Chrysopoeia 2: Volpone (He's the Fox - the Fox with the Golden Brush)

Aubrey Beardsley:  

Volpone Adoring His Treasures (1898)

 

Good morning to the day; and next, my gold: 

Open the shrine, that I may see my Saint.

 

 

I. 

 

Ben Jonson's brilliant comic play Volpone (1606) opens with a very famous scene of gold veneration that is worth reproducing in full:

 

 

A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE. ENTER VOLPONE AND MOSCA. 

 

VOLPONE: 

 

Good morning to the day; and next, my gold: 

Open the shrine, that I may see my Saint. 

 

MOSCA WITHDRAWS THE CURTAIN REVEALING PILES OF GOLD, PLATE, JEWELS, ETC.

 

Hail the world's soul, and mine! More glad than is 

The teeming earth to see the long'd-for sun 

Peep through the horns of the celestial Ram, 

Am I, to view thy splendour darkening his; 

That lying here, amongst my other hoards, 

Shew'st like a flame by night; or like the day 

Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled 

Unto the centre. O thou son of Sol, 

But brighter than thy father, let me kiss, 

With adoration, thee, and every relick 

Of sacred treasure, in this blessed room. 

Well did wise poets, by thy glorious name, 

Title that age which they would have the best; 

Thou being the best of things: and far transcending 

All style of joy, in children, parents, friends, 

Or any other waking dream on earth: 

Thy looks when they to Venus did ascribe, 

They should have given her twenty thousand Cupids; 

Such are thy beauties and our loves! 

Dear saint, Riches, the dumb god, that giv'st all men tongues; 

That canst do nought, and yet mak'st men do all things; 

The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot, 

Is made worth heaven. Thou art virtue, fame, 

Honour, and all things else. Who can get thee, 

He shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise - [1]

 

 

II. 

 

There are many things I love about this speech: for one thing, Volpone's is a profoundly cynical and materialist philosophy, which imagines even the anima mundi in chemical-elemental (non-spritual) terms. This is to immediately challenge all those idealistic thinkers from Plato to Hegel who identified the world-soul as a force of vital intelligence which is accesible to (because self-identical with) human reason.

 

The Gnostics may, like Volpone, have also posited gold as the essence of all that exists, but for them this was alchemical allegory; for them, gold was not a metal gifted to mankind from beyond the stars in an age before life itself, it was rather the Light Soul to be contrasted with the dead matter within which it is imprisoned. 

 

Gold may have been recognised as the noblest of all noble metals - and their origin - but it is still regarded with contempt by those whose real concern is with the inner gold (i.e. the spark of divinity) within each of us. Volpone may use religious language - open the shrine that I may see my saint - but he does so mockingly, that is, in a knowingly idolatrous manner. 

 

And when Volpone expresses a desire to kiss his gold, we are reminded that there is also an erotic aspect to his gold fetish. However, unlike Auric Goldfinger - whose case we discussed here - Volpone doesn't desire gold in a perverse manner and, ultimately, I don't think he is guilty of either greed or lust; what he does, in fact, is exploit the vices of others. 

 

For as he confesses to his man-servant, confidant, and fellow-schemer, Mosca: "I glory more in the cunning purchase of my wealth / Than in the glad possession ..."

This line is crucial, I think, in understanding Volpone's character - and my attraction to him; for he reminds me of the Embezzler, played by Malcolm McLaren in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980); a man who enjoys manipulating events, exploiting the gullible, and defrauding the rich. Yes, he wishes to generate cash from chaos, but it's the swindle itself that most excites his imagination. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm quoting from Ben Jonson's Volpone as found freely online as a Project Gutenberg eBook: click here. 

 

 

Post 1750: The Rambler

Portrait of Samuel Johnson 

by Joshua Reynolds (1775)

 

 

I.

 

1750 is something of a lucky number for me as the sum of its digits adds up to 13; a star number of great significance within many cultures, as well as the day of the month on which I was born. 

 

As a date, 1750 is often used to indicate the end of the pre-industrial era, so I suppose one might say that the modern world as we understand it - fully enframed by technology and powered by great machines - begins here. 

 

But 1750 also saw the first edition of Samuel Johnson's The Rambler ... [1] 

 

 

II.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) is one of the most distinguished men of letters in English history. A poet, playwright, essayist, critic, biographer, and editor, he began his writing career on The Gentleman's Magazine, in 1737 [2]. 

 

His famous dictionary - which took him almost nine years to complete - was published in 1755 to great acclaim, but it's the series of tuppenny essays which he published twice weekly under the title of The Rambler, that most excite my interest here (I'll explain why below).

 

Between 1750 and 1752, Johnson (anonymously) wrote over 200 Rambler articles. Often on moral and religious topics, the essays tended to be more serious than the title of the series might suggest and Johnson adopted an elevated style of neoclassical prose that was in stark contrast with the colloquial language that most popular publications of the day favoured.

 

However, whilst sometimes sounding a bit like sermons, Johnson maintained a speculative approach to his subject matter and the essays mostly avoided being too didactic in character. It was always his hope, he said - echoing Ben Jonson - to mix profit with pleasure [3]. 

 

Other subjects discussed in The Rambler included literature, society and politics and Johnson liked to supplement his own thoughts with quotes from Renaissance humanists such as Erasmus and Descartes. Taken as a whole, these essays constitute Johnson's most consistent and sustained body of work.     

 

Alas, the publication was not a great success; as its author lamented in the final essay, 'I have never been much a favourite to the publick'. Having said that, there was a small band of devoted readers and The Rambler was critically respected for the quality and power of the writing [4]. 

 

 

III. 

 

So, why does all this interest me ...

 

Well, without wishing to blow my own trumpet - or compare myself to Samuel Johnson - it seems to me that Torpedo the Ark is in the tradition of The Rambler. 

 

The 1,750 published posts - which might be seen as micro-essays - are composed on an equally wide variety of topics and constitute a sustained body of work. Further, the blog also has a small but loyal readership and manages, I hope, to entertain as well as inform. 

 

The only real difference is that I don't charge readers anything - not even tuppence - to access the work on Torpedo the Ark; something which makes me foolish in Johnson's opinion: No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money ...    

  

 

Notes

 

[1] It's an amusing title in its ambiguity: does Johnson want his readers to imagine him as one who roams in the countryside of ideas, wandering from one topic to the next; or is he self-mockingly referring to himsef as one who writes at length in a slightly confused manner, blathering on about subjects almost unparalleled in range and variety, but never telling us anything of substance ...? 

 

[2] Founded in London, in 1731, by Edward Cave, The Gentleman's Magazine was a monthly publication which ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term magazine for a periodical and included commentary on any topic the educated public might be interested in, from commodity prices to Latin poetry (rather, one might say, like Torpedo the Ark, which also aims to produce numerous pieces of such variety that it becomes impossible to provide an overview).   

 

[3] See the Prologue to Ben Jonson's play Volpone (1606). 

      This ideal has continued to unfold in our own times; the BBC, for example, declare a desire "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain".

[4] Further, when issues of The Rambler were collected in book form (1753), the essays became more widely read and appreciated, particularly amongst members of the newly emerging middle-class who hoped to improve their knowledge in a manner that would enable them to converse more easily with the highly educated members of the aristocracy. 

      Contemporary readers can purchase a facsimile reprint of The Rambler (Kessinger Publishing, 2010) on Amazon: click here. Alternatively, Johnson's essays from The Rambler can be read on the Samuel Johnson blog published by Matt Kirkland: click here. 

 

 

Another Brief Note on the Case of Milo Yiannopoulos

Photo of Milo Yiannopoulos by Jill Greenberg

for a feature-interview by Chadwick Moore

in Out Magazine (21 Sept 16)

Among several interesting announcements by a conservatively dressed and contrite sounding Milo Yiannopoulos at his recent New York press conference (called in response to the media hoo-ha over his apparent endorsement of paedophilia), was the fact that he intends henceforth to primarily entertain and educate his audience, rather than outrage his opponents first and foremost.

In other words, Mr Yiannopoulos is attempting to reinvent himself as a kind of pedagogic clown, on a mission, like the great English essayist and playwright Ben Jonson, to mix profit with pleasure, rather than simply act as an alt-right provocateur and internet super-villain.

I wish him luck: the trouble is, however, that in order to succeed he must quickly find a way to make people laugh and demonstrate he has something insightful to say about the world and I'm not convinced he's funny or thoughtful enough to do so. Bill Maher's fawning description of him as a "young, gay, alive Christopher Hitchens" is clearly overly generous. As Peter Bradshaw writes, in comparison to the latter, Milo is dull, suburban and straight. He's certainly no Hitch.

Further, one suspects that his demons will sooner or later lead him back towards what he's perversely good at: pissing people off and arousing hatred. Ultimately, Milo Yiannopoulos is what he is: X (readers are invited to fill in the space by providing their own thoughts and projecting their own fantasies).

He's probably not someone who genuinely wishes to enrich people's lives by informing, educating and entertaining; we have Brian Cox for that. And although he often refers to free speech, he doesn't seem to care about opening up debate or advancing any cause.

For ultimately, he's into chaos - and the cash that comes from chaos; a kind of sex pistol, if you like, spreading a stylish and subversive form of shallow, nacissistic nihilism. And I suppose that's why I can't help having a degree of affection for him - that and the fact he's just so good-looking.


Those interested in the case of Milo Yiannopoulos might like to read a related post: click here.