The Devil Is an Ass is a Jacobean comedy by Ben Jonson, first performed in 1616, first published in 1631, and based on the events of the famous Leicester Boy Witch Trial. [1]
The Devil Is an Ass followed Bartholomew Fair (1614), one of the author's greatest works, and marks the start of the final phase of his dramatic career.
The 1616 production was by the King's Men; the play probably received its première at the Blackfriars Theatre in October or November of the year. Robert Johnson composed music for the play.
The initial publication of the play was somewhat irregular, in that Jonson intended to include it in a second folio collection of his works in 1631, but scrapped the plan when he was dissatisfied with the printing. Copies of the 1631 printed text were released, though whether they were sold publicly or circulated privately by Jonson is unclear. The play was included in the eventual second folio of Jonson's works (1640–1), published after his death in 1637, and also was issued in a separate "variant reprint edition" in 1641. [2]
The play opens in Hell, with Satan and an inferior devil named Pug. Pug wants to be sent to Earth to do the Devil's work of tempting men to evil – but Satan thinks he isn't up to the job; the world has grown so sophisticated in its vices, especially in the moral cesspool of London, that a simple devil like Pug will be severely out of his depth. Pug pleads his case, however, and Satan sends him into the world, specifically to plague an eccentric and foolish gentleman named Fabian Fitzdottrel.
Fitzdottrel is obsessed with the idea of meeting a devil; he has consorted with magicians and conjurers (Simon Forman among others) in hopes of encountering an imp who will aid him in the discovery of buried treasure. In addition to his main mania, Fitzdottrel has subsidiary obsessions: he dresses his beautiful young wife sumptuously, but clothes himself in second-hand garments, which he wheels and deals over with enthusiasm. In the play's first Act he is enthusiastic about a fancy cloak that he plans to wear to the Blackfriars Theatre to see a play. Pug comes to him in the body of a thief who'd been hanged earlier in the morning; Fitzdottrel refuses to believe that Pug is a devil, since the corpse's feet are not cloven hooves—but Pug's claim that his name is "Devil" (or "Deville") is enough to earn him a place as a servant in Fitzdottrel's household.
His reputation for eccentric foolishness has made Fitzdottrel the target of a host of confidence men, who fall out into two groups: on the one hand, the young gallant Wittipol and his friend Manly, and on the other the "projector" Meercraft and his henchmen, Ingine the broker, Lady Tailbush, Guilthead the goldsmith, Everill and Train and others. Meercraft is after Fitzdottrel's money, while Wittipol is more interested in the man's wife. In exchange for a sumptuous cloak, Wittipol actually negotiates fifteen minutes of conversation with Mistress Frances Fitzdottrel, in her husband's presence. Fitzdottrel tries to outwit the gallant by ordering his wife to remain silent; but when Wittipol finds that the young woman will not answer him, he answers for her, so aptly that the virtuous Mistress Fitzdottrel is impressed, almost against her will, with his "brain and spirit."
Meanwhile, Meercraft is making progress with his intended mark by tempting Fitzdottrel with various get-rich-quick schemes, like raising "drowned land," harvesting dogs' skins, or making wine from raisins. Fitzdottrel is most enthusiastic about the first, and Meercraft convinces his dupe that he will soon be elevated to the peerage as the Duke of the Drowned Lands. (Reclaiming swamps and fens for agricultural use, via dykes and windmill-driven pumps, was a real and lucrative development of the time.) To train Mistress Fitzdottrel in the manners of the upper class, Meercraft persuades his victim to solicit, with a present of a diamond ring, the aid of an Englishwoman who has lived in Spain and is fluent in courtly manners. The "Spanish woman" will actually be a Meercraft henchman in disguise.
Pug, looking for opportunities for villainy, tries to tempt Mistress Fitzdottrel into cheating on her husband with Wittipol; but his effort is inept, and she thinks he is a spy planted by her husband. She denounces Pug to Fitzdottrel, who beats the imp with a cudgel. Wittipol manages to obtain a window-to-window conversation with her—but her husband finds out about it and seeks to guard her even more closely than usual. He is still entranced by Meercraft's con-game, however, and the central scenes in the play spin out a complex web of manipulation that includes rounds of Who's got the cloak? and Who's got the ring?, and a wealth of satirical commentary on various aspects of London life, such as the booming business of women's cosmetics. Wittipol wins the role of the Spanish woman, and in this disguise he penetrates Fitzdottrel's watch to reach his wife.
Mistress Fitzdottrel, however, surprises Wittipol and Manly with an effective plea to their nobler natures (Act IV, scene vi). Appealing to Wittipol to put his "noble parts" that have impressed her "To a right use," she seeks his aid in resolving her dilemma:
Influenced by Manly and his own better nature, Wittipol puts aside his lustful quest to help Mistress Fitzdottrel out of her difficulties. To this point, Wittipol and Manly have been co-operating with Meercraft and company, but now, in effect, they change sides. Meercraft has by this time tricked Fitzdottrel into signing over all his fortune to his wife, with Meercraft himself as the intended guardian; Wittipol and Manly manage to switch the guardianship to Manly at the last moment. Once she has legal control of their estate, Mistress Fitzdottrel can prevent her husband's follies from bankrupting them.
Meercraft, now realising that he's been fooled, strikes back: he persuades Fitzdottrel (who is outraged at his wife's usurpation of authority) to pretend to be bewitched by his wife and her confederates. In the sympathetic court of Sir Paul Eitherside, Meercraft plans to get the legal documents dismissed and restore Fitzdottrel to the control of his own estate, so the cheating can continue.
Pug has not done well through all these developments: beaten, manipulated, and generally abused, he ends up confined to Newgate Prison at the end of the day. (Jonson, true to the Aristotelian unities of time and place, stages all this action in a single day.) Pug appeals to Satan to take him back to Hell with whatever punishment the lord of the underworld chooses—for nothing in hell compares "to a lady of fashion." Satan, triumphant in his prediction that 1616 London was more than Pug could handle, arrives to spirit Pug away, blasting a wall out of Newgate in the process, and leaving the thief's body behind. And the jailers realise, belatedly, that the man they'd arrested in the afternoon was the same man they'd hanged in the morning.
Meercraft's trial before Sir Paul is warming up, with Fitzdottrel giving a bravura performance as a bewitched victim. But word arrives of the satanic doings at Newgate; and Fitzdottrel, realising that Pug, "Deville," had been a devil after all, is so beside himself that he abandons the pretense of bewitchment and spills the beans. In the end, the con men are themselves conned, the witty enjoy the fruits of their wit, and virtue is preserved.
Benjamin Jonson was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox, The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I."
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1616.
Grim the Collier of Croyden; or, The Devil and his Dame: with the Devil and Saint Dunston is a seventeenth-century play of uncertain authorship, first published in 1662. The play's title character is an established figure of the popular culture and folklore of the time who appeared in songs and stories – a body of lore the play draws upon. The London coal and charcoal industry was centred on Croydon, to the south of London in Surrey; the original Grimme or Grimes has been claimed to be a real individual, but evidence for this is not forthcoming.
John Marston was an English playwright, poet and satirist during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods. His career as a writer lasted only a decade. His work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and its idiosyncratic vocabulary.
Eastward Hoe or Eastward Ho! is an early Jacobean-era stage play written by George Chapman, Ben Jonson and John Marston. The play was first performed at the Blackfriars Theatre by a company of boy actors known as the Children of the Queen's Revels in early August 1605, and it was printed in September the same year.
Nathan Field was an English dramatist and actor.
Robert Johnson was an English composer and lutenist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean eras. He is sometimes called "Robert Johnson II" to distinguish him from an earlier Scottish composer. Johnson worked with William Shakespeare providing music for some of his later plays.
Every Man in His Humour is a 1598 play by the English playwright Ben Jonson. The play belongs to the subgenre of "humours comedy", in which each major character is dominated by an over-riding humour or obsession.
Epicœne, or The Silent Woman, also known as Epicene, is a comedy by Renaissance playwright Ben Jonson. The play is about a man named Dauphine, who creates a scheme to get his inheritance from his uncle Morose. The plan involves setting Morose up to marry Epicoene, a boy disguised as a woman. It was originally performed by the Blackfriars Children, or Children of the Queen's Revels, a group of boy players, in 1609. Excluding its two prologues, the play is written entirely in prose.
Richard Robinson was an actor in English Renaissance theatre and a member of Shakespeare's company the King's Men.
The New Inn, or The Light Heart is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy by English playwright and poet Ben Jonson.
Cynthia's Revels, or The Fountain of Self-Love is a late Elizabethan stage play, a satire written by Ben Jonson. The play was one element in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker.
The Staple of News is an early Caroline era play, a satire by Ben Jonson. The play was first performed in late 1625 by the King's Men at the Blackfriars Theatre, and first published in 1631.
Ben Jonson collected his plays and other writings into a book he titled The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. In 1616 it was printed in London in the form of a folio. Second and third editions of his works were published posthumously in 1640 and 1692.
The Devil's Law Case is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Webster, and first published in 1623.
Richard Meighen was a London publisher of the Jacobean and Caroline eras. He is noted for his publications of plays of English Renaissance drama; he published the second Ben Jonson folio of 1640/41, and was a member of the syndicate that issued the Second Folio of Shakespeare's collected plays in 1632.
Holland's Leaguer is a Caroline stage play, a comedy written by Shackerley Marmion. It premiered onstage in 1631 and was first published in 1632. The play was a popular success and a scandal in its own day—scandalous because it dealt with a well-known London brothel, Holland's Leguer.
The idea of making a deal with the devil has appeared many times in works of popular culture. These pacts with the Devil can be found in many genres, including: books, music, comics, theater, movies, TV shows and games. When it comes to making a contract with the Devil, they all share the same prevailing desire, a mortal wants some worldly good for their own selfish gain, but in exchange, they must give up their soul for eternity.
Cupid's Whirligig, by Edward Sharpham (1576-1608), is a city comedy set in London about a husband that suspects his wife of having affairs with other men and is consumed with irrational jealousy. It was first published in quarto in 1607, entered in the Stationer's Register with the name "A Comedie called Cupids Whirlegigge." It was performed that year by the Children of the King's Revels in the Whitefriars Theatre where Ben Jonson's Epicene was also said to have been performed.
The Hen That Laid the Golden Eggs, also known as The Hen with the Golden Eggs, is a 1905 French silent trick film directed by Gaston Velle. The film is inspired by the eponymous fable by Jean de La Fontaine, itself based on Aesop's fable The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs.