The Devil is an Ass
A Jacobean City Comedy of London Fraud, Social Ambition, Legal Trickery, and Human ImpostureBy Ben Jonson
Length6h 22m
About this audiobook
Ben Jonson's *The Devil is an Ass* (performed 1616) is a city comedy in which Pug, an inexperienced devil, is dispatched to London and discovers that human ingenuity in fraud, fashion, and exploitation exceeds anything practiced in Hell. Through the intertwined schemes of the projector-engineer Fitzdottrel, the predatory broker Merecraft, and the satirically resourceful Wittipol, Jonson anatomizes a culture governed by appetite and speculation. Its sharp prose, patterned rhetoric, comic reversals, and allegorical premise place the play within the Jacobean tradition of satiric comedy, while its attention to credit, novelty, and social mobility gives it a distinctly modern economic resonance. Jonson (1572–1637), one of the major dramatists and poets of the English Renaissance, wrote with a classical conception of comedy as a corrective to folly. His experience of London's theatrical, commercial, and political worlds—together with his interest in humoral characterization, learned allusion, and moral satire—shaped this unusually topical drama. Beneath its exuberant farce lies Jonson's skepticism about a society in which sophistication has become indistinguishable from deception. Recommended for readers of Renaissance drama, cultural history, and political satire, *The Devil is an Ass* rewards attention to both its verbal brilliance and its social intelligence. It is especially valuable for those interested in Jonson's critique of early modern capitalism, urban culture, and theatrical representation, offering a darkly comic portrait of a world where the most dangerous devils are human.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★ 3.5 (75)
Includes Goodreads
GenreLiterary Classics
Length6 hrs 22 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateNov 14, 2025
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes
2PREFACE
3INTRODUCTION
4A. EDITIONS OF THE TEXT
5B. DATE AND PRESENTATION
Show all chaptersShow less
6C. THE DEVIL IS AN ASS
7I. The Devil-Plot
8II. THE SATIRICAL DRAMA
9III. Specific Objects of Satire
10IV. Personal Satire
11D. AFTER-INFLUENCE OF THE DEVIL IS AN ASS: APPENDIX Extracts from the Critics
12TEXT (pt. 1)
13TEXT (pt. 2)
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