Volpone and The Alchemist

by Ben Jonson

Much-studied and frequently performed, these comedies by the great Elizabethan playwright Ben Jonson satirize the greed, mendacity, gullibility, and pretension of seventeenth-century London society. Both plays abound in colorful characters, ingenious plotting, biting wit, and sharp insight into human nature.
In Volpone (1605), a crafty rich man attempts to augment his wealth by feigning a mortal illness. His wealthy neighbors, spying the opportunity for an inheritance, vie with each other in courting the “dying” man’s favor. The Alchemist (1610) comprises a likewise avaricious cast, headed by a butler and prostitute who join forces with a swindler claiming to possess the philosopher's stone. The trio hosts a parade of eager victims whose hypocrisy and greed place them on a moral footing similar to that of the tricksters. Both plays offer sparkling examples of their author's novel approach to satire and his distinctive blend of savagery, humor, moralism, and a powerful sense of the absurd.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Classics

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2004

About the author

Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets. A house in Dulwich College is named after him.

See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Jonson

Reviews

[Eoin Conroy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Almost ashamed of myself for giving this a low score but I have committed to rating by personal enjoyment. I don't care for the city comedies and studying them last semester did not help with this. It felt like reading one of Shakespeare's lesser comedies with less poetic grace. Also I think the contemporary nature of city comedies make them too specific to the culture that they came from. Elizabethan dramas set in the past/another land gave them a sense of alienation that translates beyond the culture of renaissance London while here I feel like I'm missing a host of coded references that may make me appreciate it more. The protagonists in both plays are amusing though.

[Ruthie Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maximum greed and vanity - such ugliness wrapped in humor.

[lyell bark · Rating 5 out of 5]

volpone is really cool but the alchemist is really hard. like, whats with all these alchemy words man. i have to keep reading the annotations and i don'tunderstand anything.