Volpone

Reviews / Votes

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. * The Sixteenth Century Journal * 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, Ohio State University, USA *