Games of Strategy on the Renaissance Stage: A Game Theory Analysis of Ben Jonson’s Volpone

Authors

  • Samir Talib Dawood University of Basrah

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32792/tqartj.v1i049.738

Keywords:

Game Theory, Volpone, Ben Jonson, Theatrical Communication

Abstract

This study presents an analysis of Ben Jonson’s Volpone (16606) using game theory. It argues that this kind of analysis would yield new readings of the play. While the traditional criticism of the play focused on issues of morality and greed, an analysis inspired by game theory will shed light on issues of rationality (or the lack thereof) of characters’ actions. Instead of looking at characters in terms of tricksters and dupes, it will treat characters as players of strategic games who are trying to maximise their payoffs and minimise their costs. Besides, game theory can also help explain the process of theatrical communication in a new light. Moreover, by highlighting zero-sum games and the absence of equilibria in the interactions among characters, the analysis can account for the dark, almost tragic nature of the play.

Downloads

References

Alberti, Riccardo and Atulya K. Nagar. “Can Deterrence Lead to Fairness?” In Game Theory Relaunched, edited by Hardy Hanappi, 27-54. Rijeka: InTech.

Allen, Lea Knudsen. 2008. “Not every man has the luck to go to Corinth”: Accruing Exotic Capital in The Jew of Malta and Volpone" in Global Traffic Discourses and Practices of Trade in English Literature and Culture from 1550 to 1700, Edited by Barbara Sebek and Stephen Deng pp. 95-116. New York: Palgrave.

Bevington, David. 2000. "The Major Comedies." In The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson, edited by Richard Harp And Stanley Stewart, 72-89. Cambridge.

Binmore, Ken. 2007. Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford.

Brams, Steven J. 2011. Game Theory and the Humanities: Bridging Two Worlds. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press

Butler, Martin. 2000. "Jonson's London and its Theatres." In The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson, edited by Richard Harp and Stanley Stewart, 15-29. Cambridge.

Cave, Richard Allen. 1991. Ben Jonson. New York: Macmillan Education.

Chedgzoy, Kate, Julie Sanders and Susan Wiseman. 1998. "Introduction: Refashioning Ben Jonson." In Refashioning Ben Jonson Gender, Politics and the Jonsonian Canon. Edited by Kate Chedgzoy, Julie Sanders and Susan Wiseman, pp. 1-27. London: Macmillan Press Ltd.

Chwe, Michael Suk-Young. 2013. Jane Austen, Game Theorist. Princeton University Press.

Coleridge, S. T. [1874] 2019. Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare and other Dramatists. London: Routledge.

Comyn, Sarah. 2018. Political Economy and the Novel: A Literary History of “Homo Economicus”. New York: Palgrave.

Davis, Morton D. 1970. Game Theory: A Nontechnical Introduction. New York: Basic Books, Inc.

Duncan, Douglas. 1979. Ben Jonson and the Lucianic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Eliot, T. S. 1957. 'The Sacred Wood:’ Essays on Poetry and Criticism. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd.

Grav, Peter F. 2008. Shakespeare and the Economic Imperative: “What’s aught but as ’tis valued?”. London: Routledge.

Hawkes, David. 2015. Shakespeare and Economic Theory. London. Bloomsbury.

Hazlitt, William. 1841. Lectures on the English Comic Writers. London: Oxford University Press.

Hinchliffe, Arnold P. 1985. Volpone: Text and Performance. New York: Macmillan.

Hobbes, Thomas. ([1651] 1996). “From Leviathan.” In Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, edited by David Wootton, 122-296. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company Ltd.

Holderness, Graham. 2020. "Introduction: Shakespeare, Minted." In Shakespeare and Money. Edited by Graham Holderness, pp. 1-14. New York: Berghahn Books.

Hui, Isaac. 2018. Volpone’s Bastards: Theorising Jonson’s City Comedy. Edinburgh University Press.

Jonson, Ben. ([1598] 1966). Every Man in His Humour. Edited by Martin Seymour-Smith. New York: Ernest Benn Limited.

Jonson, Ben. Volpone. In Ben Jonson: Three Comedies. Edited by Michael Jamieson, 37-174. London: Penguin.

Jørgensen, Nils-Johan. 2015. An Image of the Times: An Irreverent Companion to Ben Jonson’s Four Humours and the Art of Diplomacy. Kent: Renaissance Books.

Julmi, Christian. 2012. Introduction to Game Theory. (E-book).

Kay, W. David. 1995. Ben Jonson: A Literary Life. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Leggatt, Alexander. 1969. “The Suicide of Volpone.” University of Toronto Quarterly, 39 (1): 19-32. https://doi.org/10.3138/utq.39.1.19

Loxley, James. 2005. The Complete Critical Guide to Ben Jonson. London: Routledge.

Maus, Katherine Eisaman. 2003. "Fetish and Poem: Ben Jonson’s Dilemma." In Money and The Age of Shakespeare: Essays in New Economic Criticism, edited by Linda Woodbridge, pp. 251-64 New York: Palgrave.

McCain, Roger A. 2023. Game Theory: A Nontechnical Introduction to the Analysis of Strategy. London: World Scientific.

McEvoy, Sean. 2008. Ben Jonson: Renaissance Dramatist. Edinburgh University Press.

Nordstrom, Jennifer A. Firkins. 2023. Introduction to Game Theory: A Discovery Approach. California: LibreTexts.

Osborne, Martin J. 2000. An Introduction to Game Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pollard, Tanya. 2005. Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England. Oxford University Press.

Rapoport, Anatol. 1960. Fights, Games, and Debates. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.

Rasmusen, Eric. 2007. Games and Information: An Introduction to Game Theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Ryner, Bradley D. 2014. Performing Economic Thought: English Drama and Mercantile Writing, 1600–1642. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Schecter, Stephen and Herbert Gintis. 2016. Game Theory in Action: An Introduction to Classical and Evolutionary Models. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Schreiber, Ian, Brenda Romero. 2021. Game Balance. Oxon: CRC Press.

Slights, William W.E. 1994. Ben Jonson and the Art of Secrecy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Steggle, Matthew. 2011. "Introduction." In Volpone: A Critical Guide, edited by Matthew Steggle, 1-7. London: Continuum.

Stout, Michael. 1988. Volpone. London: MacMillan Education.

Swirski, Peter. 2007. Of Literature and Knowledge: Explorations in Narrative Thought Experiments, Evolution, and Game Theory. London: Routledge.

Thompson, Sam. 2011. “The Critical Backstory.” In Volpone: A Critical Guide, edited by Matthew Steggle, 8-30. London: Continuum.

von Neumann, John and Oskar Morgenstern. ([1944] 1953). Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wagner, Paul A. 2013. “Game Theory as Psychological Investigation.” In Game Theory Relaunched, edited by Hardy Hanappi, 325-344. Rijeka: InTech.

Wainwright, Michael. 2012. “Sherlock Holmes and Game Theory.” An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal , 45 (3): 81-98. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44030696

----------------------------. 2016. Game Theory and Postwar American Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

----------------------------. 2018. The Rational Shakespeare Peter Ramus, Edward de Vere, and the Question of Authorship. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Walton, Kendall. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of Representational Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Watson, Joel. 2013. Strategy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Williams, John D. 1954. The Compleat Strategyst: Being a Primer on the Theory of Games of Strategy. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

Wilson, Edmund. 1952. "Morose Ben Jonson". In The Triple Thinkers: Twelve Essays on Literary Subjects, 203-220. London: John Lehmann.

Woodbridge, Linda (ed). 2003. Money and the Age of Shakespeare: Essays in New Economic Criticism. New York: Palgrave.

Womack, Peter. 1986. Ben Jonson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.

Published

2025-03-30

How to Cite

“Games of Strategy on the Renaissance Stage: A Game Theory Analysis of Ben Jonson’s Volpone”. 2025. Thi Qar Arts Journal 1 (49). https://doi.org/10.32792/tqartj.v1i049.738.

Similar Articles

1-10 of 46

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.