Comparing Othello and Volpone Essay -- Comparison Compare Contrast Ess

Similarities in Othello and Volp peerless Upon reading Shakespe ars l604 tragedy, Othello, the Moor of Venice and Jonsons l606 comedy, Volpone, or The Foxe, a ref will notice both similarities and differences. In both plays, we meet characters of disused ingenious knavery. Indeed, Iago, Volpone, and Mosca are uncommonly similar in nature. An elaborate watch game is practiced in each play through challenging dramatic inventiveness. However, the focus of Shakespeares tragedy is upon a noble and heroic realize the focus of Jonsons comedy is upon a monster of depravity, a genius in crime. Comparisons between these great plays continues to pale when Jonsons script is held up to scrutiny. Whereas Shakespeares seventeenth ascorbic acid work in comedy would turn continually toward soft edges, romance, and the pastoral, merge both the serious and the humorous, Jonson established a reputation as one of the major social satirists of the English dramatic customs. In fact, Jonsons come dies establish the tradition of social comedy on the English stage. In Volpone, although the satire is in the long run moral, its immediate aim is mostly social or legal. The play unmasks the imitative features of respectability, exposing vice and the manipulations of hypocrites. To his credit, Jonson did not altogether excuse the imperceptiveness of the victims in the play. Jonsons central characters are among the early models of anti-heroes, a term generally restricted to characters found in Dostoevski, Sartre, or Camus. The specimens dramatized in Volpone are not merely fools, but money-hungry, lustful, chastely despicable knaves. Their names immediately suggest their depravity because they are place with the world of beasts. Thus, the lawy... ... Now, though the Fox be punishd by the laws, / He and doth hope, in that respect is no suffring due, / For any fact which he hath done gainst you / If there be a censure him here he doubtful stands. / If not, answer jovially, and clap your hands. Works Cited and Consulted Barish, Jonas A. Ben Jonson A Collection of Critical Essays. Prentice-Hall Inc. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1963. Campbell, Lily B. Shakespeares tragic Heroes. New York Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1970. Dessen, Alan C. Jonsons Moral Comedy. Northwestern University. Press, 1971. Kermode, Frank. Othello, the Moor of Venice. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston, MA Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos.