New Light on Jonson and Roman Comedy: Volpone and Eunuchus, Magnetic Lady and Truculentus

Abstract

Behind the practice of imitation in Renaissance literature lay the knowledge that the ancients themselves had imitated. Roman followed Greek comedy as Virgil followed Homer. Terence readily countered the charge that he had kidnapped characters from Greek comedy. So do all comic playwrights: indeed, “Nothing in fact is ever said which has not been said before” (Nullumst iam dictum quod non sit dictum prius).1 As it happens, Terence’s remark appears in the preface to a play that shows evidence of Ben Jonson’s imitation in Volpone – The Eunuch. The connection between these plays has apparently not previously been made, despite work on Jonson and ancient comedy over the past century.2 My discussion of Volpone and Eunuchus will lead into observations on the English playwright’s The Magnetic Lady as it echoes the plot of the mysterious pregnancy in Plautus’s Truculentus. Peter Happé writes that The Magnetic Lady shows Jonson, beginning around 1632, inclining toward “the staging practices of Plautus and Terence. The latter in fact are the chief debt, and Jonson both acknowledges their importance to him at this time and makes several minor allusions to them.”3 The allusions in both Volpone and The Magnetic Lady are beyond minor.