This
of course is only a more philosophical and abstract statement of the
idea which he expresses in _The Devil is an Ass_ (1.
of course is only a more philosophical and abstract statement of the
idea which he expresses in _The Devil is an Ass_ (1.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
_ 9.
400-1.
I. THE DEVIL-PLOT
Jonson's title, _The Devil is an Ass_, expresses with perfect adequacy
the familiarity and contempt with which this once terrible personage
had come to be regarded in the later Elizabethan period. The poet, of
course, is deliberately archaizing, and the figures of devil and Vice
are made largely conformable to the purposes of satire. Several years
before, in the Dedication to _The Fox_,[12] Jonson had expressed his
contempt for the introduction of 'fools and devils and those antique
relics of barbarism', characterizing them as 'ridiculous and exploded
follies'. He treats the same subject with biting satire in _The Staple
of News_. [13] Yet with all his devotion to realism in matters of petty
detail, of local color, and of contemporary allusion, he was, as we
have seen, not without an inclination toward allegory. Thus in _Every
Man out of his Humor_ the figure of Macilente is very close to a purely
allegorical expression of envy. In _Cynthia's Revels_ the process was
perfectly conscious, for in the Induction to that play the characters
are spoken of as Virtues and Vices. In _Poetaster_ again we have the
purging of Demetrius and Crispinus. Jonson's return to this field
in _The Devil is an Ass_ is largely prophetic of the future course
of his drama. 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.
I. THE DEVIL-PLOT
Jonson's title, _The Devil is an Ass_, expresses with perfect adequacy
the familiarity and contempt with which this once terrible personage
had come to be regarded in the later Elizabethan period. The poet, of
course, is deliberately archaizing, and the figures of devil and Vice
are made largely conformable to the purposes of satire. Several years
before, in the Dedication to _The Fox_,[12] Jonson had expressed his
contempt for the introduction of 'fools and devils and those antique
relics of barbarism', characterizing them as 'ridiculous and exploded
follies'. He treats the same subject with biting satire in _The Staple
of News_. [13] Yet with all his devotion to realism in matters of petty
detail, of local color, and of contemporary allusion, he was, as we
have seen, not without an inclination toward allegory. Thus in _Every
Man out of his Humor_ the figure of Macilente is very close to a purely
allegorical expression of envy. In _Cynthia's Revels_ the process was
perfectly conscious, for in the Induction to that play the characters
are spoken of as Virtues and Vices. In _Poetaster_ again we have the
purging of Demetrius and Crispinus. Jonson's return to this field
in _The Devil is an Ass_ is largely prophetic of the future course
of his drama. 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.
