In modern times the history of the devil
and the Vice as dramatic figures has been thoroughly investigated, the
latest works being those of Dr.
and the Vice as dramatic figures has been thoroughly investigated, the
latest works being those of Dr.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
The allegory of _The Staple of News_ is more closely
woven into the texture of the play than is that of _The Devil is an
Ass_; and the conception of Pecunia and her retinue is worked out with
much elaboration. In the Second Intermean the purpose of this play is
explained as a refinement of method in the use of allegory. For the old
Vice with his wooden dagger to snap at everybody he met, or Iniquity,
appareled 'like Hokos Pokos, in a juggler's jerkin', he substitutes
'vices male and female', 'attired like men and women of the time'. This
of course is only a more philosophical and abstract statement of the
idea which he expresses in _The Devil is an Ass_ (1. 1. 120 f. ) of a
world where the vices are not distinguishable by any outward sign from
the virtues:
They weare the same clothes, eate the same meate,
Sleep i' the self-same beds, ride i' those coaches.
Or very like, foure horses in a coach,
As the best men and women.
_The New Inn_ and _The Magnetic Lady_ are also penetrated
with allegory of a sporadic and trivial nature. Jonson's
use of devil and Vice in the present play is threefold. It
is in part earnestly allegorical, especially in Satan's long
speech in the first scene; it is in part a satire upon the
employment of what he regarded as barbarous devices; and
it is, to no small extent, itself a resort for the sake of comic
effect to the very devices which he ridiculed.
Jonson's conception of the devil was naturally very far from mediaeval,
and he relied for the effectiveness of his portrait upon current
disbelief in this conception. Yet mediaevalism had not wholly died out,
and remnants of the morality-play are to be found in many plays of
the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. Rev. John Upton, in his _Critical
Observations on Shakespeare_, 1746, was the first to point out the
historical connection between Jonson's Vice and devils and those of
the pre-Shakespearian drama.
In modern times the history of the devil
and the Vice as dramatic figures has been thoroughly investigated, the
latest works being those of Dr. L. W. Cushman and Dr. E. Eckhardt,
at whose hands the subject has received exhaustive treatment. The
connection with Machiavelli's novella of _Belfagor_ was pointed out
by Count Baudissin,[14] _Ben Jonson und seine Schule_, Leipzig 1836,
and has been worked out exhaustively by Dr. E. Hollstein in a Halle
dissertation, 1901. Dr. C. H. Herford, however, had already suggested
that the chief source of the devil-plot was to be found in the legend
of Friar Rush.
[12] _Wks. _ 3. 158.
woven into the texture of the play than is that of _The Devil is an
Ass_; and the conception of Pecunia and her retinue is worked out with
much elaboration. In the Second Intermean the purpose of this play is
explained as a refinement of method in the use of allegory. For the old
Vice with his wooden dagger to snap at everybody he met, or Iniquity,
appareled 'like Hokos Pokos, in a juggler's jerkin', he substitutes
'vices male and female', 'attired like men and women of the time'. This
of course is only a more philosophical and abstract statement of the
idea which he expresses in _The Devil is an Ass_ (1. 1. 120 f. ) of a
world where the vices are not distinguishable by any outward sign from
the virtues:
They weare the same clothes, eate the same meate,
Sleep i' the self-same beds, ride i' those coaches.
Or very like, foure horses in a coach,
As the best men and women.
_The New Inn_ and _The Magnetic Lady_ are also penetrated
with allegory of a sporadic and trivial nature. Jonson's
use of devil and Vice in the present play is threefold. It
is in part earnestly allegorical, especially in Satan's long
speech in the first scene; it is in part a satire upon the
employment of what he regarded as barbarous devices; and
it is, to no small extent, itself a resort for the sake of comic
effect to the very devices which he ridiculed.
Jonson's conception of the devil was naturally very far from mediaeval,
and he relied for the effectiveness of his portrait upon current
disbelief in this conception. Yet mediaevalism had not wholly died out,
and remnants of the morality-play are to be found in many plays of
the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. Rev. John Upton, in his _Critical
Observations on Shakespeare_, 1746, was the first to point out the
historical connection between Jonson's Vice and devils and those of
the pre-Shakespearian drama.
In modern times the history of the devil
and the Vice as dramatic figures has been thoroughly investigated, the
latest works being those of Dr. L. W. Cushman and Dr. E. Eckhardt,
at whose hands the subject has received exhaustive treatment. The
connection with Machiavelli's novella of _Belfagor_ was pointed out
by Count Baudissin,[14] _Ben Jonson und seine Schule_, Leipzig 1836,
and has been worked out exhaustively by Dr. E. Hollstein in a Halle
dissertation, 1901. Dr. C. H. Herford, however, had already suggested
that the chief source of the devil-plot was to be found in the legend
of Friar Rush.
[12] _Wks. _ 3. 158.
