Wolfit's Fox: An Interpretation of Volpone

Abstract

When Sir Donald Wolfit was knighted in 1957 he obtained a coat of arms with the motto Lupus pilium mutat, 'the wolf changes its coat.' Unspoken was perhaps the corollary, 'but still remains himself.' The family name was actually spelled Woolfitt, but after he had simplified it for the stage, Wolfit liked to play on its animal connotations; and this identification of himself with untamed wiliness, with acting as a form of self-enhancement, went much deeper than mere heraldry. Behind the choice of motto lay some irony at official recognition of his unfashionable barnstorming after years of hostility and neglect, but also a humorous insistence on the same traits of character that he had exploited twenty years earlier in interpreting Volpone, the unregenerate fox of 'wooluish nature' (V.ii.115) who revels in impersonation.