The Practice of Deceit in Ben Jonson's Volpone and The Alchemist

Abstract

A discussion of Ben Jonson's practice of deceit in Volpone and The Alchemist. Analysis is informed by Jonson's statements against lying and his theory of language as it is outlined in Discoveries. His views on language are seen to diverge from his dramatic practice of the gulling comedy in that in theory he upholds the value of fixed and stable meaning. Yet in his comedy, deceptive practices demonstrate the flexibility of meaning made possible by the gap between signifier and signified. The theory of the sign as developed by both Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Saunders Peirce informs this discussion. Attention is also paid in the final chapter to the relationship between fiction (lying) and pleasure.