Volpone by Matthew Steggle

Volpone by Matthew Steggle

This is a comprehensive introduction to Ben Jonson's Volpone - introducing its critical history, performance history, current critical landscape and new directions in research on the play. As perhaps the best-known and most-studied work in the canon of Shakespeare's leading contemporary rival, Ben Jonson's Volpone (1606) is a particularly important play for thinking about early modern drama as a whole. This guide offers students an introduction to its critical and performance history, including recent versions on stage and screen. It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current research on the play and four new critical essays presenting contrasting critical approaches focusing on literary intertextuality; performance studies; political history; and broader social history. Finally, a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated bibliography provide a basis for further individual research.

..offers the most wide-ranging and thought-provoking overview of Jonson's comedy ever assembled. It considers the play both as a literary text and as a performance piece, covering its history on the stage and in critical commentary, and so illuminating the current state of scholarship on this most provocative and ambiguous of plays. The well-balanced essays are not afraid to disagree with each other and repeatedly point us towards exciting new questions about a play which is all too often castrated by being labelled a "classic". It will be of value to scholars, teachers and students alike. Future study of Volpone starts here. * Richard Dutton, Humanities Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of English, Ohio State University, USA *
Matthew Steggle’s collection of critical essays deals perspicaciously with many of the painful questions that linger about Ben Jonson’s most popular play…Steggle’s collection confirms the power and wit of Jonson’s most enduring stage comedy. -- Byron Nelson, West Virginia University * The Sixteenth Century Journal *

Matthew Steggle is Reader in English at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He is editor of the ejournal Early Modern Literary Studies, and a Contributing Editor to The Cambridge Works of Ben Jonson.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780826411532
ISBN 10	0826411533
Title	Volpone
Author	Matthew Steggle
Series	Arden Early Modern Drama Guides
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Continuum Publishing Corporation
Year published	2011-03-24
Number of pages	214
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.