The Comedy of

Humours

Dramatic genre inspired by the medieval medical theory

of humours
humours (ancients) = bodily fluids that permeated body
& influenced its health/ personality
balance - a determining factor of human health
eucrasia
imbalance directly caused diseases - dyscrasia

"temperament" - Galen
bodily dispositions (susceptibility to particular
diseases)
psychlogical dispositions, behavioural and emotional
inclinations

balanced mixture of the four qualities >> ideal

temperament
predominance of each of these 4 secretions within
the body (earth, air, fire, and water) >> specific
temperament
blood 'sanguine'
phlegm 'phlegmatic'
choler (or yellow bile) 'choleric'
black bile 'melancholic'

c. 400
B.C.

Hippocrates
's
four humour
s

yellow b black bi phlegm blood

ile
le

season

summer

autumn

winter

spring

element

fire

earth

water

air

organ

liver

brain/lungs

gall bladder

spleen

quality

dry & hot

dry & cold

wet & cold

wet & hot

characteristic

easily
angered, bad
tempered

despondent,
sleepless,
irritable

calm,
unemotional

courageous,
hopeful,
amorous

c. 325
B.C.

Aristotle's four hedone

sources of
(sensuous
happiness
pleasure)

propraitari
(acquiring
assets)

ethikos
(moral
virtue)

dialogike
(logical
investigation
)

c. 190
A.D.'

Galen's
choleric
four temperam
ents
Paracelsus's
changeable
four totem
salamanders
spirits

melancholic

phlegmatic

sanguine

industrious
gnomes

inspired
nymphs

curious
sylphs

Comedies of humour
vehicles for satire popularised in England in 1598 by Ben
Jonsons Every Man in His Humour
portrayal of the follies & vices of society
individual eccentricities of characters - distorted temperaments

characters natures = source of the action

stock characters (stereotypes) - humours out of balance

the miles gloriosus swaggering warrior

the senex iratus angry father
the dolosus servus crafty servant
the greedy miser
the foolish spendthrift
the jealous husband, etc.

people - ruled by single passions (greed / anger / selfrighteousness)

pretensions to abilities (wit / learning / fashion / social prestige)

Ben Jonson, c. 15731637

Baroque artist
more than 35 masques and entertainments & 14 complete comedies extraordinarily varied - satires, comedies of manners, comedies of
humours and farces
experimented with approach, point of view, characterization,
language & plotting

establish drama as a legitimate literary form - raise the

status of his art (not mere acting vehicles)
1616 The Workes of Benjamin Jonson (collection of
his plays, masques & poems - printed in folio)
first English dramatist to publish collected edition of his own works
right of plays to be considered as literature - promoted the cause of
drama as high art

Literary career
bestrode the Stuart drama world as a prime playwright and as a
theorist - greatest of Shakespeare's dramatic contemporaries
low birth (son of a Scottish minister)
formidable learning - Westminster School - studied with William
Camden (perhaps the greatest classicist and antiquarian of the
Elizabethan and Jacobean ages - interest in classical & English
languages & literatures, care in constructing what he wrote, and
respect for learning)
bricklayer and soldier
travelling actor (performed as Hieronimo in Thomas Kyds The
Spanish Tragedy)
Twice imprisoned
1597 - partial authorship of The Isle of Dogs (politically subversive)
1598 - killed Gabriel Spencer, a fellow actor, in a duel - capital offence pled benefit of clergy (able to recite a biblical verse in Latin)

dramatist as well as a masterful poet

dedicated classicist, emphasized clarity of form and
phrase over expression of emotion
studied the poetic forms of classical Greek and Latin
literature & of later European literature
diverse body of poetry
elegies, epistles, homilies, Pindaric odes, epigrams,
love-poems, epitaphs
collected his poems - Epigrams (1616), The Forest
(1616), & The Underwood (16401641)

1597 - Theatrical career

translator (Ars poetica)
Horatian dictum- poetry should entertain & instruct the
audience
1. INSTRUCT
strong satirical bent - didacticism
aim of comedy = expose vices and follies which weaken
society & disrupt the web of human relationships necessary
to a commonwealth
individual failings + failures of the age (foolishness, greed,
pretentiousness, hypocrisy, self-deception)
major function of comedy = moral edification (shame them
out of their vices and follies)

2. ENTERTAIN
rigid moralist ( preach)
comedys primary responsibility = amuse - e.g.
Prologue to Volpone:
"In all his poemes, still, hath been this measure, / To
mixe profit, with your pleasure"
most effective way to teach through art = clothe the
lesson in a delightful fable
Jonsons concern with entertaining makes most of his
comedies delightful and attractive to audiences; his
effort to instruct makes his plays substantial and
meaningful

Neoclassicism of Jonson's comedies

adapts classical ideals to contemporary material
classical unities of time, place, & action + sense of decorum
internal unity and coherence
disciplined structure, concentrated action, and serious
purpose
characters & situations = carefully integrated - fabric of the
whole play
loose ends are resolved, subplot and main plot are
interwoven so that each enhances the other, and the
conclusion of each play resolves the basic issues brought up
during the action

Every Man in His Humour (1598)

applies the classical theory of the humours to social behaviour
complex interweaving of plots - atmosphere of comic frenzy
fools are duped, husbands fear cuckolding, wives suspect their
husbands of having mistresses, fathers spy on sons, a servant plays
tricks on everyone, and myriad disguises and social games confuse
the characters

character typology

suspicious father (Edward Knowell)

errant son (Edward Knowell)
soldier (Bobadill) - the miles gloriosus from classical comedies
wily servant (Brainworm)
Downright - shatterer of illusions
would-be poet (Matthew), gull (Stephen)
Kitely, Dame Kitely, Cob and Tib - reflect the ridiculousness of the
behavior of the main characters

Every Man Out Of his

Humour (1599)
expounds his theories of drama - how
humours govern character
both plays = comedies of correction (by the end
of the plays - taken 'out of their humour) ridiculed or shocked, cured into realizing their
folly
satiric targets
sins--pride, luxury, ambition and greed, moral idiocy,
deception, self-deception, vanity and disguise the real
self
replacement of spiritual ideals with materialistic ones

turned to satire 1601: Cynthias Revels ; The

Poetaster
strongly criticized life at court
targeted fellow playwrights Thomas Dekker & John Marston (had also
attacked Jonson in the so-called War of the Theatres)

1603 - 2 classical historical dramas / tragedies (accurate recreations of Roman life)

Sejanus His Fall
failure lack of action & great number of similar characters

Catiline
studies - effects of ambition, corruption and power-lust in the State
characters - powerfully & clearly drawn, but verbose & static
classical background - closely follows Latin models - subject matter & style

firm dramatic footing - great triumph - Volpone: Or, The

Fox - premiered in 1605
straightforward moral judgment: the evil (vice, deceit and greed) one
commits brings with it a suitable punishment
comedy of humours - subplot
characters in the grip of obsessions (love / money)
farcical build-up of the --- climax of deceit and trickery

Epicoene (1609)
The Alchemist (1610)
Bartholomew Fair (1614)
plays written after Bartholomew Fair dismissed - dotages (by John
Dryden): The Devil Is an Ass, The Staple of News, A Tale
of a Tub (1633)

Volpone,
or The Fox
(1605)

Venetian magnifico - Volpone ("fox") - imminent death (feigns gout, catarrh,

palsy, and consumption - no heirs) - mental agility and showmanship
accomplice, Mosca (fly) - convinces each victim that he is favored above
all others in Volpones will - delight in perpetrating perversities - malicious
and witty parasite - frequent instigator of additional pranks, keeps the plot
moving
three birds of prey stumble over one another in their haste to devour the
supposed carcass - Mosca and Volpone simply bring out the worst in them;
they do not plant it
lawyer Voltore (the vulture, ruthless and voracious scavenger)
elderly Corbaccio (the crow, aged miser, feeble, deaf, pathologically greedy)
merchant and husband of Celia, Corvino (the raven, insanely jealous of his
beautiful wife, greed - sufficient to counteract his jealousy)

Volpones gold-centered world - victims include innocents

Bonario, disinherited by his father
heavenly Celia, Corvinos virtuous wife, faces her slander and perils
with noble fortitude

underlying the gold-centered world is ugliness

under Volpones dashing personality is bestiality
under Moscas wit is spiritual paucity
Volpone - pretends to be physically degenerated, yet the pretense mirrors the
spiritual reality - his performance becomes more extreme; eventually, he
pretends to be nearly a corpse - trapped in his world of gold

his feigned physical degeneration emerges in his spiritual self, and he is

doomed
gold turns the world upside down

a husband gives his wife to another man

a father displaces his son
the just are made to look false
a servant becomes master

Volpone becomes enamoured of his own

ability to scheme
voluptuous nature - lust for Celia, Corvinos
virtuous young wife - attempted rape - play's
first catastrophe
averts public exposure - high opinion of his
cleverness soars - opportunity for the parasite
Mosca to seize his fortune - rivalry of master
and servant - second and complete catastrophe

Performance versus reality

Volpone - near-rape of Celia - ensuing trial - presented to the court as a
nearly dead old man
Voltore - public mask of respectability
Corbaccio - acts the part of the kindly old gentleman
Corvino plays the honest merchant
Volpones exuberant exterior of covers a decayed spirit
the public personalities of Corbaccio, Corvino, and Voltore belie their evil

in a world in which gold is of paramount importance, such people can seem

good
likewise, the truly honest and chaste Bonario and Celia can be made to seem
conniving, greedy, and concupiscent

ending
reveals the falseness in the principal characters
lays bare the emptiness of Volpones world

Sources
Petronius Satiricon & Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead
plot of Volpone = based on a Roman fortune-hunting
theme (Horace, Juvenal, Pliny, Lucian, and Petronius)
Volpone's Venice = a city of dissemblers
o
pretend to infirmity in order to attract gifts
o
feign friendship and generosity in order to attract
inheritances
the tale of Eumolpos - shipwrecked wayfarer - gets rich
in a foreign land - poses as a childless old man - speaks
only of his wealth - rewrites his testament between fits of
coughing

medieval beast fable - tale of the death-feigning

fox mythological substructure of the play
o
Latin bestiary - 12th century - recounts a
version of the tale of the hungry fox who besmears
himself with red mud to resemble blood - lies on
his back holding his breath in order to attract
carrion birds - grabs and devours
primordial trickster - audacious cunning
fox - portrayal of greed in contemporary society

Double plot
Aristotelian unities of time, place, and action
only one day (the unity of time)
entirely in contemporary Venice (place)
city's dual nature
both a city of great beauty, prominent reputation for art and
wealth
city of sin, extensive population of courtesans - lust associated
with excessive sexual freedom

action unified structurally - centred on the

machinations of Volpone, his follower, and the
greedy dupes - (exception - Peregrine and Sir Politic
Would-Be)

Subplot
comedy of humours in miniature - ameliorate the tension of the
major plot
expatriate English couple, humour characters (pretenders to that which
they do not have)
Sir Politic Would-Be gullible, nave traveller, eager to be thought a
member of the inner circle of state knowledge, ridiculous English
tourist on the Continent, full of assumed dignity, self-importance
Lady Politic Would-Be , shallow-brained Englishwoman - beauty,
intelligence, and fashion - ridiculousness - havoc she wreaks on her
mother tongue
Peregrine sophisticated traveller, amusement & contempt - credulities
and foibles of Sir Politic
structural contrast
Sir Politic Would-be - innocence of the Englishman abroad
juxtaposed with the duplicity - Venetian men

Volpone's opening speech

Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!
Open the shrine, that I may see my saint. . . .
Hail the world's soul, and mine! More glad than is
The teeming earth to see the long'd-for sun
Peep through the horns of the celestial Ram,
Am I, to view thy splendour darkening his;
That lying here, amongst my other hoards,
Show'st like a flame by night; or like the day
Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled
Unto the centre . . .

religious imagery (saint, adoration, & soul) > something

irreligious & mean - perversion of religious images
1. Christian & humanistic values
exalts the eternal over the temporal
the spiritual over the worldly

2. debased world in which these values are reversed

disproportion, transvaluation of values
main pursuit of men = acquisition of riches

Volpone's morning hymn -- new metaphysic and a new

ethic = point for point the reverse of the Christian
Gold = new god, the world's soul, and its own saint

Imitation
important theme - distortion of normal reality
characters - constantly assuming either literal or
figurative disguises
Sir Politic Would-Be seeks to imitate Volpone, an imitation of a dying
man
Mosca - ability to make what his dupes see before their eyes conform
to whatever fabrication he has led them to accept
Lady Would-Be - cover her mental deformities with physical
cosmetics
Volpone pretends to be a mountebank - foxlike trickery, delights in
acting, both onstage and off fooling others, disguises, makeup, &
changes of voice

How one can distinguish between a real imitator and an

imitation imitator?

T. S. Eliot - "No theory of humours

could account for Jonson's best plays"
Northrop Frye - Volpone "is
exceptional in being a kind of comic
imitation of a tragedy, with the point of
Volpone's hybris carefully marked"