Abstract

This article examines the connection between inheritance and confidence schemes or other forms of financial speculation (such as gambling) in early modern English drama. Considering plays including Thomas Middleton’s Michaelmas Term (1604-6), John Cooke’s Greene’s Tu Quoque (1611), and Ben Jonson’s Volpone (1605-6), I explore the cultural work done by dramatic narratives in which inheritance becomes a site of risk or speculation. I argue that the inheritance scam in early modern drama fulfills a cultural fantasy that extends well beyond the monetary, at times modeling or testing out new forms of socioeconomic behavior or injecting the possibility of fluidity into otherwise restrictive systems of wealth transfer and social mobility.

摘要

本文探讨了早期现代英语戏剧中继承和信任计划或其他形式的金融投机（如赌博）之间的联系。考虑包括托马斯·米德尔顿 (Thomas Middleton) 的米迦勒学期 ( Michaelmas Term ) (1604-6)、约翰·库克 (John Cooke) 的格林 ( Greene) 的 Tu Quoque (1611) 和本·琼森 (Ben Jonson) 的沃尔彭 (1605-6) 在内的戏剧，我探讨了通过戏剧性叙事完成的文化工作，其中继承成为风险场所或猜测。我认为，早期现代戏剧中的继承骗局实现了一种远远超出货币范围的文化幻想，有时会模拟或测试新的社会经济行为形式，或者将流动性的可能性注入其他限制性的财富转移和社会流动性系统中。