Jonson and Blake

1. Jonson and Blake Key cards

2. Ancient of Days • Innocence: Lack of guile or corruption; purity. • Experience: Practical contact with and observation of facts or events. ‘If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite’

3. Satire • Volpone: • Satirical comedy draws on an eclectic mix of elements from city comedy, black comedy and beast fable genres. • Satire – vices of the characters are used to expose and shame the individuals of society. • In city comedy, two types of RENAISSANCE gentleman can be found – the ‘natural idiot’ or the ‘deformed fool’. Volpone’s children are examples of deformed fools.

4. Innocence Versus Experience‘Without contraries is no progression’ -> The Marriage of Heaven and Hell • The Good and Evil Angels • Blake claimed that ‘Active Evil is better than Passive Good’, The chain attached to the ‘evil’ angel’s ankle suggests curtailing of energy by misguided rational thought

5. Two ContraryStates of the Human Soul Men of your large profession, that could speak To every cause, and things mere contraries I.iii.53-4 But here, tiscontrary, A pious work, mere charity, for physic, III.Vii.64-5 (Pious: Making a hypocritical display of virtue) That anything unto the contrary, Never so true, or never so apparent, Never so palpable, they will resist it V.ii.25-8

6. Contraries (Binary Oppositions) • The Lamb versus the Tyger • ‘Gave thee life and bid thee feed’ ‘Gave thee clothing of delight’, ‘he is meek and he is mild’ • ‘Tyger, Tyger burning bright in the forests of the night’ ‘Burnt the fire of thine eyes’ ‘On what wings dare he aspire’ ‘What the hand dare seize the fire’ ‘Did he who make the lamb make thee?’ • The Divine Image versus A Divine Image • ‘To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love All pray in their distress. ‘Mercy has a human heart and pity a human face. Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too. • ‘Cruelty has a Human Heart and Jealousy a Human Face. ‘The Human heart its hungry Gorge’ (metaphor never satisfied)

7. Infant Joy versus infant Sorrow • ‘Sweet Joy, but two days old’ ‘What Shall I call thee? “I happy am Joy is my name” • ‘Into the dangerous world I lept’ ‘Helpless, Naked’. ‘My mother groan’d! My father wept’ • The Piper versus the Bard • ‘Piping songs of pleasant glee’, ‘I plucked a hollow reed’, ‘I stain’d the water clear’ • ‘Calling the lapsed Soul And weeping in the evening dew; that might control the starry pole, And fallen fallen light renew’

8. ‘gold’ is juxtaposed with the ‘day’, an aspect of nature. Blasphemy • V 1.1: Volp: Good morning to the day; and nest, my gold! Open the shrine that I may see my saint. Hail the world’s soul, and mine. • let me kiss, With adoration, thee, and every relic • The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot, Is made worth heaven! • Situational Irony • During literary period mode of worship [of money] was both dangerous and radical due to laws which criminalized it. • The Blasphemy Act of 1698, the Two Acts of 1795 were governmental prescriptive threats under which Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats, were writing.  • Watercolour illustrates Leviticus (OT) + shows son of Israelite woman being stoned for blasphemy. God had told Moses that anyone who ‘blasphemeth the name of the Lord... shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him.’ • (24 vs 16)

9. Critics 1 • Volpone was labelled ‘immoral, contemptible and even blasphemous’ • Volpone’s opening monologue is a sacrilegious celebration of avarice’ Andrew

10. The Blasphemer • Earth’s Answer ‘Selfish father of men’ 1‘Cruel, Jealous’ 2 ‘Free love with bondage bound’ 3 (John 14: If you love me you will keep my commandment) Urizen • THE Chimney Sweeper • ‘God & his priest & King, Who make up a heaven of our misery’ • The Tyger • Did he who made the lamb make thee?

11. Religion • In Both works, the traditional relationship to divinity is replaced. • Blake replaces formalised religion with his views of Urizen (old testament God) • Volpone: All Christian virtues are abandoned in favour of the carnivalesque. • Total giving in to desires ‘I must create my own system or be enslaved by another man's’ ->> BLAKE • Swedenborgians • Most Blakean historians or biographers have argued that he was influenced by Swedenborg from an early age, claiming that his father was "a dissenter interested in Swedenborg and sympathetic to his teachings and [perhaps] actively associated with a Community" • William Blake, the most devout and orthodox Christian poet of the canonized Romantics, was greatly influenced by Emanuel Swedenborg, who emphasized a non-literal interpretation of scripture.

12. Naturesinful nature • Corvino: Honour? Tut, a breath: there’s nosuch thing in nature- a mere term invented to awe fools • M: Bane to thy wolfish nature • Punish that unhappy crime of nature – Celia Psalms 51 vs 5: Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

13. Nature (London vs. Lamb) • The lamb lives ‘by the stream, o’er the mead’, indicating that it is close to unpolluted nature, which has vitality, in contrast to the ‘chartered Thames’ in ‘London’, which indicates human control of the natural world, which is negative because the Thames was heavily polluted in Blake’s time.

14. Paradise Lost illustration (John Milton) ‘The sick rose is paradise Lost in 8 lines’ (fall of humans) ‘The invisible worm’ ‘Has found out thy bed; Of crimson joy: And his Dark secret love Does thy life destroy’

15. Adam and EveOriginal Sin • Genesis 3: 17 ‘cursed is the earth in thy work’ • Isaiah 24:5 ‘The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws’ • Romans: 6: 16 ‘you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness.’ • Earth’s Answer ‘selfish father of men’, ‘cruel, jealous’ ‘break this heavy chain’ • Human Abstract ‘The Gods... Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree; But their search in vain: There grows one in the human brain’ • Or it is societal control. • True meaning of innocence – is it vice and corruption without realising it? You do not have to teach a child to be bad, but you do have to teach them to be good. • Rousseau ‘men are born free by everywhere in chains’

16. Repression • in ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’, ‘He who desires but acts not breeds pestilence’ which suggests that desire is a natural and healthy human emotion. • ‘If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite’ (Newton illustration)

17. Newton

18. Repression(The Good and Evil Angels illustration) • Garden of Love: ‘And the gates of the chapel shut, and “Thou shalt not” writ over the door’ • ‘instrument of tyranny’ • ‘tool of political and social repression’ (Davies) (Institutionalised Church) • Or counter argument: There is no freedom, not even in the form of free love and nature. Blake is NOT breaking free of the chains, by rejecting organised religion, philosophies and law but rather simply handing himself over to another master (as a Dissenter) • Introduction (experience)‘calling the lapsed soul, And weeping in the evening dew: That might control the Starry pole, And fallen, fallen light renew’. The bard is calling the ‘fallen’ and experienced man and the ‘weeping’ is a response to being in chains of sin that might ‘control’. Jealousy associated with Stars, hence Experienced are jealous of the ‘light’ • ‘That might control’ reveals restriction and constraint rather than revelation • A dissenter can not argue a way of being free – because the dissenter’s follow their own form of regulated philosophies.

19. Conflict between capitalism and nature • The Tyger: the growth of capitalism in England over what is natural. • Lamb: a state of innocence but false consciousness (Marxist idea) • Volpone: Capitalism breaks down natural bonds between Corbaccioand Bonario(unatural) and Celia and Corvino • Blake wanted a world without money.

20. Love and Nature • Blake -> ideologies of free love. ‘Ah Sunflower’ ‘Where the Youth pined away with desire’ (Loss of innocence) feminine ending of this line  suggesting a weak outlook or expectation. • The Blossom. Natural love is giving over to desires. ‘Swift as arrow’ ‘Seek your cradle narrow’ • Views marriage as the antithesis of natural love. London – ‘Marriage hearse’ (everything’s reversed) • Volpone: Death of marriage – Sir Pol + Lady Pol, Celia and Corvino • Familial Love • Blake – very few parents/mother figures (A04 Complications of childbirth). Parents sell their children (chimney sweeper) (blossom) • Volpone – no real families. • Freudian – Blake sees father as God, to replaced failed natural figures. • Volpone replaces family with money.

21. Corruption • Warn against human corruption: allusions of hell. Volpone’s gold appears ‘like a flame by night’ and the Tyger is ‘burning bright’. • Symbolic of damnation • Both authors suggest caution may well prevent degeneration into immorality. • The Chimney Sweeper • ‘hush and never mind it for when your head is bare’ ‘you know the soot cannot spoil [his] white hair’. Tom Dacre’s hair resembles a lamb before it is shaved (innocence) – ironic. It is better to have no innocence then to have it to be ‘spoiled’

22. Deception • ‘If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.’ • ‘Jonson condemns Volpone and Mosca’sMachiavellianism (Volpone lets the cherry knock against people’s lips and draws it to their mouths and back again) He manipulates people by offering and withdrawing opportunities in order to gain power. • Mankind is unconsciously enslaved and exploited by the ‘mind-forged manacles’ that are hidden within the state and the established church. • Experience – pastoral image of England (Romantics) shown as innately corrupt by dark forces as minds of vulnerable seem to be unconscious of deceptive world around them • Self Deception – Volpone ignorance of his own mirror image (presence of his ‘eunuch, dwarf and hermaphrodite’

23. Disguise • Shakespeare states in ‘As you like it’, ‘all the worlds a stage, and all men and women merely players’. • We all put on disguises in life. Metatheatricality is therefore a Jacobean theatrical metaphor further illustrating this.

24. Sacrilegious • O, thou son of Sol, • (But brighter than thy father) let me kiss, • exclaiming with hyperbole that his gold is brighter than the sun. This establishes two of Volpone's key character traits: his intense energy, and his worship of money (which we will soon see extends to all other means of self-gratification). • With adoration, thee, and every relic • (Catholic custom – bones of saints)

25. Sacrilegious • The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot, • Is made worth heaven! Thou art virtue, fame • Honour, and all things else! • He shall be noble ,valiant, honest, wise • I glory • More in the cunning purchase of my wealth • I turn no moneys in the public bank;

26. Greed • This draws new clients, daily, to my house, • Women and men of every sex and age, • Greed is universal

27. Poverty • M: Tear forth the fathers of poor families Out of their beds and coffin them alive • The Chimney Sweeper: refers to sweepers as ‘locked up in coffins of black’. Metaphor refers to fact that boys sold as sweeps became dirty with soot. Portrays poverty as a trap that cannot be escaped. Poverty made these children socially invisible. • A04: 1790s early 1800s, Industrial revolution  social inequality  unequal distribution of wealth  Beginning of anther rise of middle classes.

28. Loving Mosca [looks in a mirror] –VANITY • Mosca, this was thy invention (Metatheatricality)

29. Nano: For knows, here is enclosed the soul of Pythagoras [he points to Androgino] (p26)

30. LAWScene 3 • Mosca: Men of your large profession, that could speak • To every cause, and things mere contraries, • Till they were hoarse again, yet all be law; • make knots, and undo them; • Give forked cousel; take provoking gold • On either hand (p34) • V: what a rare punishment is avarice to its self

31. Money and Capitalism • V1.1 V: ‘Am I, to view thy splendour, darkening his’ • M: You lothe the widdow's or the orphan's tears’ • The Human abstract • ‘Pity would be no more if we did not make somebody poor’ • Industrialisation • A Divine Image • ‘The human dress is forge’d iron’ • The Tyger • ‘What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? • [Society has come to embody the cruel industrialised world] • Number of children’s charities (18th century London) were increasing at a rate never seen before. • HOLY THURSDAY (innocence) • ‘Wise guardians of the poor’ ‘aged men’ • ‘Then cherish pity, lest you driven an angel from your door’

32. Scene 4 • M: Stand there, and multiply (p35) (Religious allegory for when God says in Genesis ‘go forth and multiply’) Corbaccio: Excellent, excellent, sure I shall outlast him: This makes me young again, a score of years (p37) M: oh, sir, the wonder, The blazing star of Italy! A wench O’ the first year! A beauty ripe as harvest! Whose skin is whiter than a swan, all over! Than silver, snow, or lilies! A soft lip, Would tempt you to eternity of kissing! And flesh that melteth in the touch to blood! As bright as your gold! And lovely as your gold! All her looks are sweet As the first grapes or cherries; and are watched As near as they are M: There is a guard of tens spies thick upon her

33. Act 2Money – healing power • P: “This fellow/Does he gull me, trow? Or is he gulled?” • V:‘Take you a sequin of gold, and apply to the place affected’ • V: I despise money: only to show my affection to you • Celia at the window throws down her handkerchief • V: “My better angel” (refers to Mosca) • C to celia “I was not jealous”

34. Act 3 • MS: I fear I shall begin to grow in love with my dear self, and my prosp’rous parts, they do spring and burgeon • I could skip out of my skin like a subtle snake • O’ ypur parasite is a most precious thing, dropped from above, not bred ‘mongst clot-polls here on earth. • LP: lend me your dwarf • Wife; Only of price in Venice (consumerism) • Corvino: Honour? Tut, a breath: there’s nosuch thing in nature- a mere term invented to awe fools • Sir, kill me rather. I will take down poison, eat burning coals, do anything- Celia • the sports of love;Time will not be ours foreverSuns that set may yet rise againWhy should we defer our joys?‘Tis no sin loves fruits to steal

35. Act 3 • Voltore: To fear our truth should hurt our cause • Voltore: So much full of danger is his vice, that can beguile so, under shade of virtue • Corvino: To her damnation, if there be a hell Greater than whore and women • 4th Advocate: This women has too many moods • O! Your parasite/Is a most precious thing dropped from above -> Mosca • ‘Everyone’s a parasite’ -> Mosca • NADIR

36. Act 4 • C:And heaven, that never fails the innocent. • 4thAvvocato: There are no testimonies • 1stAvvocato: These be strange turns -> Knowledge/Ignorance • ZENITH • Justice system + legal system destroying institutions of Jacobean society

37. Act 5 • I ne’er was in dislike with my disguise • A many of these fears • Would put me into some villainous disease, • M: Is our trade free once more? • Volpone: Like a temptation of the devil • M: Out of pure love, no hope of gain (dramatic irony) • M: Why your gold is such another medicine, it dries up

38. M: Why, think that these good works may help to hide your bad? • M: You have a gift sir (thank your education), will never let you want while there are men and malice to breed causes. • Volpone: A rare disguise and answering thy brain • Volpone: The fox fares ever best when he is cursed • SP: To shrink my poor head in my politic shell • V to voltore: His body and that house decayed together • Voltore: Conscience • Corvino: The devil has entered him • ‘I’ll try your salt-head, what proof it is against a counter-plot’

39. Anagnorisis • Volpone: When I provoked him, then I lost myself • Celia: How ready is heaven to those who pray • Bonario: Heaven could not long let such gross crimes be hid • 2ndAvvocato: Disrobe that parasite • M: Bane to thy wolfish nature • Voltore: Well, flesh-fly, it is summer with you now; • Your winter will come on. (p144) • olp: You are so wise, so prudent, and ‘tis fit • That wealth and wisdom still should go together (p145)

40. Mischiefs feed like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed’ • This is called the fox-trap

41. ’This is call the fox trap’ • Volp: The seasoning of a play is the applause. • Now, thought the Fox be punished by the laws, • He yet doth hope there is no suffering due • For any fact which he hath done ‘gainst you; • If there be, censure him – here he doubtful stands. • If not, fare jovially, and clap your hands. (p156-157)

42. : if you have a touch of holy saints or heaven – do me the grace to let me ‘scape- Celia • Punish that unhappy crime of nature - Celia • Fall on me, roof, and bury me in ruin. Become my grave that wert my shelter. Oh! I am unmasked, unspirited, undone, betrayed to beggary, to infamy- Volpone

43. Benario This tale hath lost thee much of the late trust, thou had’st with me; it is impossible- I know not how to lend it any thought, my father should be so unnatural- • ‘I have no time to flatter you... applaud my art’ (they both want praise) • Then, here’s a lock, which I will hang upon thee [Holds up a chastity belt]

44. Volp: The seasoning of a play is the applause. • Now, thought the Fox be punished by the laws, • He yet doth hope there is no suffering due • For any fact which he hath done ‘gainst you; • If there be, censure him – here he doubtful stands. • If not, fare jovially, and clap your hands. (p156-157)

45. Critic Quotes • As L.C. Knights pointed out, ‘they represent but a narrow class even among birds of prey’ • The three legacy hunters are depicted as birds of prey: the vulture (Voltore), a crow (Corvino) and a raven (Corbaccio) • Herford and Simpson ‘For the Jacobeans, Italy was the classic contemporary land of sensational evil-doing’

46. The first act of Shakespeare’s Othello picks up on these imperial concerns, while The Merchant of Venice, like Volpone, is more obviously preoccupied with the commercialism of the City. • Jonson saw the theatre as a ‘positive social force’

47. FORM – Blank Verse • Apart from the interludes from Volpone’s children and the prose-patter from ‘Scoto of Mantua’, the entire play is composed in blank verse. • Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter • Prose is a form of language which applies ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure

48. Eat or be Eaten • Worship of Wealth in Volpone becomes a surrogate religion • With chequeen-hoards the objects of devotion, and gold-stashes the saints: a parody of Catholic superstition that would have no doubt delighted and scandalised a newly Protestant English audience • The cunning devices Volpone uses to gain wealth are as valuable to him as the end product • As Jonson was to write late in life, hs was a ‘money-get, mechanic age.’ • It is a poor unprofitable humour

49. Bonario’s analysis of Voltore is tenchant: ‘His soul moves in his fee’ (4.5.96)

50. Living like animals • ‘While it can be entertaining to dress up Volpone as a fox, Mosca as a fly, Corbaccio as a crow, or Sir Pol as a parrot, this is not really Jonson’s point: and to universalise the play into folklore is to dull the edge of its satire. • The Dwarf, Hermaphrodite and Eunuch don’t quite belong to the Beast Fable. They are neither fully human nor recognisably bestial, monsters begotten on the outcasts of society when Volpone was drunk • They speak outside the play’s norm of blank verse, moving without its customary style, in a ‘limping jig’ • Seen as the objective correlative of it’s hero’s bitter heart: grotesque, unassimilated, unloved’