fifth”
John Dryden
20 of 41
“A wholly material city is nothing but a dream incarnate. Venice is the world’s unconscious”
John J Enck
21 of 41
negative catalogue
John J Enck
22 of 41
the courts are inadequate, and the punishment they give is purely mechanical since crime “will lead to success that can no longer contain itself to any limits”
John J Enck
23 of 41
Volpone does not “ineffectually” depend on Mosca completely. The first scene demonstrates that his “inactive wits have already carried him high in the financial world”
John J Enck
24 of 41
“Virtue does not pay indefinitely” since it could lead to the good being victimised, usually happens in a tragedy.
John J Enck
25 of 41
glad that Bonario and Celia were not “united in love but in innocence”. Their parting in separate ways allowed the audience to share in Jonson’s “cold implacability”. There
WB Yeats
26 of 41
Volpone is not animated by a fixed goal but by a “continual self-projection into a feigned and alien identity...it is the exhilarating play of possibility”
Ian Donaldson
27 of 41
Volpone’s historonic energy is actually a mask from the emptiness of his life since he is trapped in his house and body because of his feigned illness. Stopping at Act 4 would mean his “final silence” and so his “urge for pleasure” becomes “desperate
Alexander Leggatt
28 of 41
Volpone “consciously and deliberately” ruins himself to achieve aesthetic effect “material punishment does not matter to Volpone for he had succeeded as an artist and put Mosca, the rival artist, in his place” (he still wins as the master trickster)
Alexander Leggatt
29 of 41
Jonson was in a “Schizophrenic” predicament of having to flatter the authorities e.g. the King, whilst wanting to critique it and so must participate “in the same pattern of consumption and display” he denounces.
Bruce Thomas Boehr
30 of 41
debasement of religious imagery by associating it with mercenary society. Calls the first scene a “parody of prayer”
Edward B Partridge
31 of 41
Corbaccio’s deafness is not what makes him funny, or is against John Dennis’ “comedy of instruction”. It is the fact that his deafness “never interferes with his avarice” and is symbolic of his moral failing. “Avarice, in effect has supplanted his ot
Jonas A Barish
32 of 41
Jonson slightly anti-theatrical “all role-playing is evil” since those that do, is eventually punished.
Peter Hyland
33 of 41
The play brings “contradictions between political liberty and a just legal system on the one hand and unscrupulous capitalism on the other” - warning that capitalism breeds avarice and will subvert justice
Sean McEvoy
34 of 41
Mosca and Volpone’s asides create a “conspiratorial relationship with the audience”
Sean McEvoy
35 of 41
When Corvino and Mosca mock Volpone’s deafness role playing here “is an opportunity for expressing true feelings, if not concealing them” – disguise can tell the truth and lie
Sean McEvoy
36 of 41
The play demonstrates “that a man without a core will be without principle”. Fluidity of identity makes it attractive, but also means that self-identity is lost. If there is no self-identity to uphold then there would be no honour e.g. Corvino. Inde
Sean McEvoy
37 of 41
The Avoccati wanting Mosca to marry his daughter shows how social roles and family ties are “the product of pure self-interest”
Sean McEvoy
38 of 41
Calls Volpone the “high priest of the new cult”. Priest-like figures who trick their credulous congregation in the restorative properties of their divine elixir i.e. gold.
Alvin Kernan
39 of 41
With the threat of ****, Celia would have made a “cry out for help...but that would ha’ spoilt the song”. Perhaps Celia found the song attractive despite her moral objections or believed it to be another of Corvino’s trials.
Anonymous 18th Century Critic
40 of 41
Believes that Volpone and Mosca should not have been punished by Jonson’s virtue who “sends off the honest tricksters to a punishment far worse than of their crooked victims”
Robert Adams
41 of 41
Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
Who said the whole is worked up too mechanically and credulity overstretched at last revolts to scepticism”
Back
William Hazlitt
Card 3
Front
Who said A man in business is but a theatrical person, in a manner but personates himself”
Back
Card 4
Front
Who said "guides not commanders"
Back
Card 5
Front
Who said "that man’s lesser faults may be made to appear ridiculous and so be avoided”
Back
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