The Fiend That Lies Like Truth. Styling Satan as a Pseudo-character in the Early Modern Period

This contribution aims to offer a diachronic analysis of the Devil’s transformations on the Early Modern stage through a hybrid methodological framework informed by pragmatics, stylistics and argumentation. Ambiguity and falsehood in Satan’s character are interpreted through the identification of recurrent linguistic patterns. Language is in fact a dangerous weapon serving evil purposes, either when Lucifer is summoned, or when wicked characters adopt the Devil’s rhetoric by uttering strategic speech acts. For the purpose of linguistic characterisation, the structure of this article reconstructs demonic lineages through time, from the allegorical Viceto fully developed villains. Focusing on blasphemous pacts and demons on stage, the analysis covers several aspects of speaking devils in dialogic situations, examining significant segments of some emblematic Early Modern plays, from Marlowe’s iconic Mephistopheles in Doctor Faustus (1592-1593), to persuasive King Richard in Shakespeare’s Richard III (1592-1594), up until humorous Pug in Ben Jonson’s The Devil is an Ass(1616). There is a closing mention to Satan as a brand-new antihero in Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667).