"Everything you need to know about the cultural contexts of 'Volpone'.  The unremitting exposure of human vileness is black and bleak, redeemed perhaps by the eventual punishment of the wrongdoers in an outcome achieved more by luck than justice.  This book provides detailed in-depth discussion of the various influences that a Jacobean audience would have brought to interpreting the play.  How did people think about the world, about God, about sin, about kings, about civilized conduct, about the predatory impulses that drive men to prey upon each other?  Historical, literary, political, sociological backgrounds are explained within the biblical-moral matrices by which the play would have been judged.  This book links real life in the late 1600s to the world on the stage.  Discover the orthodox beliefs people held about religion.  Meet the Devil, the Seven Deadly Sins and human depravity.  Learn about the social hierarchy, gender relationships, court corruption, class tensions, the literary profile of the time, attitudes to comedy - and all the subversions, transgressions, and oppositions that made the play a topical satire but also an unsettling picture of a world so close to disaster "-- Provided by publisher. 

Bibliographic references:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-310) and index. 

Contents:

Introduction -- About this book -- What is a context? --  Further Reading -- Part I : The Inherited Past -- Prologue -- The historical context -- The Elizabeth world order : from divinity to dust -- Sin, death and the prince of darkness -- The seven cardinal virtues -- Kingship -- Patriarchy, family authority and gender relationships -- Man in his place -- Images of disorder : the religious context -- Part II : The Jacobean present -- Ben in context -- Literary context -- The political context -- The beast fable -- Transgressions and sins : the biters bit -- The Venetian context : consumerism and cannibalism -- Bibliography.