The Play of Conspiracies in Volpone

At the heart of the representation of self on the seventeenth-century English stage lies a secret, or rather, a series of secrets. We have seen that the self is conceived of in plays such asSejanusandThe Changelingas an area of knowledge to be carefully guarded and to be shared only at enormous risk...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBen Jonson and the Art of Secrecy pp. 57 - 77
Main Author Slights, William W. E
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published Toronto University of Toronto Press 01.02.2015
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Summary:At the heart of the representation of self on the seventeenth-century English stage lies a secret, or rather, a series of secrets. We have seen that the self is conceived of in plays such asSejanusandThe Changelingas an area of knowledge to be carefully guarded and to be shared only at enormous risk. Secrecy is the last bastion of self-preservation for the imperial minion, Sejanus, plotting his coup against his mentor, just as it is for Beatrice-Joanna, moving through the deadly changes of her wedding dance. Images of self-realization, especially in tragedies of the period, feature isolation
ISBN:144265502X
9781442655027
DOI:10.3138/9781442623521-006