Trying to catch up - Jonson plays

I've gotten into this bad habit of getting reading done and then doing no real notation on it for a while, despite having spent most of this semester watching Tony get tons of reading done, only to not bother notating right away and then realizing that when he goes back to it a week or two later he's completely forgotten everything.

Faced with a meeting with David in two hours and forty minutes, I'm realizing I don't remember Jonson all that well.

So let's see what we can do here:

Volpone - This play involves an unscrupulous fox-like character (in the cunning and self serving way), the eponymous hero of the play, and his servant/leech Mosca (aka, housefly) who conspire to get money from all of the equally unscrupulous and greedy, if less intelligent, hangers-on who hope that by kissing up to the fake-ill Volpone through an incessent string of gift giving to eventually be the inheritor of his estate when the fake-ill Volpone finally kicks it. Volpone has, by the beginning of the play, already made quite a bit of money and has a reputation for being quite rich. He lies in bed fake-languishing in various degrees of fake-illness while Mosca, through intense verbal wit and ingenuity, somehow convinces each and every one in turn that they need to give the ailing Volpone whatever it is they have with them, as this next gift will surely be what establishes their position as sole heir to the estate. Eventually Volpone oversteps his bounds, tries to rape one of his dupe's wifes, and fakes his own death, names Mosca as his heir, and watches in laughter as his would-be heirs fight and are disappointed over what his will entails. Mosca then starts trying to get more and more money out of Volpone in exchange for not revealing the prank they'd been playing on everyone, and Volpone, rather than give in to Mosca, reveals himself to the courtroom so that Mosca may also share in the downfall.

The interesting thing here is the money - Volpone has no legitimate heir by blood, so he is free to do with his money whatever he chooses - he uses the scheme of playing the greedy wealthy people off of each other in order to make his money grow or breed in a sense. This, of course, is patently unnatural, just as Volpone's prey are using him as a sort of depository where they hope to make their money breed at huge interest rates - as in by bringing a bunch of plates or whatnot, they hope to eventually retrieve all that they brought and much much more in the way of riches. They all seem to be defining themselves in a way by the money they have or the money they want, rather than defining themselves in any flat linguistic terms. The court at the end, contrary to this, attempts to restore social order through relying on people's birth, rather than their money, to determine the "just" resolution to the whole deal. This is shown to be a sham as well, based on their contradictory treatment of Mosca. Volpone is let off the hook because of high birth alone - Mosca is treated well for having so much money, until he is relieved (as it were) of the money, at which point he is treated like the parasite his name marks him out to be.


The Alchemist - This is extraoridinary self-fashioning in the character of Face, who is able to be any and all things to anyone he needs be. He is the only character in the play who gets no come-uppance. Doll and Subtle are forced to flee the premises when the landlord returns, though they aren't punished beyond that (they do lose all their ill-gotten gains, though), and the people who are duped by Subtle's pretensions toward being an Alchemist, or Doll's dress-up as a fairy queen, all lose substantial amounts of money and dignity. The worst off are the Puritans, who blow on and on about the will of God, but also admit to being part of a Dutch moneylaundering scheme - the attack on them is the worst. Face, on the other hand, deftly stage-manages everyone around him and yet is able to re-assume the role of Jeremy, the landlord's "faithful" housekeeper once the landlord (Lovewit) makes his appearance in Act 5. Not only that, but in his role as housekeeper is able to keep in the name of his master all of the ill-gotten gains received through the alchemy scheme. I'd love to read a good new-economic crit piece of this play. And I'm sure if I think more this play is probably reeking with idolatry.

Bartholomew Fair - This one seems to be put together almost entirely to make fun of Puritans and idiots. Most everyone is either less intelligent than they think themselves, or significantly less pleasant to be around. It doesn't really have a plot, per se - it seems to imitate life at a fair based on life being a bunch of random encounters that, when in a small town, are usually with people you know, though don't necessarily like. Ursula the brewster/barwench is superbly done and reminds me of Skelton's Elynour Rummyng.... There's a trio of Welsh/Scottish/Irish characters that are treated with various degrees of contempt by the other actors - the Irishman gets it worst, at least in terms of the way the dialect and dialogue is written. He sounds almost incomprehenisible. The Scotsman's accent isn't so bad, but it isn't quite straight English, either, and the Welshman's accent is pretty much identical with the English onstage, except for the occasional phrase and the fact that Wasp keeps yelling that he smells like leeks and rotting cheese. He ends up seeming quite a bit like Fluellen, and methinks that if no one's done an article comparing the two groups, I should write it at some point when I get some time. I tripped over a book at GEMCS where someone was discussing England and the British Isles during the Early Modern period, and talked about England and its relations with Scotland, Ireland and France. Wales literally never got mentioned, even in the index. I was shocked. Evidently someone somewhere sometime did such a good job of muting Wales and keeping it synonymous (though erased) with England that by the Early Modern period, it isn't worth mentioning that they used to be different, or that Wales is England's first real colony...