The Devil is an Ass

YALE STUDIES IN ENGLISH ALBERT S. COOK, Editor
XXIX
BY BEN JONSON
Edited with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary
BY WILLIAM SAVAGE JOHNSON, Ph.D. Instructor in English in Yale University
A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1905
Copyright by William Savage Johnson, 1905 PRESS OF THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR COMPANY
TO MY MOTHER

In The Devil is an Ass Jonson may be studied, first, as a student; secondly, as an observer. Separated by only two years from the preceding play, Bartholomew Fair , and by nine from the following, The Staple of News , the present play marks the close of an epoch in the poet’s life, the period of his vigorous maturity. Its relations with the plays of his earlier periods are therefore of especial interest.
The results of the present editor’s study of these and other literary connections are presented, partly in the Notes, and partly in the Introduction to this book. After the discussion of the purely technical problems in Sections A and B, the larger features are taken up in Section C, I and II. These involve a study of the author’s indebtedness to English, Italian, and classical sources, and especially to the early English drama; as well as of his own dramatic methods in previous plays. The more minute relations to contemporary dramatists and to his own former work, especially in regard to current words and phrases, are dealt with in the Notes.