Volpone’s Bastards: Theorising Jonson’s City Comedy

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Through studying Volpone's three bastard children - the dwarf, the androgyne and the eunuch ? from the theoretical argument of Freud, Lacan, Derrida and Foucault, this book discusses how Jonson's comedies are built upon the tension between death, castration and nothingness on one hand, and the comic slippage of identities in the city on the other. This study understands Jonson, first and foremost, as a comedy writer, linking his work with modern film comedies such as the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Monty Python. It is a new approach to Jonsonian studies, responding to the current Marxist-Lacanian studies of literature, film and culture made popular by scholars such as Slavoj Zizek, Alenka Zupancic and Mladen Dolar. While the book pays close attention to the historical context of Jonson's time, it brings him to the twenty-first century by discussing early modern comedies with modern critical theories and film.

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VOLPONE’S BASTARDS Theorising Jonson’s City Comedy Isaac Hui Volpone’s Bastards Theorising Jonson’s City Comedy Isaac Hui Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Isaac Hui, 2018 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in Sabon and Futura by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 2347 2 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 2348 9 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 2349 6 (epub) The right of Isaac Hui to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents Acknowledgements iv 1 Introduction: Jonson and Comedy 1 2 ‘For pleasing imitation of greater men’s action’: Nano the Anamorphic Ape 25 3 ‘Think me cold, frozen, and impotent, and so report me?’: Volpone and His ‘Castrone’ Complex 48 4 ‘The case appears too liquid’: The Two Sides of Androgyno 73 5 ‘I fear I shall begin to grow in love with my dear self’: The Parasite and His ‘Mirror Stage’ 97 6 Jonson’s Comedy of Bastardy 121 7 Conclusion: ‘Fools, they are the only nation’: Rereading the Interlude and Beyond 145 Bibliography Index 168 181 Acknowledgements An earlier version of Chapter 2 and portions of Chapter 3 were published in Comedy Studies as ‘On Comedy and Death: The Anamorphic Ape in Volpone’ (5:2 (2014), pp. 137–47) and ‘The Dis-orienting Orients – A Lacanian Reading of Philip Massinger’s Tragicomedy The Renegado’ (8:1 (2017), pp. 22–35). A small section of Chapter 4 appeared in ‘Re-negotiating Domesticating and Foreignizing: Bridging The Symposium and Niezi through the Imagery of Emptiness’ in Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies (3:1 (2016), pp. 33–46). A version of Chapter 5 was published as ‘The Comedy of the “Para-site”: Duck Soup, Volpone, and Hamlet’ in The Comparatist (40 (2016), pp. 170–89). I am grateful to the publishers for their permission to reproduce these materials. My thanks to the editors for their interest in my work and to the readers for their comments. Parts of this research have benefited from the financial support of the Research Committee of Lingnan University, to which I am grateful. The funding gave me an opportuni