ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Volpone ([volˈpoːne], Italian for “sly fox") is a comedy play by English playwright Ben Jonson first produced in 1605–1606, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable. A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson’s most-performed play, and it is ranked among the finest Jacobean era comedies.

Detailed explanation-2: -Volpone: plot and character overview Set in Venice, the play is both a city comedy and a type of beast fable, in which the wily and gold-obsessed trickster Volpone, or ‘fox’, dupes a range of foolish Venetians and foreigners with the help of his clever servant Mosca (’fly’ or ‘parasite’).

Detailed explanation-3: -Volpone’s name means “The Fox” in Italian. He is lustful, lecherous, and greedy for pleasure. He is also energetic and has an unusual gift for rhetoric, mixing the sacred and the profane to enunciate a passionate commitment to self-gratification.

Detailed explanation-4: -Following the Roman writers he admired so much, Jonson set out to make his audience think about the troublingly subversive but exhilarating power of money and what it does to those who are consumed by greed for it, but also to give them a very good time in the theatre.