SOURCE: “The True Source of John Heywood's ‘Johan Johan’,” in Modern Language Review, Vol. XLV, No. 3, July 1950, pp. 289-95.

In the following essay, Craik demonstrates that Johan Johan is a translation of a French farce and concludes that Heywood was not always the innovative author many claim him to be.

Professor Gustave Cohen's recent edition¹ of fifty-three hitherto unedited farces is of great importance to the student of French farce. There is, however, an independent interest for English readers in the fact that in the nineteenth of these farces (Farce nouvelle et fort joyeuse du Pasté et est à trois personnaiges. C'est assavoir: l'Homme, la Femme, le Curé) we have what is clearly the true source of John Heywood's Johan Johan.

It has long been known that Heywood's farces were strongly influenced by contemporary French examples, but the extent of his borrowings has remained a matter of much speculation...