Although set in Italy, Ben Jonson’s 1606 play, Volpone, has a striking resemblance to the shifting urban landscape of early modern London. Around Volpone’s publication, London was experiencing an expansion of commercialism with its new... more
Although set in Italy, Ben Jonson’s 1606 play, Volpone, has a striking resemblance to the shifting urban landscape of early modern London. Around Volpone’s publication, London was experiencing an expansion of commercialism with its new industrial economy. As London’s economy created new prospects for those seeking fortunes, social structures noticeably change. While Volpone portrays the negative effects of greed in the city, the characters Jonson creates reflect his anxieties over authorial competition. Examining moral upheaval in the play’s characters reveals how the feigned promise of fortunes ultimately makes them deceitful. The characters’ self-commoditization and their unscrupulous quests for wealth are corruptive. This interpersonal corruption resembles the competition between playwrights in Jonson’s London and his personal struggles with collaboration. These parallels to authorial concepts help reveal the play’s connections to Jonson’s actual urban environment, which is important for understanding how the early modern stage critiqued London’s rapidly shifting urban landscape.
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A creative nonfiction piece that blends research on the early boyhood poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and travel writing from visits to the places where he wrote them.