In the humor study each character
is represented as absorbed by a single vice or folly.
is represented as absorbed by a single vice or folly.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
_).
These indications are all of slight importance, but from their united
evidence we may feel reasonably secure in assigning the date of
presentation to late November or early December, 1616.
The play was not printed until 1631. It seems never to have been
popular, but was revived after the Restoration, and is given by
Downes[10] in the list of old plays acted in the New Theatre in Drury
Lane after April 8, 1663. He continues: 'These being Old Plays,
were Acted but now and then; yet being well Perform'd were very
Satisfactory to the Town'. The other plays of Jonson revived by this
company were _The Fox_, _The Alchemist_, _Epicoene_, _Catiline_,
_Every Man out of his Humor_, _Every Man in his Humor_, and
_Sejanus_. Genest gives us no information of any later revival.
[9] Collier, _Annals_ 3. 275, 302; Fleay, _Hist. _ 190.
[10] _Roscius Anglicanus_, p. 8.
C. THE DEVIL IS AN ASS
Jonson's characteristic conception of comedy as a vehicle for the
study of 'humors' passed in _Every Man out of his Humor_ into
caricature, and in _Cynthia's Revels_ and _Poetaster_ into allegory.
The process was perfectly natural.
In the humor study each character
is represented as absorbed by a single vice or folly. In the
allegorical treatment the abstraction is the starting-point, and the
human element the means of interpretation. Either type of drama, by
a shifting of emphasis, may readily pass over into the other. The
failure of _Cynthia's Revels_, in spite of the poet's arrogant boast
at its close, had an important effect upon his development, and the
plays of Jonson's middle period, from _Sejanus_ to _The Devil is an
Ass_, show more restraint in the handling of character, as well as
far greater care in construction. The figures are typical rather than
allegorical, and the plot in general centres about certain definite
objects of satire. Both plot and characterization are more closely
unified.
_The Devil is an Ass_ marks a return to the supernatural and
allegorical. The main action, however, belongs strictly to the type
of the later drama, especially as exemplified by _The Alchemist_.
The fanciful motive of the infernal visitant to earth was found to
be of too slight texture for Jonson's sternly moral and satirical
purpose. In the development of the drama it breaks down completely,
and is crowded out by the realistic plot. Thus what promised at first
to be the chief, and remains in some respects the happiest, motive
of the play comes in the final execution to be little better than
an inartistic and inharmonious excrescence. Yet Jonson's words to
Drummond seem to indicate that he still looked upon it as the real
kernel of the play. [11]
The action is thus easily divisible into two main lines; the
devil-plot, involving the fortunes of Satan, Pug and Iniquity, and
the satirical or main plot. This division is the more satisfactory,
since Satan and Iniquity are not once brought into contact with the
chief actors, while Pug's connection with them is wholly external,
and affects only his own fortunes. He is, as Herford has already
pointed out, merely 'the fly upon the engine-wheel, fortunate to
escape with a bruising' (_Studies_, p. 320).
These indications are all of slight importance, but from their united
evidence we may feel reasonably secure in assigning the date of
presentation to late November or early December, 1616.
The play was not printed until 1631. It seems never to have been
popular, but was revived after the Restoration, and is given by
Downes[10] in the list of old plays acted in the New Theatre in Drury
Lane after April 8, 1663. He continues: 'These being Old Plays,
were Acted but now and then; yet being well Perform'd were very
Satisfactory to the Town'. The other plays of Jonson revived by this
company were _The Fox_, _The Alchemist_, _Epicoene_, _Catiline_,
_Every Man out of his Humor_, _Every Man in his Humor_, and
_Sejanus_. Genest gives us no information of any later revival.
[9] Collier, _Annals_ 3. 275, 302; Fleay, _Hist. _ 190.
[10] _Roscius Anglicanus_, p. 8.
C. THE DEVIL IS AN ASS
Jonson's characteristic conception of comedy as a vehicle for the
study of 'humors' passed in _Every Man out of his Humor_ into
caricature, and in _Cynthia's Revels_ and _Poetaster_ into allegory.
The process was perfectly natural.
In the humor study each character
is represented as absorbed by a single vice or folly. In the
allegorical treatment the abstraction is the starting-point, and the
human element the means of interpretation. Either type of drama, by
a shifting of emphasis, may readily pass over into the other. The
failure of _Cynthia's Revels_, in spite of the poet's arrogant boast
at its close, had an important effect upon his development, and the
plays of Jonson's middle period, from _Sejanus_ to _The Devil is an
Ass_, show more restraint in the handling of character, as well as
far greater care in construction. The figures are typical rather than
allegorical, and the plot in general centres about certain definite
objects of satire. Both plot and characterization are more closely
unified.
_The Devil is an Ass_ marks a return to the supernatural and
allegorical. The main action, however, belongs strictly to the type
of the later drama, especially as exemplified by _The Alchemist_.
The fanciful motive of the infernal visitant to earth was found to
be of too slight texture for Jonson's sternly moral and satirical
purpose. In the development of the drama it breaks down completely,
and is crowded out by the realistic plot. Thus what promised at first
to be the chief, and remains in some respects the happiest, motive
of the play comes in the final execution to be little better than
an inartistic and inharmonious excrescence. Yet Jonson's words to
Drummond seem to indicate that he still looked upon it as the real
kernel of the play. [11]
The action is thus easily divisible into two main lines; the
devil-plot, involving the fortunes of Satan, Pug and Iniquity, and
the satirical or main plot. This division is the more satisfactory,
since Satan and Iniquity are not once brought into contact with the
chief actors, while Pug's connection with them is wholly external,
and affects only his own fortunes. He is, as Herford has already
pointed out, merely 'the fly upon the engine-wheel, fortunate to
escape with a bruising' (_Studies_, p. 320).
