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.
evidence we may feel reasonably secure in assigning the date of
presentation to late November or early December, 1616.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
In 1. 2. 1 Fitzdottrel speaks of Bretnor as occupying the position
once held by the conspirators in the Overbury case. Franklin, who
is mentioned, was not brought to trial until November 18, 1615.
Jonson does not speak of the trial as of a contemporary or nearly
contemporary event.
Act 4 is largely devoted to a satire of Spanish fashions. In 4. 2. 71
there is a possible allusion to the Infanta Maria, for whose marriage
with Prince Charles secret negotiations were being carried on at this
time. We learn that Commissioners were sent to Spain on November
9 (_Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. _), and from a letter of January
1, 1617, that 'the Spanish tongue, dress, etc. are all in fashion'
(_ibid. _).
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.
