In the following essay, Manlove argues that the "instructive" and the "delightful" elements of the play are "increasingly opposed during the play."

Current discussions of the "instructive" and "delightful" elements in Volpone (1604) tend, variously, to accept that both are united to give a single dramatic effect. The object of this article is to reargue the case that the two elements are increasingly opposed during the play.

In common with the comedy next written by Jonson The Alchemist (1610) the subject of Volpone is the gulling of dupes for profit by schemers; there are many incidental points of similarity in the plots and "humours" of both plays. Yet Volpone has a character very different from that of The Alchemist. Where Jonson's story of the magnifico is set in the luxurious and exotic world of Venice, The Alchemist takes place in London, in the house of the bourgeois Lovewit. In...